chen for want of a pillar.

A great to-do here. A steamer lost on the Goodwins yesterday, and our
men bringing in no end of dead cattle and sheep. I stood a supper for
them last night, to the unbounded gratification of Broadstairs. They
came in from the wreck very wet and tired, and very much disconcerted by
the nature of their prize--which, I suppose, after all, will have to be
recommitted to the sea, when the hides and tallow are secured. One
lean-faced boatman murmured, when they were all ruminative over the
bodies as they lay on the pier: "Couldn't sassages be made on it?" but
retired in confusion shortly afterwards, overwhelmed by the execrations
of the bystanders.

Ever affectionately.

P.S.--Sometimes I think ----'s bill will be too long to be added up
until Babbage's calculating machine shall be improved and finished.
Sometimes that there is not paper enough ready made, to carry it over
and bring it forward upon.

I dream, also, of the workmen every night. They make faces at me, and
won't do anything.

[Sidenote: Mr. Austen Henry Layard.]

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, _16th December, 1851._

MY DEAR LAYARD,[52]

I want to renew your recollection of "the last time we parted"--not at
Wapping Old Stairs, but at Miss Coutts's--when we vowed to be more
intimate after all nations should have departed from Hyde Park, and I
should be able to emerge from my cave on the sea-shore.

Can you, and will you, be in town on Wednesday, the last day of the
present old year? If yes, will you dine with us at a quarter after six,
and see the New Year in with such extemporaneous follies of an exploded
sort (in genteel society) as may occur to us? Both Mrs. Dickens and I
would be really delighted if this should find you free to give us the
pleasure of your society.

Believe me always, very faithfully yours.

FOOTNOTES:

[44] "Not So Bad As We Seem; or, Many Sides to a Character."

[45] "Not So Bad As We Seem."

[46] An embroidered blotting-book given by Mrs. Cowden Clarke.

[47] One of the series in "The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines,"
dedicated to Charles Dickens.

[48] Wilmot, the clever veteran prompter, who was engaged to accompany
the acting-tours.

[49] A wooden one.

[50] Miss Eden had a cottage at Broadstairs, and was residing there at
this time.

[51] Tavistock House.

[52] Now Sir Austen Henry L