In _Martin Chuzzlewit_ the literary annotator and professor of topographical exegesis finds an interesting problem of the first dimensions in the question, “Where was the ‘Blue Dragon’ of that story situated?” It is a matter which, it is to be feared, will never be threshed out to the satisfaction of all seekers after truth. “You all are right and all are wrong,” as the chameleon is supposed to have said when he heard disputants quarrelling as to whether he was green or pink; and then turned blue, to confound them. But the chameleon, in this instance, is no more: and we who have opinions may continue, without fear, to hold them. Well, then: in the third chapter of _Martin Chuzzlewit_ we are particularly introduced to an inn, the subject of an earlier allusion in those pages, the “Blue Dragon,” near Salisbury. In what direction it lay from that cathedral city we are not told--whether north, south, east, or west; and we only infer from incidents of the story, in which the inn is brought into relation with the London mail and coaching in general, that the “Blue Dragon” was at Amesbury, eight miles to the north of Salisbury, by which route the famous “Quicksilver” Exeter mail to and from London went, in the old coaching days, avoiding Salisbury altogether. The course of the narrative, the situation of an old mansion on the Wilsford road near Amesbury--generally pointed out as Pecksniff’s home--and the position of Amesbury, all seem at the first blush to point to that fine old inn, the “George” at Amesbury, being the original of the “Blue Dragon”; and this old inn certainly was not only a coaching-house, but was what another claimant to the honour of being the real true original of the “Blue Dragon”--the “Green Dragon” at Alderbury--could never have been: a hostelry with accommodation sufficient for postchaise travellers such as old Martin Chuzzlewit and Mary. [Illustration: THE “GREEN DRAGON,” ALDERBURY.] The “George” at Amesbury is a house of considerable size and architectural character, and its beauties might fitly have employed the pencils of Pecksniff’s pupils, had that great and good man condescended to notice anything less stupendous than cathedrals, castles, and Houses of Parliament. As it was, however, the architectural studies of his young friends were made to contemplate nothing meaner than “elevations of Salisbury Cathedral from every possible point of sight,” and lesser things were passed contemptuously by. (Chap. I.)