1841-42 MISS ANNA GURNEY 201 



paid two visits which he thus describes in a letter 

 to his sister Eliza written on his return : — 



' . . . I spent one pleasant day at a farm-house 

 at Stan way, a pretty Essex village, with John 

 Brown, a widower, retired on a decent compe- 

 tency, known the country round by the name of 

 " Mr. Pickwick," and the closest approximation to 

 Boz's famed type that I have yet had the pleasure 

 of being acquainted with. Like the founder of 

 the Pickwick Club, he solaceth himself with vir- 

 tuosoizing in antiquities ; but, as the immortal 

 Cuvier hath it, " of a higher order" than those 

 which amuse the F. A. S.'s. A good day's work I 

 had amongst honest John Brown's fossils, 4 whose 

 housekeeper at last grew a little testy at the 

 reiterated inquiries " if everything was proper and 

 comfortable for the Professor." My next centre- 

 point from which excursions radiated was the pre- 

 bendal dwelling of Professor Sedgwick, in Cathedral 

 Close, Norwich, where he is now, with his niece, 

 in residence. Heard him preach last Sunday — 

 the Cathedral crowded, as it always is, when his 

 natural and impressive addresses are poured forth. 



I made a day's delightful excursion to 



Cromer, to visit an old maiden lady [Anna Gurney], 

 who has been deprived of the power of using her 

 legs from early life, and wheels herself about in a 



4 His collections of pleistocene History Museum, South Ken- 

 land and freshwater shells and sington. 

 bones are now in the Natural 



