come up from “the farm,” and that the next time she came she would bring us some home-made bread, and that she was going back to brew and to bake.  She looked so tidy and rural, and her various avocations sounded so pleasant as she spoke of them, that I felt greatly tempted to beg her to let me go with her to “the farm,” which I am sure must be an enchanting place, neat and pretty, and flowery and comfortable, and full of rustic picturesqueness; and while the sun shone, I think I should like a female farmer’s life amazingly.  Went to the theater and rehearsed “Venice Preserved,” which is an entirely different kind of thing.  Charles Mason dined with us.  After dinner I finished reading Miss Ferrier’s novel of “Destiny,” which I like very much; besides being very clever, it leaves a pleasant taste, in one’s mind’s mouth.  Went to the theater at six; the play was “Venice Preserved,” and I certainly have seldom seen a more shameful exhibition.  In the first place C——­ did not even know his words, and that was bad enough; but when he was out, instead of coming to a stop decently, and finishing at least with his cue, he went on extemporizing line after line, and speech after speech, of his own, by way of mending matters.  I think I never saw such a performance.  He stamps and bellows low down in his throat like an ill-suppressed bull; he rolls his eyes till I feel as if they were flying out of their sockets at me, and I must try and catch them.  He quivers and quavers in his speech, and pulls and wrenches me so inhumanly, that what with inward laughter and extreme rage and pain, I was really all but dead in earnest at the end of the play.  I acted very ill myself till the last scene, when my Jaffier having been done justice to by the Venetian Government, I was able to do justice to myself, and having gone mad, and no wonder, died rather better than I had lived through the piece.

July 6th, Bristol.—­Walked out to order the horses, and afterwards went on to look at the Abbey Church.  We examined one or two interesting old monuments; but were obliged to curtail our explorings, as the doors were about to be closed.  We have been talking much lately of a remote possibility of going to America; and as I left this old brown pile to-day, it seemed to me curious to think of a country which has no cathedrals, no monuments of the Old Faith.  How venerable, in spite of its superstitions and abuses; for its long undisputed sway over all civilized lands; for the great and good men who honored it by their lives and works—­the religion of Augustine, of Bruno, Benedict, Francis d’Assisi, Francis de Sales, Fenelon, and how many more—­the Christianity of Europe in its feudal, chivalrous times, those days of noble, good, as well as fierce, evil deeds and lives, the faith that kings and warriors bowed to when sovereignty was absolute and military power supreme.  America has no gray abbeys, no ruined cloisters, to tell of