the great conflagration which destroyed the fine old historical mansion
built by Baptist Hicks, sometime a mercer in Cheapside and ultimately
Viscount Campden. But another scene which has more particularly haunted me
all through my life was that of my mother's sudden death in a saloon
carriage of an express train on the London and Brighton line. Though she
was in failing health, nobody thought her end so near; but in the very
midst of a journey to London, whilst the train was rushing on at full
speed, and no help could be procured, a sudden weakness came over her, and
in a few minutes she passed away. I was very young at the time, barely
five years old, yet everything still rises before me with all the
vividness of an imperishable memory. Again, too, I see that beautiful
intellectual brow and those lustrous eyes, and hear that musical voice,
and feel the gentle touch of that loving motherly hand. She was a woman of
attainments, fond of setting words to music, speaking perfect French, for
she had been partly educated at Evreux in Normandy, and having no little
knowledge of Greek and Latin literature, as was shown by her annotations
to a copy of Lempriere's "Classical Dictionary" which is now in my
possession.

About eighteen months after I was born, that is in the midst of the
Crimean War, my father founded, in conjunction with David Bogue, a
well-known publisher of the time, a journal called the _Illustrated
Times_, which for several years competed successfully with the
_Illustrated London News_. It was issued at threepence per copy, and an
old memorandum of the printers now lying before me shows that in the
paper's earlier years the average printings were 130,000 copies weekly--a
notable figure for that period, and one which was considerably exceeded
when any really important event occurred. My father was the chief editor
and manager, his leading coadjutor being Frederick Greenwood, who
afterwards founded the _Pall Mall Gazette_. I do not think that