An extraordinary story is told by Cyrus Redding, in his _Fifty Years’ Recollections_, of a countryman’s adventures in London just before the introduction of railways. The adventures began at Brentford: ‘I had a relative,’ he says, ‘who, on stating his intention to come up to town, was solicited to accept as his fellow-traveller a man of property, a neighbour, who had never been thirty miles from home in his life. They travelled by coach. All went well till they reached Brentford, where the countryman supposed he was nearly come to his journey’s end. On seeing the lamps mile after mile, he expressed more and more impatience, exclaiming, “Are we not yet in London, and so many miles of lamps?” At length, on reaching Hyde Park Corner, he was told they had arrived. His impatience increased from thence to Lad Lane. He became overwhelmed with astonishment, They entered the “Swan with Two Necks,” and my relative bade his companion remain in the coffee-room until he returned. On returning, he found the bird flown, and for six long weeks there were no tidings of him. At length it was discovered that he was in the custody of the constables at Sherborne in Dorsetshire, his mind alienated. He was conveyed home, came partially to his reason for a short time, and died. It was gathered from him that he had become more and more confused at the lights and the long distances he was carried among them; it seemed as if they could have no end. The idea that he could never be extricated from such a labyrinth superseded every other. He could not bear the thought. He went into the street, inquired his way westward, and seemed to have got into Hyde Park, and then out again into the Great Western Road, walking until he could walk no longer. He could relate nothing more that occurred until he was secured. Neither his watch nor money had been taken from him.’ The country-folks who now journey up to town do not behave in this extraordinary fashion on coming to the infinitely greater and more distracting London of to-day. At the western end of Brentford, just removed from its muddy streets, is Sion, the Duke of Northumberland’s suburban residence. The great square embattled stone house stands in the midst of the park, screened from observation from the road by great clusters of forest trees. Through the ornamental classic stone screen and iron gateway, erected in the well-known ‘Adam style’ by John Adam about 1780, the green sward may be glimpsed; the fresher and more beautiful by contrast with the dusty highroad. Above the arched stone entrance stands the Percy Lion, _statant_, as heralds would say, with tail extended.