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122 give an account of even the principal sights in and about London, and I will only mention a few more at random. We visited the academy which this year contains a very fair collection of good pictures without any one of striking merit. Some of Alma Tadema's pictures were much appreciated by the visitors. Lord Ripon's portrait was hung among other portraits exhibited this year. The National Gallery of London contains a good collection of the Old Italian and Flemish and Dutch masters, but it cannot bear comparison with the superb collections in Paris, Dresden and Florence which I have since visited. The British masters from Hogarth downwards are of course well represented, but the British school of painting has never taken its rank along side of the continental schools spoken of above, and is hardly considered as good as the French. Hogarth, the greatest of the British masters, is great, however, in caricature, and Sir Joshua Reynolds, though a great painter, is far behind the old continental masters. Wilkie's simple scenes of home life are good, Landseer excells in horses and dogs and Turner in scenes.

Strolling through the Kensington gardens, which were not far from our house, we often passed the Kensington Palace where the young Victoria was sleeping on that eventful morning when messengers came and waked her and informed her that she was Queen! The Palace has long ceased to be a royal residence. Further down is the beautiful Albert Memorial,—one of the most beautiful monuments erected in modern