The old actor is now dead; but on his last performance, when he was to act Sir Robert Bramble, on the night of his taking final leave of the stage, Lamb greatly desired to be present. He had always loved the actors, especially the old actors, from his youth; and this was the last of the Romans. Accordingly Lamb and his sister went to the Drury Lane; but there being no room in the ordinary parts of the house (boxes or pit), Munden obtained places for his two visitors in the orchestra, close to the stage. He saw them carefully ushered in, and well posted; then acted with his usual vigor, and no doubt enjoyed the plaudits wrung from a thousand hands. Afterwards, in the interval between the comedy and the farce, he was seen to appear cautiously, diffidently, at the low door of the orchestra (where the musicians enter), and beckon to his friends, who then perceived that he was armed with a mighty pot of porter, for their refreshment. Lamb, grateful for the generous liquid, drank heartily, but not ostentatiously, and returned the pot of beer to Munden, who had waited to remove it from fastidious eyes. He then retreated into the farce; and then he retired--forever. After Munden's retirement Lamb almost entirely forsook the theatre; and his habits became more solitary. He had not relinquished society, nor professedly narrowed the circle of his friends. But insensibly his visitors became fewer in number, and came less frequently. Some had died; some had grown old; some had increased occupation to care for. His old Wednesday evenings had ceased, and he had placed several miles of road between London (the residence of their families) and his own home. The weight of years, indeed, had its effect in pressing down his strength and buoyancy; his spirit no longer possessed its old power of rebound. Even the care of housekeeping (not very onerous, one would suppose) troubled Charles and his sister so much, that they determined to abandon it. This occurred in 1829. Then they became boarders and lodgers, with an old person (T. W.), who was their next-door neighbor at Enfield; and of him Lamb has given an elaborate description. T. W., his new landlord or housekeeper, he says, is seventy years old; "he has something, under a competence;" he has one joke, and forty pounds a year, upon which he retires in a green old age: he laughs when he hears a joke, and when (which is much oftener) he hears it not. Having served the greater parish offices, Lamb and his sister become greater, being _his_ lodgers, than they were when substantial householders. The children of the village venerate him for his gentility, but wonder also at him for a gentle indorsation of the person, not amounting to a hump, or, if one, then like that of the buffalo, and coronative of as mild qualities.