o on 21 Mar., 1842,
and sat for his portrait. This made the process fashionable, and
henceforth photography was a practical success.

There is nothing much to gossip about, until the Strawberry Hill sale.
It was all very well for the Earl of Bath to eulogise the place,

"Some cry up Gunnersbury,
For Sion some declare,
And some say that with Chiswick House
No villa can compare;
But, ask the beaux of Middlesex,
Who know the country well,
If Strawberry Hill, if Strawberry Hill
Don't bear away the bell."

but I fancy no one can endorse the opinion, or see anything to admire in
this heterogeneous pile of Carpenter's and Churchwarden's Gothic. If it
had applied to the contents that would have been another thing; for,
although there was, as is the case in most large collections, an amount
of rubbish, it was counterbalanced by the undoubted rarity of the greater
portion, which are thus set forth by the perfervid auctioneer, George
Robins, who, speaking of himself in the third person, says:

"When there pass before him, in review, the splendid gallery of
paintings, teeming with the finest works of the greatest
masters--matchless Enamels, of immortal bloom, by Petitot, Boit,
Bordier, and Zincke; Chasings, the work of Cellini and Jean de
Bologna; noble specimens of Faenza Ware, from the pencils of Robbia
and Bernard Palizzi; Glass, of the rarest hues and tints, executed by
Jean Cousin and other masters of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries;
Limoges enamels of the period of the Renaissance, by Leonard and
Courtoise; Roman and Greek antiquities in bronze and sculpture;
Oriental and European china, of the choicest forms and colours;
exquisite and matchless Missals, painted by Raphael and Julio Clovo;
magnificent specimens of Cinque-Cento Armour; Miniatures,
illustrative of the most interesting periods of history; a valuable
collection of Drawings and Manuscripts; Engravings in countless
numbers, and of infinite value; a costly Library, extending to
fifteen thousand volumes, abounding in splendid editions of the
Classics, illustrated, scarce and unique works, with ten thousand
other relics of the arts and history of bygone ages, he may well feel
overpowered at the evident impossibility of rendering to each that
lengthened notice which their merits and their value demand."

The first private view took pla