I am ill at dates, but I think it is now better than five and twenty years ago that walking in the gardens of Gray’s Inn—­they were then far finer than they are now—­the accursed Verulam Buildings had not encroached upon all the east side of them, cutting out delicate green crankles, and shouldering away one of two of the stately alcoves of the terrace—­the survivor stands gaping and relationless as if it remembered its brother—­they are still the best gardens of any of the Inns of Court, my beloved Temple not forgotten—­have the gravest character, their aspect being altogether reverend and law-breathing—­Bacon has left the impress of his foot upon their gravel walks—­taking my afternoon solace on a summer day upon the aforesaid terrace, a comely sad personage came towards me, whom, from his grave air and deportment, I judged to be one of the old Benchers of the Inn.  He had a serious thoughtful forehead, and seemed to be in meditations of mortality.  As I have an instinctive awe of old Benchers, I was passing him with that sort of subindicative token of respect which one is apt to demonstrate towards a venerable stranger, and which rather denotes an inclination to greet him, than any positive motion of the body to that effect—­a species of humility and will-worship which I observe, nine times out of ten, rather puzzles than pleases the person it is offered to—­when the face turning full upon me strangely identified itself with that of Dodd.  Upon close inspection I was not mistaken.  But could this sad thoughtful countenance be the same vacant face of folly which I had hailed so often under circumstances of gaiety; which I had never seen without a smile, or recognised but as the usher of mirth; that looked out so formally flat in Foppington, so frothily pert in Tattle, so impotently busy in Backbite; so blankly divested of all meaning, or resolutely expressive of none, in Acres, in Fribble, and a thousand agreeable impertinences?  Was this the face—­full of thought and carefulness—­that had so often divested itself at will of every trace of either to give me diversion, to clear my cloudy face for two or three hours at least of its furrows?  Was this the face—­manly, sober, intelligent,—­which I had so often despised, made mocks at, made merry with?  The remembrance of the freedoms which I had taken with it came upon me with a reproach of insult.  I could have asked it pardon.  I thought it looked upon me with a sense of injury.  There is something strange as well as sad in seeing actors—­your pleasant fellows particularly—­subjected to and suffering the common lot—­their fortunes, their casualties, their deaths, seem to belong to the scene, their actions to be amenable to poetic justice only.  We can hardly connect them with more awful responsibilities.  The death of this fine actor took place shortly after this meeting.  He had quitted the stage some months; and, as I learned afterwards, had been in the habit of resorting daily to these gardens almost to the day of his decease.  In