[162 — To R. C. Dallas]

Newstead Abbey, Notts., August 12, 1811.

Peace be with the dead! Regret cannot wake them. With a sigh to the departed, let us resume the dull business of life, in the certainty that we also shall have our repose. Besides her who gave me being, I have lost more than one who made that being tolerable. — The best friend of my friend Hobhouse, Matthews, a man of the first talents, and also not the worst of my narrow circle, has perished miserably in the muddy waves of the Cam, always fatal to genius:— my poor school-fellow, Wingfield, at Coimbra — within a month; and whilst I had heard from

all three,

but not seen

one.

Matthews wrote to me the very day before his death; and though I feel for his fate,

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am still more anxious for Hobhouse, who, I very much fear, will hardly retain his senses: his letters to me since the event have been most incoherent

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