In a colonnade, on the first floor, surrounding the great basement hall,
there are portraits of distinguished reformers, and black niches for
others yet to come. Joseph Hume, I believe, is destined to fill one of
these blanks; but I remarked that the larger part of the portraits,
already hung up, are of men of high rank,--the Duke of Sussex, for
instance; Lord Durham, Lord Grey; and, indeed, I remember no commoner.
In one room, I saw on the wall the fac-simile, so common in the United
States, of our Declaration of Independence.
Descending again to the basement hall, an elderly gentleman came in, and
was warmly welcomed by Dr. ------. He was a very short man, but with
breadth enough, and a back excessively bent,--bowed almost to deformity;
very gray hair, and a face and expression of remarkable briskness and
intelligence. His profile came out pretty boldly, and his eyes had the
prominence that indicates, I believe, volubility of speech, nor did he
fail to talk from the instant of his appearance; and in the tone of his
voice, and in his glance, and in the whole man, there was something
racy,--a flavor of the humorist. His step was that of an aged man, and
he put his stick down very decidedly at every footfall; though as he
afterwards told me that he was only fifty-two, he need not yet have been
infirm. But perhaps he has had the gout; his feet, however, are by no
means swollen, but unusually small. Dr. ------ introduced him as Mr.
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