The Great Exhibition of 1851 made more stir than this generation, who are used to exhibitions and world-fairs, every year or so, can imagine.

Fanny Allen writes:

……The day I came here, Fanny, Hensleigh, and Erasmus Darwin took me to the Grand Exhibition in Hyde Park, and it certainly is the most beautiful thing I ever saw. We were two hours there and yet I did not see the 10,000th part of what is to be seen, not even the grand avenue entirely. The great diamond was the only thing that I should say was a “failure,” as old Wishaw would have said. I expected to see a diamond 10 times the size…….

Mrs Sydney is affectionate and kind as it is possible to be. She gives me all her husband's papers and correspondence to look over and read, and gives me the drawingroom to read, write, and to receive my company, if I should have any; and at 2 or half-past we take our dowager drive, and we read and work in the evening. We have seen no one.