a scavenger and a rag-seller), with a branch of laurel waving in his tattered hat, stopped before this last sentence and exclaimed, “No—­they don’t yet; but they will.”

I have been having quite a number of holidays at the theater lately.  They have brought out a comedy in which I do not play, and are going to bring out a sort of historical melodrama on the life of Bonaparte, so that I think I shall have easy work, if that succeeds, for the rest of the season.  I have just finished correcting the proof-sheets of “Francis I.,” and think it looks quite pretty in print, and have dedicated it to my mother, which I hope will please her....

Dear H——­, this is Saturday, the 14th, and ’tis now exactly three weeks since I began this letter.  I know not what you will think of this, but, indeed, I am almost worn out with the ceaseless occupations of one sort and another that are crowded into every day, and the impossibility of commanding one hour’s quiet out of the twenty-four....

I am afraid we shall not come to Ireland this summer, after all, my dear H——.  The Dublin manager and my father have not come to terms, and I hear Miss Inverarity (a popular singer) is engaged there, so that I conclude we shall not act there this season.  This is so great a disappointment to me that I cannot say anything whatever about it.  I have been acting Lady Teazle for Mr. Bartley and my father’s benefit.  It seems to have pleased the public very well.  Without caring for it much myself, I find it light and amusing work, and much easier for me than Lady Townley, because it is a natural and that an entirely artificial character; the whole tone and manners, too, of Sheridan’s rustic belle are much more within my scope than those of the woman of fashion of Sir John Vanbrugh’s play.

On Friday we had our first rehearsal of “Hernani,” at Bridgewater House, and I was greatly surprised with some of the acting, which, allowing for a little want of technical experience, was, in Mr. Craven’s instance, really very good.  He is the grandson of old Lady Craven, the Margravine of Anspach, and enacts the hero of the piece, which I think he will do very well.  The whole play, I think, will be fairly acted for an amateur performance.  Lord and Lady Francis have pressed my mother very much to go down for a little while to Oatlands, the beautiful place close to Weybridge, which belonged to the Duke of York, and of which they have taken a lease.  My mother has accepted their invitation, and looks forward with great pleasure to revisiting her dear Weybridge.  I know a good deal more of that lovely neighborhood and all its wild haunts than the present proprietors of Oatlands.  Lady Francis is a famous horsewoman, and told me by way of inducement to go there that we would gallop all over the country together, which sounded very pleasant....

I called on my aunt Siddons the other