not entirely feigned, as my bruises can bear witness).  The curtain descended slowly amidst sympathetic sobs and silence—­the musicians themselves, deeply moved, no doubt, with the sorrows of the scene, mournfully resumed their fiddles, and struck up “ti ti tum tiddle un ti tum ti”—­the jolliest jig you ever heard.  The bathos was irresistible; we behind the scenes, the principal sufferers (perhaps) in the night’s performance, were instantly comforted, and all but shouted with laughter.  I hope the audience were equally revived by this grotesque sudden cheering of their spirits.  After the tragedy a Bristolian Paganini performed a concerto on one string.  Dall declares that the whole orchestra played the whole time—­but some sounds reached me in my dressing-room that were decidedly unique more ways than one, not at all unlike our favorite French fantasia—­“Complainte d’un cochon au lait qui reve.”  But the audience were transported; they clapped and the fiddle squeaked, they shouted and the fiddle squealed, they hurrahed and the fiddle uttered three terrific screams, and it was over and Paganini is done for—­here, at any rate.  He need never show face or fiddle here; he hasn’t a string (even one) left to his bow in Bristol.  “So Orpheus fiddled,” etc.

Tuesday, July 19th.—­Dinner-party at the ——­ which ought to have been chronicled by Jane Austen.  I sat by a gentleman who talked to me of the hanging gardens of Semiramis and what might have been cultivated therein (hemp perhaps), then of the derivation of languages—­he still kept among roots—­and finally of tea, which he told me he was endeavoring to grow on the Welsh mountains.  Some of the table-talk deserved printing verbatim, only it was almost too good to be true, or at any rate believed.

Wednesday, July 20th.—­Charles Mason came after breakfast, and told us that there was some chance of poor Mr. Brunton’s getting out of prison (into which his creditor has thrust him), for that the latter had been so universally scouted for his harsh proceeding that he probably would be shamed into liberating him.

We shall not leave Bristol to-day.  The wind is contrary and the weather quite unfavorable for a party of pleasure, which our trip by sea to Ilfracombe was to be.  It’s very disagreeable living half in one’s trunks and traveling-bags, as this sort of uncertainty compels one to do.  I studied Dante, wrote verses and sketched, and tried to be busy; but a defeated departure leaves one’s mind and thoughts only half unpacked, and I felt idle and unsettled, though I worked at “The Star of Seville” till dinner-time.

     After dinner I studied politics in the Examiner and read an article
     on Cobbett, which made me laugh, and the motto to which might have
     been “Malvolio, thou art sick of self-conceit.” ...