took place on a Sunday morning in May 1888. Invitations  out ations read:

    Mr. Edward LEAR

    Nonsense riter and Landscape Painter

    Requests the honor of Your Presence

    On the Occasion of his DEMISE.

    San Remo 2:20 a.m.

    th of May Please reply

    One can imagine ts. Our dear friend! is preparing to depart! and suc be, no me see. . . And t time I (dipped into) ( on tances approacure of solemnity and practicalness, per friend, tennyson:

    Old men must die,

    or the world would grow mouldy

    and:

    For men may come and men may go,

    But I go on forever.

    People prepared to attend t ry. Picnic baskets  o expect too mucality, under tances); bottles of oys o o be taken or left beually present at t restrain t tugged at t to be removed from the room.)

    Most of Mr. Lears friends decided t te time to arrive at t, or in t neigo alloleman time to make o do, before t. Everyone understood ime specified in tation meant. And so, tors found t Giuseppe Orsini) in almost total darkness. Pausing to greet people to corral straying c lengto a large room on t floor,  omed to ex ercolors, and tably aircase to a similar room on ted, in bed,  smoking jacket and acles iny oval lenses. Several dozen straiger arrivals stood along the walls.

    Mr. Lears first ;Ive no money!quot; As eacs entered ted, quot;Ive no money! No money!quot; remely tired, yet calm.  retaining patcly not been trimmed in some days. ely began to discourse, as if to prevent anyone else from doing so.

    for attending and expressing t  put to too great an inconvenience, ackno t;an unusual one for visits!quot;   find  to disclose oget ty little lecture, of some tes duration, on tion of ings, of ance, alt it was charming, graceful, and wise.

    artled s ion, uttered in a kind of s;S married? Get married? S;

    Mr. Lear next offered a s  Friends golden of tions. It is also, en trongest of ies, surviving strains and tempests fatal to less sublime relations. ed t ituted t memory of a long life.

    A disquisition on Cats followed.

    opic Cain restlessness o s at intervals, quot;S married?quot; and quot;Ive no money!quot;)  as everybody  more te interest ed. Next ion of ercolors, vieiquities and picturesque spots. too, ercolors tleman  ￡5 and ￡10, for t forty years.

    Mr. Lear noext of tennysons in a setting of ly, ted vigorous applause.

    Finally o be o ts an enormous oil, at least seven feet by ten, depicting Mount Ation, but it did not seem to satisfy ter, for he assumed a very black look.

    At 2:15 Mr. Lear performed a series of actions to tators.

    At 2:20 o table, picked up an old-fasely taken. ts, edly, moved in a long line back to the carriages.

    People , all in all, it  tedious performance.  to read tures, run toire once more? ations? tood: t Mr. Lear   doing anytraordinary. Mr. Lear ransformed traordinary into its opposite.  of fact, created a gentle, genial misunderstanding.

    ts began, as time passed, to regard torical ligold t it, reenacted parts of it for t;Ive no money!quot; in a comical voice, and quote  marrying. time passed, t revivals aged in every part of try, ill be seen, in ties, in versions enricerpretation, textual emendation, and cion is curious; no one kno. ting company plays in traditional  Lear ing, s h rage.