Betterton used to rusticate in Berkshire; Booth, at Cowley; Cibber, at Twickenham; his son, at Brook Green. Wilks, too, had his villa at Isleworth. He is said to have kept a well-regulated and extremely cheerful home. He had there seen so much of death that we are told he was always prepared to meet it with decency. His generosity amounted almost to prodigality. "Few Irish gentlemen," says his biographer, "are without indigent relatives." Wilks had many, and they never appealed to him in vain. He died, after a short illness and four doctors, in September 1732,[13] leaving his share in the Drury Lane Patent, and what other property he possessed, to his wife. Throughout his life, I can only find one symptom of regret at having abandoned the Irish Secretary's office for the stage. "My successor in Ireland," he once said to Cibber, "made by his post £50,000." Exceeding benevolence is finely exhibited in an incident connected with Farquhar. When the latter was near the end of his gay yet chequered career in 1707,--death, the glory of his last success, and the thought of his children pressing hard upon him, he wrote this laconic, but perfectly intelligible, note to Wilks:--"Dear Bob,--I have not anything to leave thee, to perpetuate my memory, but two helpless girls; look upon them, sometimes; and think of him that was, to the last moment of his life, thine,--GEORGE FARQUHAR." Farquhar's confidence in his friend was like that of La Fontaine, who, having lost a home, was met in the street by a friend who invited him to _his_. "I was going there!" said the simple-minded poet. Wilks did not disappoint Farquhar's expectations. Wilks could be as modest as he was generous. After playing, for the first time, the Ghost to Booth's Hamlet,[14] the latter remarked, "Why, Bob, I thought you were going to knock me down. When I played the Ghost to Mr. Betterton's Hamlet, awe-stricken as he seemed, I was still more so of him." "Mr. Betterton and Mr. Booth," said Wilks, "noble actors, could always play as they pleased. I can only play to the best of my ability."[15] Once only do I find Wilks in close connection with royalty,--namely, when he took, by command, the manuscript of "George Barnwell" to St. James's, and read that lively tragedy to Queen Anne.[16] On some like occasion, King William once presented Booth with five pounds for his reward, but history does not note the guerdon with which Wilks retired from the presence of "Great Anna!"[17] [Illustration: Mr. Clarke as Antonio.] FOOTNOTES: [7] All dates regarding Wilks are difficult to determine; but as his appearance in Othello, previously referred to, took place at the end of the Irish Revolution--(Hitchcock says in December 1691)--this date, 1690, must be wrong. Besides, Rich does not seem to have obtained a footing in the theatre till March 1691. [8] See previous note. [9] Chetwood says sixty pounds. [10] It was apparently the same salary as Betterton's.