Originally published in Hood's Magazine (Henry Hurst) vol.5 #6 (Jun 1846).
London is now full of visitors; and we trust none of them will return to their homes, without paying their respects to the venerable lady, to whom we owe one of the wonders—and a most instructive wonder it is too, preaching the folly of strife, and ambition, and hopes solely wedded to this world and its vanities—of this wonderful metropolis.
To us, who are somewhat imaginative, the waxen resemblances of the lately deceased great, garmented and made up as they appeared in life, seemed almost to live and move again before us, producing a solemn sadness, whose effects are, without doubt, useful to all who experience it. A sight of Napoleon's travelling carriage, sword, fragments of apparel, and other relics, is, to our mind, the best antidote for ill-regulated aspirations, and war-fever insanities, that the whole earth could afford. To visitors, then, as well as to dwellers within our metropolitan boundaries, we say again,—go and see Madame Tussaud’s most striking, as well as most instructive, exhibition and relics.