for such a fine gentleman, he is a very sensible man.  Colonel and Lady C. Cavendish were in the orchestra, and how I did wish them further.  I do so wonder, in the middle of my stage despair, what business my drawing-room acquaintances have sitting staring at it.  My dress was beautiful.  As for the audience, I do not know what ailed them, but they seemed to have agreed together only to applaud at the end of the scenes, so that I got no resting interruptions, and was half dead with fatigue at the end of the play.  I read Daru’s “Venice” between the scenes, and saw my father for a few minutes after I came home.

Thursday, 15th.—­Had a delightful long letter from H——­, who is a poet without the jingle....  Another physician is to be called in for my father.  Oh, my dear father!  Mr. Bartley was with him about this horrible theater business....  My mother went in the evening with John to hear Miss Sheriff in Polly.  It is her first night in “The Beggar’s Opera,” and my father wished to know how it went.  I stayed at home with poor Henry, and after tea sat with my father till bedtime.

Friday, 16th.—­Went to the theater at eleven, and rehearsed Isabella in the saloon, the stage being occupied with a rehearsal of the pantomime.  When my rehearsal was over, the carriage not being come, I went down to see what they were doing.  There was poor Farleigh, nose and all (a worthy, amiable man, and excellent comic character, with a huge excrescence of a nose), qui se demenait like one frantic; huge Mr. Stansbury, with a fiddle in his hand, dancing, singing, prompting, and swearing; the whole corps de ballet attitudinizing in muddy shoes and poke-bonnets, and the columbine, in dirty stockings and a mob-cap, ogling the harlequin in a striped shirt and dusty trousers.  What a wrong side to the show the audience will see!

My father is better, thank God!  After dinner sat with poor Henry till time to go to the theater.  Played Isabella.  House bad.  I played well; I always do to an empty house (this was my invariable experience both in my acting and reading performances, and I came to the conclusion that as my spirits were not affected by a small audience, they, on the contrary, were exhilarated by the effect upon my lungs and voice of a comparatively cool and free atmosphere).  I read Daru between my scenes; I find it immensely interesting....  I read Niccolini’s “Giovanni di Procida,” but did not like it very much; I thought it dull and heavy, and not up to the mark of such a very fine subject.

Saturday, 17th.—­ ...  My father, thank God, appears much better....  I have christened the pretty mare I have bought “Donna Sol,” in honor of my part in “Hernani.”  In the evening I read Daru, and wrote a few lines of “The Star of Seville;” but I hate it, and the whole thing is as dead as ditch-water.

Sunday, 18th.—­To church....  After I came home I went and sat
with my father.  Poor fellow! he is really better; I thank God
inexpressibly!