Saturday evening, January 19.--I am now in lodgings, No. 36 Northumberland Street, near Northumberland House, Charing Cross, in the room just vacated by Dr. Richardson; sixteen shillings a week, and a shilling for my breakfast when I choose to take it here. It is half past eleven. I have just come in; no fire, but fortunately my occupation for to-day is soon told. Hooker, Joe, and I breakfasted with Brown at his house, and stayed with him until four o’clock in the afternoon! I have a good deal to say about him, but not here. He is a curious man in other things besides botany. He has a few choice paintings, and a few exquisite engravings he has picked up on the Continent. I coveted them for you. They are just what we should be delighted to have. I dressed for dinner, then drove with my luggage to my present lodgings, and then took up Hooker and Joe for Bentham’s to dinner at half past six, where we met Lindley and Mr. Brydges; the dinner was just the beau ideal of taste and simple elegance. In the drawing-room coffee was served up, and in a half hour Assam tea. I am greatly pleased with Bentham, and delighted with Mrs. B. But more of this anon. We are to breakfast with him on Monday, and then make up a party to Kew and the Horticultural Gardens. The house he lives in, a pleasant place, plain but tastefully furnished and arranged, was the one where Jeremy Bentham lived.... Tuesday evening, January 22.--I have to account for myself for two days past, but fortunately this can be done in general terms in few words. Were I to enter very fully into particulars I should fill several sheets. Yesterday Sir William Hooker, Joseph, and I breakfasted according to appointment with Bentham, and set out, although the day was rainy, for a visit to the Horticultural Gardens at Chiswick. We went in an omnibus, and I noticed on the way Apsley House (Duke of Wellington), and the monument to his Grace in Hyde Park, near his house (what is the good of honors, indeed, if one cannot see them?), Holland House, which I saw from some distance, etc. We found Lindley at the Gardens, and looked through the grounds. They have very few hothouses as yet, but have just dug the foundation of a very splendid one, which is, however, to form one wing merely of the general plan. We went to Kew, about two miles farther, and looked through those fine old grounds and gardens. The hothouses and the collections in them were much larger and more interesting than I had anticipated. They are particularly rich in New Holland and Cape plants. There is a new conservatory for large plants, a fine one certainly, which cost six thousand pounds, and the roof was taken from the greenhouse at Buckingham Palace, and therefore cost nothing. It seems an extravagant job, and Mr. Bentham feels sure a much better one of the same size could be built for four thousand pounds. While here we paid a visit to Francis Bauer,[61] now eighty-five