[26] A prelate once applied to Pugin for a design for a new church. It was to be very large, he said, the neighbourhood being very populous; it must be very handsome, as a fine Protestant church was close by; and it must be _very cheap_--they were very poor, in fact had only £--. _When could they expect the design?_ The architect wrote back promptly: “My dear Lord, say thirty shillings more, and have a tower and spire at once. A. W. P.” [27] As a specimen of the unconsidered artistic trifles to be found in London by those who search for them, the simple railing that runs outside in front of the _grille_ of the British Museum is worth a moment’s attention. The low posts, or standards, are capped with a little sitting lion, exceedingly quaint and spirited in design. This has often been sketched or hastily modelled by the sculptor, for it is the work of the unfortunate Alfred Steevens, who is only now being appreciated as he deserves to be. [28] On the old familiar green cover of “Pickwick,” Mr. Pickwick is shown seated in a punt, fishing, and in the background is seen the old Putney Church, with the quaint bridge. [29] “There is one apartment,” says a visitor, “looking out on an old-fashioned garden of circular laurel-beds and well-groomed hedges, which has interest as the nursery of Queen Victoria--now bare like the rest, save that it contains the toys that amused our Queen’s childhood. Here they repose, a little dusty to be sure, but not much the worse for their sixty and odd years of life. On the mantelpiece is a headless horsewoman who still keeps her seat; in a box, carefully folded in tissue paper, is a doll clothed in a muslin dress of fine quality, with a delicately-worked lace cap tied under the chin, almost hiding her bright fluffy hair. Then against the wall stands a three-masted, fully-rigged ship, six feet long, its last voyage done. By the side of the vessel is a large red doll’s house of many furnished rooms, with a kitchen, containing a well-stocked dresser and a miniature wooden cook who had fallen on her face, on whom I took pity and seated before the kitchen range. I left the nursery, and soon came to the room where the Queen was born--an apartment of mirrors, with paper (one of the few rooms with wall decoration intact) of a pleasing tint, picked out with an heraldic device. Hard by is found the apartment where the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Conyngham kicked their heels till the timid attendant could make up her mind to rouse the sleeping Princess, and tell her she was Queen of England.”