1851-1853]                                                                                       xAl
 

CHAPTER  XI

1851—1853

The Great Exhibitiou of 1851^—Jessie Sismondi ou Mazzini and the
Coup d'ifitat—George Darwin—Erasmus Darwin—Fanny iLUen
goes to Aix-les-Bains with Elizabeth—Jessie Sismondi's death
on March 3rd, 1853—The destruction of Sismondi's and Jessie's
journals.

The Great Exhibition of 1851, the first of its kind, was a
more important event than this generation, who are used
to exhibitions and world-fairs every year or so, can imagine.
Fanny Allen wrote: " AU other Exhibitions are killed by this
Aaron's rod. Did I tell you in my last note that the Yorkes
mentioned the Queen having written to someone that the
first day of the Exhibition was ' one of the happiest days
of her very happy life ?' "
 

Fanny Allen to her niece Elizabeth Wedgwood.

Green St. [Mrs Sydney Smith's] Saturday
[May lOth, 1851].

. . . 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 en¬
tirely. 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 Smith is affectionate and kind as it is possible
to be. She gives me all her husband's papers and corre¬
spondence to look over and read, and gives me the drawing-
room to read, write, and to receive my company, if I should