ink
you know), but we can easily get a bed for you hard by. Therefore you
will please to drive here next Saturday evening. Our regular dinner hour
is half-past five. If you are later, you will find something ready for
you.

If you go on in that way about your part, I shall think you want to play
Mr. Gabblewig. Your role, though a small one on the stage, is a large
one off it; and no man is more important to the Guild, both on and off.

My dear friend Watson! Dead after an illness of four days. He dined with
us this day three weeks. I loved him as my heart, and cannot think of
him without tears.

Ever affectionately.

[Sidenote: Mr. Mark Lemon.]

DOVER, _August 5th, 1852._

MY DEAR MARK,

Poor dear Watson was dead when the paragraph in the paper appeared. He
was buried in his own church yesterday. Last Sunday three weeks (the day
before he went abroad) he dined with us, and was quite well and happy.
She has come home, is at Rockingham with the children, and does not
weakly desert his grave, but sets up her rest by it from the first. He
had been wandering in his mind a little before his death, but recovered
consciousness, and fell asleep (she says) quite gently and peacefully in
her arms.

I loved him very much, and God knows he deserved it.

Ever affectionately.

[Sidenote: The Earl of Carlisle.]

10, CAMDEN CRESCENT, DOVER, _Thursday, Aug. 5th, 1852._

MY DEAR LORD CARLISLE,

'Peared to me (as Uncle Tom would say) until within these last few days,
that I should be able to write to you, joyfully accepting your
Saturday's invitation after Newcastle, in behalf of all whom it
concerned. But the Sunderland people rushed into the field to propose
our acting there on that Saturday, the only possible night. And as it is
the concluding Guild expedition, and the Guild has a paramount claim on
us, I have been obliged to knock my own inclinations on the head, cut
the throat of my own wishes, and bind the Company hand and foot to the
Sunderland lieges. I don't mean to tell them now of your invitation
until we shall have got out of that country. There might be rebellion.
We are staying here for the autumn.

Is there any hope of your repeating your visit to these coasts?

Ever faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: