Ye Old Cheshire Cheese, that popular tavern in Fleet Street, was never, we believe, ever mentioned in any one of Dickens's books by name, nor can we discover that it was alluded to or described even under an assumed name. It is known that he visited it, and the menu card bearing a picture of what is known as Dr. Johnson's room, with Dickens and Thackeray seated at the table presided over by the shade of the lexicographer itself, is familiar to visitors. [Illustration: THE OLD CHESHIRE CHEESE] Dickens students, however, are of opinion that the Cheshire Cheese is the tavern where Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton dined after the trial at the Old Bailey, described in Chapter IV of Book 2. The evidence offered for this is as follows: Darnay tells Carton that he is faint for want of food. "Then why the devil don't you dine? I dined myself while those numskulls were deliberating which world you should belong to--this, or some other." "Let me show you the nearest tavern to dine well in," replied Carton. "Drawing his arm through his own, he took him down Ludgate Hill to Fleet Street, and so, up a covered way, into a tavern. Here they were shown a little room, where Charles Darnay was soon recruiting his strength with a good plain dinner and good wine: while Carton sat opposite to him at the same table, with his separate bottle of port before him, and his full half-insolent manner upon him." The Cheshire Cheese no doubt was the tavern Dickens was thinking of when he wrote the foregoing passages. It certainly was the resort of the literary and legal professions in those days, as it has been since. It is too well known to warrant any detailed account of it here. Besides, its two-and-a-half-century history is too packed with anecdote and story to allow of adequate description in our limited space. An excellent book is issued by the proprietors fully dealing with its past, and copiously illustrated. There seems to be a growing desire on the part of Dickens students to prove that Cooling, the hamlet in Kent near to Gads Hill is not the spot where are laid certain scenes of _Great Expectations_, in spite of the fact that Dickens told Forster it was. We do not propose to argue the matter here. The chief point at issue seems to be that there is no blacksmith's forge at Cooling, whereas there is at Chalk and at Hoo, two other villages in the district that claim the honour. Yet at Chalk there are no "graveyard lozenges," but at Hoo we believe there happens to be both lozenges in the churchyard and a forge in the village. On the other hand, we are told there _was_ a blacksmith's forge at Cooling in Dickens's time. If, therefore, we accept Cooling as Joe Gargery's village, the Horseshoe and Castle Inn there would stand for the Three Jolly Bargemen where Joe Gargery and Pip used to while away certain hours of the evening, as described in Chapter X of the book.