"Many thanks for your hitherto unacknowledged 'Anecdotes.' Now for one of mine--I am going to be married, and have been engaged this month. It is a long story, and, therefore, I won't tell it,--an old and (though I did not know it till lately) a _mutual_ attachment. The very sad life I have led since I was your pupil must partly account for the offs and _ons_ in this now to be arranged business. We are only waiting for the lawyers and settlements, &c.; and next week, or the week after, I shall go down to Seaham in the new character of a regular suitor for a wife of mine own. "I hope Hodgson is in a fair way on the same voyage--I saw him and his idol at Hastings. I wish he would be married at the same time,--I should like to make a party,--like people electrified in a row, by (or rather through) the same chain, holding one another's hands, and all feeling the shock at once. I have not yet apprised him of this. He makes such a serious matter of all these things, and is so 'melancholy and gentlemanlike,' that it is quite overcoming to us choice spirits. "They say one shouldn't be married in a black coat. I won't have a blue one,--that's flat. I hate it. "Yours," &c. * * * * * LETTER 206. TO MR. COWELL. "October 22. 1814. "My dear Cowell, "Many and sincere thanks for your kind letter--the bet, or rather forfeit, was one hundred to Hawke, and fifty to Hay (nothing to Kelly), for a guinea received from each of the two former.[50] I shall feel much obliged by your setting me right if I am incorrect in this statement in any way, and have reasons for wishing you to recollect as much as possible of what passed, and state it to Hodgson. My reason is this: some time ago Mr. * * * required a bet of me which I never made, and of course refused to pay, and have heard no more of it; to prevent similar mistakes is my object in wishing you to remember well what passed, and to put Hodgson in possession of your memory on the subject. "I hope to see you soon in my way through Cambridge. Remember me to H., and believe me ever and truly," &c. [Footnote 50: He had agreed to forfeit these sums to the persons mentioned, should he ever marry.] * * * * *