The Inns and Taverns of Pickwick" / With Some Observations on Their Other Associations"

Dickens, like all great authors, had a tendency to underestimate the value of his most popular book. At any rate, it is certainly on record that he thought considerably more of some of his other works than he did of the immortal Pickwick. But The Pickwick Papers has maintained its place through generations, and retains it to-day, as the most popular book in our language-a book unexampled in our literature.

There are persons who make a yearly custom of reading it; others who can roll off pages of it from memory; scores who can answer any meticulous question in an examination of its contents; and a whole army ready and waiting to correct any misquotation that may appear in print from its pages. All its curiosities, lapses, oddities, anachronisms, slips and misprints have been discovered by commentators galore, and the number of books it has brought into existence is stupendous.

What the secret of its popularity is would take a volume to make manifest; but in a word, one might attribute it to its vividness of reality-to the fact that every character seems to be a real living being, with whose minute peculiarities we are made familiar in a singularly droll and happy manner. With each we become close friends on first acquaintance, and as episode succeeds episode the friendship deepens, with no thought that our friends are mere imaginary creatures of the author's brain.

It does not matter if the adventures of these amiable and jovial beings are boisterously reckless at times, or if they indulge in impossible probabilities. Their high spirited gaiety and inexhaustible fun and humour and their overflow of good-nature stifles criticism.

Dickens's object in writing The Pickwick Papers he assured us in the preface was "to place before the reader a constant succession of characters and incidents; to paint them in as vivid colours as he could command, and to render them, at the same time, life-like and amusing." All this he succeeded in doing with such amazing success that we have a masterly picture of English life of the period to be found in no other book. The secret of the book's popularity and fame is in its unaffected and flowing style, its dramatic power, and, of course, its exuberant humour.

But there is much for serious reflection in its pages as well, and one could dilate at length on the propaganda which is so thinly camouflaged throughout; propaganda against lawyers, prisons, corruption in Parliament, celebrity hunting, pomposity, fraud, hypocrisy and all uncharitableness in the abstract; but all this is wrapped up in the same way that such things are done in all the fairy tales of which Pickwick is one of the best.

There are, as a fact, innumerable reasons why Pickwick is so popular, so necessary to-day. The one which concerns us more at the moment is its appeal as a mirror of the manners and customs of a romantic age which has fast receded from us. It is, perhaps, the most accurate picture extant of the old coaching era and all that was corollary to it. No writer has done more than Dickens to reflect the glory of that era, and the glamour and comfort of the old inns of England which in those days were the havens of the road to every traveller. All his books abound in pleasant and faithful pictures of the times, and alluring and enticing descriptions of those old hostelries where not only ease was sought and expected, but obtained; Pickwick is packed with them.

The outside appearance of an inn alone was in those times so well considered that it addressed a cheerful front towards the traveller "as a home of entertainment ought, and tempted him with many mute but significant assurances of a comfortable welcome." Its very signboard promised good cheer and meant it; the attractive furnishing of the homely windows, the bright flowers on the sills seemed to beckon one to "come in"; and when one did enter, one was greeted and cared for as a guest and not merely as a customer.

We all know, as Dickens has reminded us elsewhere, the great station hotel, belonging to the company of proprietors which has suddenly sprung up in any place we like to name, ". . . in which we can get anything we want, after its kind, for money; but where nobody is glad to see us, or sorry to see us, or minds (our bill paid) whether we come or go, or how, or when, or why, or cares about us . . . where we have no individuality, but put ourselves into the general post, as it were, and are sorted and disposed of according to our division." That is more the modern method and is in direct contrast to the old coaching method, which, alas! may never return, of which the inns in Pickwick furnish us with glowing examples.

We certainly are coming back to these roadside inns in the present age of rapid motor transit; yet we are in too much of a tearing hurry to make the same use of the old inns as they did in the more leisurely age.

We believe these old inns attract to-day not only because of their quaintness and the old-world atmosphere which adheres to them, but because of the tradition which clings to them; and the most popular tradition of all, and the one of which the proprietors are most proud, is the Dickens tradition.

There are scores of such inns in the city of London and throughout the country whose very names immediately conjure up some merry scene in his books and revive never-to-be-forgotten memories of exhilarating incidents.

Time, the devastating builder, and the avaricious landlord have played havoc with many. Several, however, remain to tell their own tale, whilst the memory of others is sustained by a modern building bearing the old name, all of which are landmarks for the Dickens lover.

Many of them, of course, existed only in the novelist's fertile imagination; but most of them had foundation in reality, and most of them, particularly in Pickwick, are mentioned by name and have become immortal in consequence; and were it not for the popularity of his writings, their fame in many instances would have deserted them and their glory have departed.

Inns, hotels and wayside public-houses play a most important part in The Pickwick Papers, and many of the chief scenes are enacted within their walls. The book, indeed, opens in an hotel and ends in one. The first scene arising from the projected "journeys and investigations" of those four distinguished members of the Club took place in an hotel, or-to speak correctly-outside one, namely, the "Golden Cross" at Charing Cross. There is even an earlier reference to a public-house near St. Martin's le Grand, from where the "first cab was fetched," whilst the last important incident of the book was enacted in another, the Adelphi Hotel off the Strand, when Mr. Pickwick announced his determination to retire into private life at Dulwich.

In the ensuing pages, the Pickwickians are followed in the tours they made in pursuit of adventure, and the inns and taverns they stopped at are taken in the order of their going and coming. With each is recalled the story, adventure, or scene associated with it, and if it has any history of its own apart from that gained through the book, record is made of the facts concerning it.

The Pickwick Papers was completed in 1837, and a dinner was given to celebrate the event, at which Dickens himself presided and his friend, Serjeant T. N. Talfourd, to whom the book was dedicated, acted as vice-chairman. Ainsworth, Forster, Lover, Macready, Jerdan and other close friends were invited, and the dinner took place at The Prince of Wales Coffee House and Hotel in Leicester Place, Leicester Square.

It is very curious that no extended account of this historic event exists. Forster, in his biography of the novelist, beyond saying that "everybody in hearty good-humour with every other body," and that "our friend Ainsworth was of the company," is otherwise silent over the event. There is certainly a reference to the dinner in a letter from Dickens to Macready, dated from "48 Doughty Street, Wednesday Evening," with no date to it, in which he says:

"There is a semi-business, semi-pleasure little dinner which I intend to give at the 'Prince of Wales,' in Leicester Place, Leicester Square, on Saturday, at five for half-past precisely, at which Talfourd, Forster, Ainsworth, Jerdan, and the publishers will be present. It is to celebrate (that is too great a word, but I can think of no better) the conclusion of my Pickwick labours; and so I intend, before you take that roll upon the grass you spoke of, to beg your acceptance of one of the first complete copies of the work. I shall be much delighted if you will join us."

[illustration: The Prince of Wales Hotel, where the Pickwick dinner was held. Drawn by Arch. Webb]

We have seen a similarly worded letter written to Samuel Lover, and no doubt each guest received such an invitation from the novelist.

The only real account of the function is contained in a letter from

Ainsworth to his friend, James Crossley, which is as follows:

"On Saturday last we celebrated the completion of The Pickwick Papers. We had a capital dinner, with capital wine and capital speeches. Dickens, of course, was in the chair. Talfourd was the Vice, and an excellent Vice he made. . . . Just before he was about to propose THE toast of the evening the headwaiter-for it was at a tavern that the carouse took place-entered, and placed a glittering temple of confectionery on the table, beneath the canopy of which stood a little figure of the illustrious Mr. Pickwick. This was the work of the landlord. As you may suppose, it was received with great applause. Dickens made a feeling speech in reply to the Serjeant's eulogy. . . . Just before dinner Dickens received a cheque for L750 from his publishers."

Although this hotel cannot rightly be termed a Pickwick inn in the same sense that the others in this book can, it certainly has a claim to honourable mention.

In 1823 the building in which this notable historic dinner took place was known as The Prince of Wales Coffee House and Hotel. When it ceased to be an hotel we are unable to state, but in 1890 it was a French Hospital and Dispensary, ten years later it was let out as offices, and in 1913 it was a foreign club; but the building is practically the same as it was in 1837.

Before the "Golden Cross" was given such prominence in The Pickwick Papers, it formed the subject of one of the chapters in Dickens's previous book, Sketches by Boz. But although there is a "Golden Cross" still standing at Charing Cross to-day, and a fairly old inn to boot, it is not the actual one which figures in these two books and in David Copperfield.

As a matter of fact, there have been several "Golden Crosses" at

Charing Cross; one, perhaps the first, stood in the village of

Charing in 1643. But the one which claims our attention stood on

the exact spot where now towers the Nelson Monument in Trafalgar

Square, and was the busiest coaching inn in the west end of London.

In front of it was the King Charles statue and the ancient cross of

Charing. Close at hand was Northumberland House with its famous

lion overlooking the scene.

This "Golden Cross" was either rebuilt in 1811 or in that year had its front altered to the Gothic style. Whichever is the case, it was this Gothic inn that Dickens knew and described in his books. It was demolished in 1827, or thereabouts, to make room for the improvements in the neighbourhood which developed, into the Trafalgar Square we all know to-day. It was then that the present building, facing Charing Cross Station, was erected, which, also in its turn, has had a new frontage.

Dickens in his early youth, whilst employed in a blacking warehouse at Hungerford Stairs and during his youthful wanderings, became intimately acquainted with the district. When, therefore, in the early 'thirties he commenced his literary career, he recalled those early days and placed on permanent record his impressions of what he then saw, amongst which was the Golden Cross Hotel.

And so we find that in writing the chapter in Sketches by Boz on "Early Coaches" he chooses the "Golden Cross" of his boyhood for its chief incident, an incident which no doubt happened to himself in his early manhood. He had risen early on a certain cold morning to catch the early coach to Birmingham-perhaps to fulfil one of his reporting engagements:

"It strikes 5:15," he says, "as you trudge down Waterloo Place on your way to the 'Golden Cross,' and you discover for the first time that you were called an hour too early. You have no time to go back, and there is no place open to go into, and you have therefore no recourse but to go forward. You arrive at the office. . . . You wander into the booking office. . . . There stands the identical book-keeper in the same position, as if he had not moved since you saw him yesterday. He informs you that the coach is up the yard, and will be brought round in about 15 minutes. . . . You retire to the tap-room. . . . for the purpose of procuring some hot brandy and water, which you do-when the kettle boils, an event which occurs exactly two and a half minutes before the time fixed for the starting of the coach. The first stroke of six peals from St. Martin's Church steeple as you take the first sip of the boiling liquid. You find yourself in the booking office in two seconds, and the tap waiter finds himself much comforted by your brandy and water in about the same period. . . . The horses are in. . . . The place which a few minutes ago was so still and quiet is all bustle. 'All right,' sings the guard. . . . and off we start as briskly as if the morning were all right as well as the coach."

One of Cruikshank's pictures illustrates the above scene in the booking office, and in it one of the figures represents Dickens himself as he appeared at the period. Dotted about on the walls are bills in which the name of the hotel is very conspicuous.

In chapter two of The Pickwick Papers we get a further glimpse of the inn, centring in a more exhilarating and epoch-making incident. The Pickwickians were to start on their memorable peregrinations from the "Golden Cross" for Rochester by the famous "Commodore" coach; and Mr. Pickwick having hired a cabriolet in the neighbourhood of his lodgings in Goswell Street arrived at the hotel in order to meet his friends for the purpose. On alighting, and having tendered his fare, an animated incident with the cabman, who accused him of being an informer, ensued, and ended in the assault and battery described in the following words:

"The cabman dashed his hat upon the ground with a reckless disregard of his own private property, and knocked Mr. Pickwick's spectacles off, and followed up the attack with a blow on Mr. Pickwick's nose and another on Mr. Pickwick's chest; and a third in Mr. Snodgrass's eye; and a fourth, by way of variety, in Mr. Tupman's waistcoat, and then danced into the road and then back again to the pavement, and finally dashed the whole temporary supply of breath out of Mr. Winkle's body; and all in half a dozen seconds."

The embarrassing situation was only saved by the intervention of Mr. Jingle, who quickly settled the cabman and escorted Mr. Pickwick into the travellers' waiting-room and had a raw beefsteak applied to Mr. Pickwick's eye, which had been badly mauled by the irate cabman. All things righted themselves, however, and the merry party left the "Golden Cross" on the coach for their journey to Rochester, to the accompaniment of Mr. Jingle's staccato tones as they drove through the archway, warning the company to take care of their heads:

"'Terrible place-dangerous work-other day-five children-mother- tall lady, eating sandwiches-forgot the arch-crash-knock-children look round-mother's head off-sandwich in her hand-no mouth to put it in-head of family off-shocking-shocking.'"

The arch referred to by our jesting friend can be seen in the picture here shown.

The "Golden Cross" also figures prominently in David Copperfield on the occasion of the arrival of the hero of the book from Canterbury:

"We went to the 'Golden Cross,'" he says, "then a mouldy sort of establishment in a close neighbourhood. A waiter showed me into the coffee-room, and a chambermaid introduced me to my small bedchamber, which smelt like a hackney coach and was shut up like a family vault."

Later in the evening he met his old school friend, Steerforth, who was evidently on better and more familiar terms with the waiter, for he not only demanded, but secured a better bedroom for David.

[illustration: The Golden Cross Hotel, Charing Cross, in 1828. From an engraving]

"I found my new room a great improvement on my old one," he says, "it not being at all musty and having a fourpost bedstead in it, which was quite a little landed estate. Here, among pillows enough for six, I soon fell asleep in a blissful condition, and dreamed of ancient Rome, Steerforth and friendship, until the early morning coaches rumbling out of the archway underneath made me dream of thunder and the gods."

This comfortable new aspect of the inn did not stop at his bedroom, for he took breakfast the next morning "in a snug private apartment, red-curtained and Turkey carpeted, where the fire burnt bright and a fine hot breakfast was set forth on a table covered with a clean cloth. . . . I could not enough admire the change Steerforth had wrought in the 'Golden Cross'; or compose the dull, forlorn state I had held yesterday with this morning's comfort and this morning's entertainment."

It was on another occasion later in the story that David Copperfield, then lodging in Buckingham Street close by, encountered poor old Peggotty on the steps of St. Martin's Church. It was a snowy, dismal night and Peggotty was resting on his journey in search for Little Emily.

"In those days," says Dickens, "there was a side entrance to the stable yard of the 'Golden Cross' nearly opposite to where we stood. I pointed out the gateway, put my arm through his, and we went across. Two or three public rooms opened out of the stable yard; and looking into one of them, and finding it empty, and a good fire burning, I took him in there."

The side entrance here referred to was at the time in St. Martin's Lane-that part of it which then ran down from St. Martin's Church to the Strand. It led into the stable yard, backing into what is now Trafalgar Square, and was part of the old inn of Pickwick and The Sketches, and not of the present one, which many topographers have asserted.

But the "Golden Cross" had its fame apart from Dickens, although it is Dickens who has immortalized its name for the general public.

As we have pointed out it was the most popular of the West End coaching inns of London. This remark applies to the various houses which have borne its name. It is recorded that as far back as 1757 coaches plied between Brighton, or Brighthelmstone as it was then called, and the "Golden Cross." The fare was 13s.-(children in lap and outside passengers half price). For years afterwards it was the favourite starting-place for the famous Brighton coaches, and in 1821 forty were running to and fro daily.

Coaches from the same inn served Exeter, Salisbury, Blandford, Dorchester and Bridport; Hastings and Tunbridge Wells; Cambridge, Cheltenham, Dover, Norwich and Portsmouth. It was from here that the historic "Comet" and "Regent" to Brighton and the "Tally Ho" for Birmingham set. out on their journeys, and although the "Golden Cross" which stands to-day cannot boast the glory of the old days of the coaching era, it is still a busy centre, situated as it is in the very heart of London opposite one of its busiest railway termini.

To-day new Dickensian associations circle round it, for on certain days during the summer months motor coaches, chartered by the Dickens Fellowship, make this the starting point for their pilgrimages into Dickens-land, often taking the route the Pickwickians did, as recorded in their chronicles.

To the accompaniment of the "stranger's" breathless eloquence, the Pickwickians' first journey from London passed with no untoward adventure. Although the "Commodore" coach stopped occasionally to change horses and incidentally to refresh the passengers, no mention of an inn by name or any other designation is made, however, until The Bull Inn in the High Street, Rochester, is reached.

"Do you remain here, sir? "enquired Nathaniel Winkle of the "stranger."

"Here-not I-but you'd better-good house-nice beds-Wright's next house, dear-very dear-half a crown in the bill if you look at the waiter-charge you more if you dine at a friend's than they would if you dined in the coffee room-rum fellows-very."

After consultation with his friends Mr. Pickwick invited the "stranger" to dine with them, which he accepted with alacrity.

"Great pleasure-not presume to dictate, but boiled fowl and mushrooms-capital thing! What time?"

The hour being arranged they parted for the time being.

Dickens knew his Rochester well, even in the days when he was writing Pickwick-a knowledge gained doubtless when a lad at Chatham, and Jingle's reference to "Wright's next house" is evidence of this, for there was such an hotel at the time, the owner's name of which was Wright. It was a few doors away, but was actually the next public-house, which, of course, was what was meant.

Its original name was the "Crown," but in 1836 the said Wright, on becoming proprietor, altered the name it then bore to that of his own. He also changed its appearance to suit his own fancies. In the earlier days it was a typical coaching inn, and had the reputation of once having been favoured with a visit of Queen Elizabeth, as well of Hogarth and his friends. It claimed to have been built in 1390, and was then owned by Simon Potyn, who was several times member of Parliament for the city.

In an old engraving of Rochester Bridge the inn can be seen with the word "Wright's" distinctly showing in prominent letters emblazoned on its frontage, if such proof that Jingle was not romancing were necessary.

The inn was rebuilt in 1864, and has been identified as the "Crozier" of Edwin Drood, where Datchery, on his first arrival in the town "announced himself . . . as an idle dog living on his means . . . as he stood with his back to the empty fire-place, waiting for his fried sole, veal cutlet and pint of sherry."

In the meantime Mr. Pickwick and his friends, after having engaged and inspected a private sitting-room and bedrooms and ordered their dinner at "The Bull," set out to inspect the city and adjoining neighbourhood.

Before the days of Pickwick, the "Bull" presumably was merely a comfortable roadside coaching inn between Dover and London, with no claim to fame other than that of being a favoured resort of the military from the adjacent town of Chatham. It is true that Queen Victoria-then but a Princess-was compelled, because of a mishap to the bridge across the Medway and the stormy weather, to stay in the inn with her mother, the Duchess of Kent, for one night only. They were on their way to London from Dover. The event happened on the 29th of November, 1836, and caused a flutter of excitement in the city and inspired the proprietor to add the words "Royal Victoria" to the inn's name, and to justify the adornment of the front of the building with the royal crest of arms.

But it remained for the Pickwickians to draw the inn out from the ruck of the commonplace, and to spread its fame to all corners of the globe; and the fact that it once had royal patronage is nothing in comparison to the other fact that it was the headquarters of the Pickwickians on a certain memorable occasion. That is the attraction to it; that is the immutable thing that makes its name a household word wherever the English language is spoken. Indeed, that was the one notable event in its history which filled the proprietor with pride, and in his wisdom, in order to lure visitors into its comfortable interior, he could find no more magnetic announcement for the signboard on each side of the entrance than the plain unvarnished statement: "Good House. Nice Beds. Vide Pickwick."

[illustration: The Bull Hotel, Rochester. From a photograph by T.W.Tyrrell]

It may have boasted a history before then: it is difficult to say. It existed in 1827 when Dickens housed the famous four within its hospitable walls; and he doubtless knew it long before then when, as a lad, he lived in Chatham; anyway, it was always a favourite of his, and furnishes the scene of many incidents in his books, in addition to the part it plays in the early portion of The Pickwick Papers; it no doubt is the original of the "Winglebury Arms" in "The Great Winglebury Duel" in Sketches by Boz, and is certainly the "Blue Boar" of Great Expectations.

Dickens frequented it himself, and the room he occupied on those occasions is known as the Dickens room and is furnished with pieces of furniture from his residence at Gad's Hill. We know, too, that he conducted his friends over it, on those occasions when he made pilgrimages with them around the neighbourhood.

The house has been slightly altered since those days, but it practically remains the same as when Dickens deposited the Pickwickians in its courtyard that red-letter day in 1827. Its outside is dull and sombre-looking, but its interior comfort and spaciousness soon dispel any misgivings which its exterior might have created.

The entrance hall is as spacious as it was when Dickens described it, in "The Great Winglebury Duel," as ornamented with evergreen plants terminating in a perspective view of the bar, and a glass case, in which were displayed a choice variety of delicacies ready for dressing, to catch the eye of a new-comer the moment he enters, and excite his appetite to the highest possible pitch. "Opposite doors," he says, "lead to the 'coffee' and 'commercial' rooms; and a great wide rambling staircase-three stairs and a landing-four stairs and another landing-one step and another landing-and so on-conducts to galleries of bedrooms and labyrinths of sitting-rooms, denominated 'private,' where you may enjoy yourself as privately as you can in any place where some bewildered being or other walks into your room every five minutes by mistake, and then walks out again, to open all the doors along the gallery till he finds his own."

And so the visitor finds it to-day, although the interior of the coffee-room may have been denuded of its compartments which the interview between Pip and Bentley Drummie in Great Expectations suggests were there on that occasion. It was in this room that the Pickwickians breakfasted and awaited the arrival of the chaise to take them to Dingley Dell; and it was over its blinds that Mr. Pickwick surveyed the passers-by in the street, and before which the vehicle made its appearance with the very amusing result known to all readers of the book.

The commercial room is across the yard, over which on one occasion Mr. Wopsle was reciting Collin's ode to Pip in Great Expectations with such dramatic effect that the commercials objected and sent up their compliments with the remark that "it wasn't the Tumbler's Arms."

From the hall runs the staircase upon which took place the famous scene between Dr. Slammer and Jingle, illustrated so spiritedly by Phiz. Those who remember the incident-and who does not?-can visualize it all again as they mount the stairs to the bedrooms above, which the Pickwickians occupied. They remain as Dickens described them, even in some cases to the very bedsteads and furniture, and are still shown to the interested visitor.

"Winkle's bedroom is inside mine," is how Mr. Tupman put it. That is to say, the one led out of the other, and they are numbered 13 and 19; but which is which no one knows. Number 18, by the way, is the room the Queen slept in on the occasion of her visit, eight months after the appearance of the first part of Pickwick.

Number 17 is claimed as Mr. Pickwick's room, which is also the one Dickens occupied on one occasion, and the one spoken of in Seven Poor Travellers, from which the occupant assured us that after the cathedral bell struck eight he "could smell the delicious savour of turkey and roast beef rising to the window of my adjoining room, which looked down into the yard just where the lights of the kitchen reddened a massive fragment of the castle wall"

[illustrations: Staircase at the "Bull." Orchestra in Ballroom at the "Bull"]

An important feature in those days, and presumably to-day, was the ballroom, "the elegant and commodious assembly rooms to the Winglebury Arms." In The Pickwick Papers Dickens thus describes it: "It was a long room, with crimson-covered benches, and wax candles in glass chandeliers. The musicians were securely confined in an elevated den, and quadrilles were being systematically got through by two or three sets of dancers. Two card tables were made up in the adjoining card-room, and two pair of old ladies and a corresponding number of stout gentlemen were executing whist therein."

The room itself is little altered; although the glass chandeliers have been removed, there still remains at the end the veritable elevated den where the fiddlers fiddled. During the war it was turned into a dining-room on account of the military and naval demands of the town; but there may come a time when it will revert to its old glory and tradition.

On the evening of the Pickwickians' arrival Jingle remarks that there is a "Devil of a mess on the staircase, waiter. Forms going up-carpenters coming down-lamps, glasses, harps. What's going forward?"

"Ball, sir," said the waiter.

"Assembly, eh?"

"No, sir, not assembly, sir. Ball for the benefit of charity, sir."

This was the famous ball at which the incident occurred resulting in the challenge to a duel between Dr. Slammer and Winkle, the details of which require no reiteration here.

But the pleasant fact remains that the Bull Inn exists to-day and the Dickens tradition clings to it still. One instinctively goes there as the centre of the Dickensian atmosphere with which the old city of Rochester is permeated.

The Bull Inn should never lose its fame. Indeed, as long as it lasts it never will, because Pickwick can never be forgotten. The present-day traveller will go by rail, or some day by an aerial 'bus, and may forget the old days during his journey; but when he arrives there and walks into the inn yard, whole visions of the coaching days will come back to him, and prominent amongst them will be the arrival of the "Commodore" coach with the Pickwickians on board, and the departure of the chaise with the same company with Winkle struggling with the tall mare, on their way to Dingley Dell, which resulted so disastrously. He might be curious enough to want to discover the "little roadside public-house with two elm trees, horse-trough and a sign-post in front," where the travellers attempted to put up the horse. That, however, has not been discovered, although Dickens no doubt had a particular one in his mind at the time.

During their stay at Manor Farm, Dingley Dell, the Pickwickians visited Muggleton to witness the cricket match between Dingley Dell and all Muggleton. "Everybody whose genius has a topographical bent," says Dickens, "knows perfectly well that Muggleton is a corporate town, with a mayor, burgesses and freeman," but so far no topographer has discovered which corporate town it was. Some say Maidstone, others Town Malling. Until that vexed question has been settled, however, the identification of the "large inn with a sign-post in front, displaying an object very common in art, but very rarely met with in nature-to wit, a Blue Lion with three legs in the air, balancing himself on the extreme point of the centre claw of his fourth foot," cannot definitely be verified. The same remark applies to the Crown Inn, where Jingle stopped on the same occasion.

[illustration: The Swan Inn, Town Malling. Drawn by C. G. Harper]

At Maidstone there is a "White Lion," and at Town Malling there is the "Swan." Which of these is the original of the inn where Mr. Wardle hired a chaise and four to pursue Jingle and Miss Rachael, and on whose steps, the following Christmas, the Pickwickians, on their second visit to Dingley Dell, were deposited "high and dry, safe and sound, hale and hearty," by the Muggleton Telegraph, when they discovered the Fat Boy just aroused from a sleep in front of the tap-room fire, must be left to the choice of the reader.