Rochester Reverie
Mr Pickwick has embarked on a tour of Kent, and this sunny morning finds him leaning over the parapet of Rochester Bridge, deep in reflection.
set in 1827-28
King George IV 1820-1830
Mr Pickwick has embarked on a tour of Kent, and this sunny morning finds him leaning over the parapet of Rochester Bridge, deep in reflection.
set in 1827-28
King George IV 1820-1830
Charles Dickens’s Pickwick Papers follows Mr Samuel Pickwick as he tours the home counties with his friends, and records his impressions for the Pickwick Club. He reached Rochester without anything worse befalling his party than Mr Winkle being challenged to a duel for an offence he could not remember giving; and thus it was that before breakfast one fine morning, Mr Pickwick stood upon the bridge surveying the castle and countryside with a contented eye.
BRIGHT and pleasant was the sky, balmy the air, and beautiful the appearance of every object around, as Mr Pickwick leant over the balustrades of Rochester Bridge, contemplating nature, and waiting for breakfast. The scene was indeed one which might well have charmed a far less reflective mind, than that to which it was presented.
On the left of the spectator lay the ruined wall, broken in many places, and in some, overhanging the narrow beach below in rude and heavy masses. Huge knots of sea-weed hung upon the jagged and pointed stones, trembling in every breath of wind; and the green ivy clung mournfully around the dark and ruined battlements. Behind it rose the ancient castle, its towers roofless, and its massive walls crumbling away, but telling us proudly of its own might and strength, as when, seven hundred years ago, it rang with a clash of arms, or resounded with the noise of feasting and revelry.