July 3rd and 4th
Most of these two days I spent with Father shopping, chatting, strolling to Westminster and the Tate, or around the crowded thoroughfares and jumbled alleys, Father of course had his pockets full of guidebooks (28) in readiness for the fray of sight-seeing. So we sought again many "literary haunts," - most of them familiar to the former great and comprehensive pursuit of places to see and try to remember. All new scenes, the monument to the first publishing of Shakespeare -Hemminge and Condell, the old Charterhouse School buildings, and the church of St. Bartholomew the Great-near the site of the Smithfield Martyrdoms, were the most interesting. This latter church was just without the limits of the Great Fire of 1666, and stands as one of the oldest buildings largely of Norman architecture. Benj. Franklin lived for a time near the church on one visit to England.
At noon, and at night, we met with S and W,-W also wandering with us one afternoon to the rich Wallace collection containing paintings and all sorts of household furnishings and rare old sets of dishes of all makes from all countries. (29)
Thursday night the others of the party arrived from Edinburgh, and I left off my stay at S's to join them at the Grand Hotel. Mr. Strawbridge had contracted a slight cold that Freddy was possessed of when I parted from them at Edinburgh-otherwise they were all hale and hearty.
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