Your letter was short and sweet, but none the sweeter for being short.  I should have thought no one could have been worse provided than myself with news or letter chit-chit, and yet I think my letters are generally longer than yours; brevity, in you, is a fault; do not be guilty of it again:  “car du reste,” as Madame de Sevigne says, “votre style est parfait.”  John returned to Cambridge on Thursday night.  He is a great loss to me, for though I have seen but little of him since our return to town, that little is too much to lose of one we love.  He is an excellent fellow in every way, and in the way of abilities he is particularly to my mind.  We all miss him very much; however, his absence will be broken now by visits to London, in order to keep his term [about this time my brother was entered at the Inner Temple, I think], so that we shall occasionally enjoy his company for a day or two.  I should like to tell you something about my play, but unluckily have nothing to tell; everything about it is as undecided as when last I wrote to you.  It is in the hands of the copyist of Covent Garden, but what its ultimate fate is to be I know not.  If it is decided that it is to be brought out on the stage before publication, that will not take place at present, because this is a very unfavorable time of year.  If I can send it to Ireland, tell me how I can get it conveyed to you, and I will endeavor to do so.  I should like you to read it, but oh, how I should like to go and see it acted with you!  I am now full of thoughts of writing a comedy, and have drawn out the plan of one—­plot, acts, and scenes in due order—­already; and I mean to make it Italian and mediaeval, for the sake of having one of those bewitching creatures, a jester, in it; I have an historical one in my play, Triboulet, whom I have tried to make an interesting as well as an amusing personage.

My mother, by the aid of a blister and my play, is, I think, recovering, though slowly, from her illness; she is still, though, in a state of great suffering, which is by no means alleviated by being unable to write, read, work, or occupy herself in any manner.

We have been to the play pretty regularly twice a week for the last three weeks, and shall continue to do so during the whole winter; which is a plan I much approve of.  I am very fond of going to the play, and Kean, Young, and my father make one of Shakespeare’s plays something well worth seeing.  I saw the “Merchant of Venice” the other evening, for the first time, and returned home a violent Keanite.  That man is an extraordinary creature!  Some of the things he did, appeared, on reflection, questionable to my judgment and open to criticism; but while under the influence of his amazing power of passion it is impossible to reason, analyze, or do anything but surrender one’s self to his forcible appeals to one’s emotions.  He entirely divested Shylock of all poetry or elevation, but invested