1848, when the Chartist meeting led to military preparations, during which
I' (a boy in his fifth year) 'saw the Duke of Wellington riding through
the street, attended by his staff, but all in plain clothes.' In 1850 'No
Popery chalked on the walls attracted my attention, but failed to excite
my interest'; he was not of an age to be troubled by the appointment of
Dr. Wiseman to be Archbishop of Westminster. In 1851 he was taken to a
meeting to hear Kossuth.

From this year--1851--date the earliest letters preserved in the series of
thirty-four boxes which contain the sortings of his vast correspondence.
There is a childish scrap to his grandfather, and a long letter from the
grandfather to him written from Dublin, which lovingly conjures up a
picture of the interior at Sloane Street, with 'Cousin' (Miss Folkard)
stirring the fire, 'Charley-boy' settling down his head on his mother's
lap, and 'grandmamma' (his mother's mother, Mrs. Chatfield) sitting in the
chimney-corner.

For the year 1852 there are no letters to the boy; it was the time of his
mother's failing health, and he was journeying with his grandfather all
over England, 'reading Shakespeare, and studying church architecture,
especially Norman.' It was a delightful way of learning history for a
quick child of nine:

'We followed Charles II. in his flight, and visited every spot that has
ever been mentioned in connection with his escape--a pilgrimage which took
me among other places to my future constituency of the Forest of Dean. We
went to every English cathedral, and when my grandfather was at work upon
his Pope investigations, saw every place which was connected with the
history of the Carylls.' [Footnote: John Caryll suggested to Pope the idea
of the "Rape of the Look"; and many of the poet's letters were written to