Arriving, we were in a far more appreciative mood than that of Mr. Charles Dickens when he became a guest at the "Great White Horse," and wrote the account of Mr. Pickwick's arrival on the coach of the elder Weller. We found no labyrinths of uncarpeted passages, no mouldy ill-lighted rooms, no small dens for sleeping in, but rather a kindly welcome and attention, distinctly good rooms, a dining-room having plenty of space, fire and abundant cheer, and a reasonably moderate bill to discharge at the end of our stay. Yet I doubt not that the edifice, built round a cobbled courtyard that is roofed over, the bar parlour on the far side of the yard from the door, where a good many of the citizens congregate of an evening, the office window at which mine hostess receives her guests, are precisely the same as when Boz visited Ipswich. In this view I differ from Mr. Dutt; but the probability is that the alterations to which he refers were made before, not after, Dickens saw the house. Dickens did not like the place at all, that is clear. If there be doubts whether Ipswich was the original of Eatanswill, as Mr. Percy Fitzgerald suggests, there are none about the "Great White Horse," which is, of course, mentioned, and abused from floor to garret, nay, from cellar to garret: for is not "the worst possible port" mentioned--by name? We found things otherwise, but then it was not the misfortune of any of us to look out of bed and see "a middle-aged lady, in yellow curl-papers, busily engaged in brushing what ladies call their back-hair." It would be easy enough to miss the way in the recesses of the "Great White Horse"; in fact, to be frank, I did so myself, although I neither entered the wrong room nor got into the wrong bed. But the censure of Dickens generally has no reference to the present state of affairs at this classic hostelry; nay, more, such is the irony of fate, the bad name given by Dickens to this house is now its chiefest recommendation: prints of Leech's pictures adorn every wall, and the telegraphic address of the hotel is "Pickwick," Ipswich. Thus has railing been converted into blessing; thus is it proved more profitable to be abused by a great writer than to remain uncensured and ignored. Perhaps Mr. Percy Fitzgerald could oblige, as the saying goes, by explaining what the real meaning of his hero's attitude was. It must have had some deeper source than a stuffy bedroom and a bad dinner, or else the essential kindliness of the Dickensian attitude towards everything except cruelty and injustice must be cast aside as an exploded belief. Certainly no public writer would dare to write in 1906 of any hotel as Dickens wrote of the "Great White Horse" in the thirties of the last century; and perhaps that is not entirely to be regretted, for hotel-keepers really are our fellow-creatures, unwilling as some advocates of the Temperance Cause may be to admit the truth.