"Newstead Abbey, Notts. Sept. 14. 1808.
"My dear Becher,
"I am much obliged to you for your enquiries, and shall profit by them
accordingly. I am going to get up a play here; the hall will
constitute a most admirable theatre. I have settled the dram. pers.,
and can do without ladies, as I have some young friends who will make
tolerable substitutes for females, and we only want three male
characters, beside Mr. Hobhouse and myself, for the play we have fixed
on, which will be the Revenge. Pray direct Nicholson the carpenter to
come over to me immediately, and inform me what day you will dine and
pass the night here.
"Believe me," &c.
It was in the autumn of this year, as the letters I have just given
indicate, that he, for the first time, took up his residence at
Newstead Abbey. Having received the place in a most ruinous condition
from the hands of its late occupant, Lord Grey de Ruthyn, he proceeded
immediately to repair and fit up some of the apartments, so as to
render them--more with a view to his mother's accommodation than his
own--comfortably habitable. In one of his letters to Mrs. Byron,
published by Mr. Dallas, he thus explains his views and intentions on
this subject.