REMOVAL TO UPPER NORWOOD. 101 



given up (in December, 187Gj, and after some eighteen 

 months of semi-nomad life, we had settled down at 

 Upper Norwood, quite close to the High Level railway 

 station at the Crystal Palace. 



To the palace itself my father soon became a most 

 regular visitor. The library and reading-room attracted 

 him greatly, and thither, during the whole time that 

 we lived at Norwood, he repaired nearly every day, 

 generally for the purpose of making notes, or of 

 working up some subject upon which he was about to 

 write. The music, too, was of course a great attraction. 

 Orchestral concerts were, as they still are, given daily, 

 either in the concert-room or upon the large Handel 

 orchestra in the central transept. A part, at least, of 

 these he nearly always managed to attend, becoming 

 one of a small party of musical enthusiasts, who were 

 looked upon as having a sort of prescriptive right upon 

 ordinary week-days to the seats which the professional 

 critics occupied upon the Saturdays, and who, full 

 orchestral score in hand, were regularly to be seen 

 attentively following the music from the first note of 

 the concert to the last. He was one of the select few, 

 also, who by special favour obtained a card of admis- 

 sion to the rehearsals for the well-known Saturday 

 concerts, of which card he was by no means remiss in 

 making use. And, after his manner, he soon con- 

 trived to be on the most friendly terms with every 

 official connected with the building, and to obtain 

 admission at will into those sacra privata from which 

 the general public were rigidly excluded. 



