XVI] 



LONDON AND LEICESTER 



239 



We bid you welcome ! and hope each may find 

 Something we've chosen suited to his mind ; 

 Our bill of fare contains some curious dishes 

 To satisfy your various! tastes and wishes. 

 And first, to show our classic lore, we'll speak 

 What Sophocles composed in sounding Greek, 

 Repeat the words his olden heroes said, 

 And from their graves call back the mighty dead. 

 Then in Rome's Senate we will bid you stand, 

 The Conscript Fathers ranged on either hand, 

 When Cicero th' expectant silence broke, 

 And cruel Verres trembled while he spoke. 

 In modern Rome's soft language we'll rehearse 

 Immortal Tasso's never-dying verse : 

 In German we've a name you all know well, 

 The brave, the free, the patriot, William Tell ; 

 And then, for fear all this dry stuff they'll tire on, 

 To please the ladies we've a piece from Byron. 

 Next, we've the one-legged goose — that vara avis, 

 Whose history will be told by Master Davis, 

 And Monsieur Tonson's griefs we're sure will call 

 A little hearty laughter from you all. 



With a few concluding lines which I cannot remember. 



Just before the Christmas hoHdays (or perhaps on the fifth 

 of November) I wrote a slight serio-comic play, the subject 

 being " Guy Faux." While following history pretty closely as 

 to the chief characters and events, I purposely introduced a 

 number of anachronisms, as umbrellas, macintoshes, lucifer 

 matches, half-farthings then just issued. I also made use of 

 some modern slang, and concluded with a somewhat mock- 

 heroic speech by the judge when sentencing the criminal. 

 The boys acted their parts very well, and the performance 

 was quite a success. 



Early in the following year (February, 1846) I received 

 the totally unexpected news of the death of my brother 

 William at Neath. He had been in London to give evidence 

 before a committee on the South Wales Railway Bill, and 

 returning at night caught a severe cold by being chilled in a 

 wretched third-class carriage, succeeded by a damp bed at 

 Bristol. This brought on congestion of the lungs, to which he 

 speedily succumbed. I and my brother John went down to 

 Neath to the funeral, and as William had died without a will, 



