ars he had amassed butterflies and beetles to
so valuable an extent, that when he was compelled by adverse fortune to
sell his cabinets by auction at Stevens's, he netted L1200 for his
collection: this he told me in later years himself; immediately after
the sale, he commenced collecting anew,--and having been made curator of
Lincoln's Inn Fields (through Mr. Brodie's interest), he soon found an
infinity of new insects,--derived perhaps from the Surgeon's Hall
Museum, or straying to the nine acres of that Garden,--is it not the
area of Cephren's Pyramid?--as a refuge for them out of smoky London.
The good man always brought a new flower to look at every morning while
at desk work; it lived in an old inkbottle of water, till one happy day
I bethought me charitably of giving him a pretty China vase,--that good
man, I say, is now long since gone to a world of light and
beauty--whence, I am sure, flowers and butterflies cannot be excluded.

About the same time this memorable matter may receive a notice. One day
at Brodie's chambers we heard a riotous noise in Lincoln's Inn Fields,
and running out, I found that the Duke of Wellington, for some political
offence, was being mobbed,--and that too on the 18th of June! He was
calmly walking his horse, surrounded by roaring roughs,--a groom being
behind him at some distance, but otherwise alone. Disgusted at the
scene, I jumped on the steps of Surgeon's Hall, and shouted
out--Waterloo, Waterloo! That one word turned the tide of execrations
into cheers, and the Iron Duke passed me silently with a military
salute: as the mob were thus easily converted ("mob" being, as we
conveyancers say, a short form for "mobile", changeable) and escorted
our national hero to his home in safety, I really think the little
incident worth recording. We are just now in the throes of such a
mobocracy,--and know how much one firm policeman can avail to calm a
riot. While speaking of the Duke and Apsley House, let me add here
another word of some interest. My uncle, Arthur W. Devis, had painted
life-sized portraits of Blucher and Gneisenau, which his widow had given
to me: and as the Duke had always been my father's friend, I asked his
Grace if he would accept them from me; this he declined, but said, "get
Colnaghi to value them and I'll buy them"--as accordingly I did, and the
pictures are still I presume either at Apsley House or Strathfieldsaye.
My small memories of the Great Duke are summed up in these