ailway;
for I came up with the intention of hurrying down to Bulwer Lytton's
to-day before you should have left. I arrived at eleven last night, and
was in Keppel-street at a quarter past eleven. But he did not know me,
nor any one. He began to sink at about noon yesterday, and never rallied
afterwards. I remained there until he died--O so quietly. . . . I hardly
know what to do. I am going up to Highgate to get the ground. Perhaps
you may like to go, and I should like it if you do. I will not leave
here before two o'clock. I think I must go down to Malvern again, at
night, to know what is to be done about the children's mourning; and as
you are returning to Bulwer's I should like to have gone that way, if
_Bradshaw_ gave me any hope of doing it. I wish most particularly to
see you, I needn't say. I must not let myself be distracted by
anything--and God knows I have left a sad sight!--from the scheme on
which so much depends. Most part of the alterations proposed I think
good." Mr. John Dickens was laid in Highgate Cemetery on the 5th of
April; and the stone placed over him by the son who has made his name a
famous one in England, bore tribute to his "zealous, useful, cheerful
spirit." What more is to be said of him will be most becomingly said in
speaking of _David Copperfield_. While the book was in course of being
written, all that had been best in him came more and more vividly back
to its author's memory; as time wore on, nothing else was remembered;
and five years before his own death, after using in one of his letters
to me a phrase rather out of the common with him, this was added: "I
find this looks like my poor father, whom I regard as a better man the
longer I live."

He was at this time under promise to take the chair at the General
Theatrical Fund on the 14th of April. Great efforts were made to relieve
him from the promise; but such special importance was attached to his
being present, and the Fund so sorely then required help, that, no
change of day being found possible for the actors who desired to attend,
he yielded to the pressure put upon him; of which the result was to
throw upon me a sad responsibility. The reader will understand why, even
at this distance of time; my allusion to it is brief.

The train from Malvern brought him up only five minutes short of the
hour appointed for the dinner, and we first met that day at the London
Tavern. I never heard him to greater advantage than in the speech th