Of the _Pickwickian Inns_, the "White Horse" at Ipswich--"the overgrown
tavern" to which Mr. Pickwick journeyed by the London Coach--is something
of tangible reality, and doubtless little changed to this day; the same
being equally true of "The Leather Bottle" at Cobham. The old "White Hart"
in the Borough High Street, the scene of the first meeting of Mr. Pickwick
and Weller, was demolished in 1889. Not so the "Magpie and Stump,"--that
referred to in "Pickwick" as being in the vicinity of the Clare Market,
and "closely approximating to the back of the 'New Inn.'" This seems to
have been of an imaginary character in nomenclature, at least, though it
is like enough that some neighbourhood hostelry--or, as it is further
referred to, as being what the ordinary person would call a "low
public-house"--was in mind.