(it is believed) was liberally exhibited under magisterial license and the supervision of a severely moral police. Leicester Square has been remarkable for its exhibitions. Richardson, the fire-eater, exhibited privately at Leicester House in 1672. A century later there was a public exhibition on that spot of quite another quality. The proprietor was Sir Ashton Lever, a Lancashire gentleman, educated at Oxford. As a country squire he formed and possessed the most extensive and beautiful aviary in the kingdom. Therewith, Sir Ashton collected animals and curiosities from all quarters of the world. This was the nucleus of the ‘museum’ subsequently brought to Leicester Fields. Among the curiosities was a striking likeness of George III. ‘cut in cannel coal;’ also Indian-ink drawings and portraits; baskets of flowers cut in paper, and wonderful for their accuracy; costumes of all ages and nations, and a collection of warlike weapons which disgusted a timid beholder, who describes them in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ (May 1773) as ‘desperate, diabolical instruments of destruction, invented, no doubt, by the devil himself.’ Soon after this, this wonderful collection was exhibited in Leicester House. There was a burst of wonder, as Pennant calls it, for a little while after the opening; but the ill-cultivated world soon grew indifferent to being instructed; and Sir Ashton got permission, with some difficulty, from Parliament, to dispose of the whole collection by lottery. Sir William Hamilton, Baron Dimsdale, and Mr. Pennant stated to the Committee of the House of Commons that they had never seen a collection of such inestimable value. ‘Sir Ashton Lever’s lottery tickets,’ says an advertisement of January 28, 1785, ‘are now on sale at Leicester House every day (Sundays excepted), from Nine in the morning till Six in the evening, at One Guinea each; and as each ticket will admit four persons, either together or separately, to view the Museum, no one will hereafter be admitted but by the Lottery Tickets, excepting those who have already annual admission.’ It is added that the whole was to be disposed of owing ‘to the very large sum expended in making it, and not from the deficiency of the daily receipts (as is generally imagined), which have annually increased; the average amount for the last three years being 1833_l._ per annum.’ It sounds odd that a ‘concern’ is got rid of because it was yearly growing more profitable!