k_ then proceeds to state that--

"Muggleton is a corporate town, with a mayor,
burgesses, and freemen; . . . an ancient and loyal
borough, mingling a zealous advocacy of Christian
principles with a devoted attachment to commercial
rights; in demonstration whereof, the mayor,
corporation, and other inhabitants, have presented
at divers times, no fewer than one thousand four
hundred and twenty petitions, against the
continuance of negro slavery abroad, and an equal
number against any interference with the factory
system at home; sixty-eight in favour of the sales
of livings in the Church, and eighty-six for
abolishing Sunday trading in the streets."

On the occasion of their second visit to Manor Farm to spend Christmas,
the Pickwickians came by the "Muggleton Telegraph," which stopped at the
"Blue Lion," and they walked over to Dingley Dell.

Assuming, as has been suggested by Mr. Frost in his _In Kent with
Charles Dickens_, that Dingley Dell is somewhere on the eastern side of
the river Medway, within fifteen miles of Rochester,--Mr. William James
Budden (a gentleman whom we met at Chatham) gave as his opinion that it
was near Burham,[28]--then it would require a much greater walk than
that ("which was not above two miles long") to reach Town Malling
(leaving out of the question the fact that Burham is only about six
miles from Rochester instead of fifteen miles, as the waiter at the Bull
told Mr. Pickwick in reply to his enquiry), whereby we reluctantly for
the time arrive at the conclusion,--as Mr. Frost did before us--that
Dingley Dell as such near Town Malling cannot be identified.

On another visit to "Dickens-Land" Mr. R. L. Cobb suggested that Cobtree
Hall, near Aylesford, was the prototype of Dingley Dell. It may have
been; but except one goes as the crow flies, it is more than two miles
distant from Town Malling. But as Captain Cuttle would say--we "make a
note of it."

After all, Dingley Dell is no doubt a type of an English yeoman's
hospitable home. There are numbers of such in Kent, Warwickshire,
Worcestershire, Devonshire, and other counties, and the one in question
may have been seen by Dickens almost anywhere.

There is, at any rate, one objection to Muggleton being Town
Malling--the latter is not, as mentioned in the text, "a corporate
town." The neighbouring corporat