Here, at No. 110 (then No. 12, Upper Gower Street, and now utilized with neighbouring houses as Shoolbred's offices), lived, in 1839, Charles Darwin; it was described by his son as "a small, commonplace London house, with a dining room in front, and a small room behind, in which they lived for quietness." Though Darwin sometimes grumbled, as men will, over the necessity of living in "dirty odious London," he also appreciated its peculiar charm, as the following extract will testify: "We are living a life of extreme quietness. What you describe as so secluded a spot is, I will answer for it, quite dissipated compared with Gower Street. We have given up all parties, for they agree with neither of us; and if one is quiet in London there is nothing like it for quietness.... There is a grandeur about its smoky fogs, and the dull, distant sounds of cabs and coaches; in fact, you may perceive I am becoming a thorough-paced cockney, and I glory in the thought that I shall be here for the next six months." In 1835, too, as Mr. Frith recalls in his amusing _Reminiscences_, he himself was a boy, just introduced to his first drawing academy, immortalized as "Gandish's" in the _Newcomes_; that of Mr. Henry Sass, which still stands, a corner house at No. 6 Charlotte Street, the Holborn continuation of Gower Street. At the side entrance, under the classic bust of Minerva,--which, yellowed and antique in more senses than one, "to this day looks down on the passer-by;"--under this doorway came not only Frith, but Millais, and other well-known Academicians. Edward Lear, of much _Nonsense Book_ fame, and much undeserved neglect as a landscape-painter, "a man of varied and great accomplishments," was also one of Sass's pupils. Millais, when a boy attending Sass's school, lived with his parents at 83, Gower Street (the studio was built out behind). Mr. Holman Hunt thus describes the Millais _ménage_ at the time: "It (the studio) was comfortably furnished with artistic objects tastefully arranged.... The son put his hand on his father's shoulder and the other on his mother's chair, and said: 'They both help me, I can tell you. He's capital! and does a lot of useful things. Look what a good head he has. I have painted several of the old doctors from him. By making a little alteration and putting a beard on him he does splendidly, and he sits for hands and draperies, too; and as for mamma, she finds me all I want in the way of dresses, and makes them up for me. She reads to me, too, at times, and finds out whatever I want to know at the British Museum library. She's very clever, I can tell you,' and he stooped down and rubbed his curly head against her forehead, and then patted the 'old daddy,' as he called him, on the back."