Eighty-six years ago Surrey Square, in the parish of St. Mary's Newington, was not severed by interminable streets from every country association. From the upper windows might be caught pleasant glimpses of sylvan Dulwich, and the southerly wind came fresh from many a neighbouring copse and meadow, long since forgotten.

At that time a young bookseller lived in the Square. His father (a prosperous City tradesman) was the son of Samuel Palmer, a pluralist divine of Sussex, and the grandson of Samuel Palmer, a Wiltshire Rector.

Although the bookseller could trace his descent still further back, and no doubt was proud to be able to claim kindred with Richard Hooker (not to mention a certain Sir Stephen Fox), Fate had denied him the ancestral orthodoxy. He was, I believe, a Baptist of the strict old school; and ultimately obeyed a “call” to exhort the members of a Baptist congregation in Walworth.

His wife, to whom the slightest expression of his decided will was an unalterable law, had figured as “Lavinia” in a frontispiece designed by Stothard for some work of her father. This literary gentleman had also achieved a book on “Domestic Happiness”; but, as I have always understood, he was a domestic martinet of the first water. He had written books, and the books had been printed, so he was the pride of his family, who meekly obeyed his orders, and worshipped him (at a very respectful distance) under the title of “The Author.”