in the rural
incident. Poor man! let us hope his punishment will soon be finished,
and that he may return to his family, and not become an old offender;
but for the present, as Mr. Bagnet says, "discipline must be
maintained."

Maidstone, the county and assize town of Kent, appears to be a thriving
and solid-looking place, as there are several paper-mills, saw-mills,
stone quarries, and other indications of prosperity. There are but few
historical associations connected with it, as Maidstone "has lived a
quiet life." Sir Thomas Wyatt's rebellion, and the attack on the town by
Fairfax in 1648, are among the principal incidents. Dickens frequently
walked or drove over to this town from Gad's Hill. Many of the names
which we notice over the shops in the principal street are very
suggestive of, if not actually used for, some of the characters in his
novels, _e.g._ Pell, Boozer, Hibling, Fowle, Stuffins, Bunyard, Edmed,
Gregsbey, Dunmill, and Pobgee.

It has been said that Maidstone possesses a gaol; it also has large
barracks, and, what is better still, a Museum, Free Library, and Public
Gardens. Chillington Manor House,--a highly picturesque and
well-preserved Elizabethan structure, formerly the residence of the
Cobhams,--contains the Museum and Library. Standing in a quiet nook in
the Brenchley Gardens, the lines of George Macdonald, quoted in the
local _Guide Book_, well describe its beauties:--

"Its windows were aerial and latticed,
Lovely and wide and fair,
And its chimneys like clustered pillars
Stood up in the thin blue air."

The Museum--the new wing of which was built as a memorial of his
brother, by Mr. Samuel Bentlif--is the property of the Corporation, and
owes much of its contents to the liberality of Mr. Pretty, the first
curator, and to the naturalist and traveller, Mr. J. L. Brenchley. It
contains excellent fine art, archaeological, ethnological, natural
history, and geological collections. Among the last-named, in addition
to other interesting local specimens, are some fossil remains of the
mammoth (_Elephas primigenius_) from the drift at Aylesford, obtained by
its present able curator, Mr. Edward Bartlett, to whom we are indebted
for a most pleasant ramble through the various rooms. We notice an
original "Dickens-item" in the shape of a very good carved head of the
novelist, forming the right top panel of an oak fire-place, the opposite
side being one