_Vanity Fair_ and _Esmond_ are full of local allusions; Sir Pitt Crawley, for instance, would appear to derive his names from Pitt and Crawley, two villages close to Winchester; and in _Esmond_, Hampshire allusions, tantalisingly veiled, it is true, seem to meet and to baffle you everywhere. It seems impossible to avoid identifying Castlewood, with its ruined house battered down by Cromwell, and the Bell Inn with Basing House and Basingstoke; and while Alton, Alresford, and Crawley are all mentioned, it is round Winchester that interest centres and perplexes most. Where else in literature is a scene so inimitably conjured up and told so charmingly and with such restraint, where else is the real Thackeray so fully revealed, as when Esmond rides on from Walcote to the ‘George’ at Winchester on the fateful 29th December, and walked straight to the Cathedral. The organ was playing, the winter’s day was already growing grey, as he passed under the street arch into the Cathedral yard and made his way into the ancient solemn edifice. Wonderful is the chapter that follows--when Esmond and his ‘mistress,’ reconciled once more, first become mutually conscious of their love, and the words of the anthem, “He that goeth forth and weepeth shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him,” find their joyous refrain in the loving words they exchange. But where is Walcote? Conjecture would almost naturally settle on Lainston House, some three miles away, the memories of which, in the person of the notorious Duchess of Kingston, doubtless suggested the character of Beatrix the incomparable, the breaker of hearts, the wilful and selfish beauty, did not distance put this out of question. Prior’s Barton House, at St. Cross, would fit us better. But the problem is a baffling one, if indeed it has any solution at all.