The Darcys visited the new picture gallery at Dulwich designed by Sir John Soane, which possessed a fine collection of pictures, as well as the unusual additions of a mausoleum housing the remains of its benefactors, and housing for alms-women. The interior was a splendid example of Soane’s genius in creating a very plain exhibition space, focusing the attention of the viewer on pictures suspended on the walls, instead of the more usual ornate surroundings that seemed to compete with their attachments. Mr. Darcy especially appreciated the new theory in Soane’s plan of the gallery, and Georgiana found much pleasure in sitting in the various rooms and sketching the paintings. London provided an uncountable number of public edifices which also required the Darcys’ enquiry: besides the usual route of St. Paul’s, Vauxhall, Theatre Royal and Wren’s smaller master-piece, St. Stephen’s Walbrook, was to be seen with its dome and West’s altar-piece.

The family also attended the exhibition of Buonaparte’s carriage, built by the Belgians for the French Emperour to his personal specifications. It had been captured at Waterloo by the Prussians and sold on to the English government. Housed in the London Museum in Piccadilly, the carriage was a marvel of invention: the competing claims of safety, comfort, and elegance had been united with the utmost efficiency to convenience and magnificence. The carriage had a novel shape that prevented the coachman (or indeed, anyone else) from seeing the passengers within, but giving those within an unobstructed view of the horses and all the country surrounding the carriage. The body of the chaise was bullet-proof, and was attached to the pole by the action of an ingenious lever which kept the body of the carriage level in any terrain. Inside, a number of clever contrivances provided for a kitchen, bed-room, dressing-room, office, and dining-room. Most of the onlookers were stupefied by the immense quantity of articles in solid gold, and a curiously small box no longer or wider than a woman’s arm containing an entire bedstead! All of the items attached to the vehicle remained with it, but the immense quantities of diamonds, money, and Buonaparte’s personal effects had all been appropriated by the Prussian soldiers upon its capture. Mr. Darcy remained some minutes noting the parts of the carriage that shewed the most superb mechanical ingenuity in the compactness and efficiency of design, making drawings in his pocket-book to record the contrivances and dimensions of the innovations he particularly admired.