Thursday 5th.—­ ...  Wrote all the afternoon.  Mr. Byng dined with us and stayed till one o’clock, having reduced my mother to silence, and my father to sleep, John to snuff, and Henry and I to playing (sotto voce) “What’s my thought like?” to keep ourselves from tumbling off the perch.

Monday, 9th.—­Rehearsed “Romeo and Juliet” with all my heart.  Oh, light, life, truth, and lovely poetry!  I sat on the cold stage, that I might hear them even mumble over their parts as they do.  My father seemed to me very weak, and not by any means fit for his work to-night.  After dinner went over my part again, and went to the theater at half past five.  My new dress was very handsome, though rather burly, in spite of which Dall said it made me look taller, so its rather burliness didn’t matter.  John Mason played Romeo for the first time; he was beautifully dressed, and looked very well; he acted tolerably well, too.  He has a good deal of energy and spirit, but wants feeling and refinement; his voice, unfortunately, is very unpleasant, wiry, harsh, and monotonous; of the last defect he may cure by practice.  I came to the side scene just as my father was going on, to hear his reception; it was very great, a perfect thunder of applause; it made the tears start into my eyes.  Poor father!  They received me with infinite demonstrations of kindness too.  I thought I acted very well; I am sure I played the balcony scene well.  When the blood keeps rushing up into one’s cheeks and neck while one is speaking, I wonder if that ought to be called acting.  To be sure, Hamlet’s player’s face turned pale for Hecuba; so Shakespeare thought acting might make one change color.

I cannot get over the sensibleness of Henry Greville, who was in the pit again to-night.  Upon my word! he deserves to see good acting.  After the play dear William and Mary Harness came home to supper with us, and we all got into a long discussion about Shakespeare’s character, John maintaining that his views of life were gloomy and that he must himself have been an unhappy man.  I don’t believe a bit of it; no one, I suppose, ever thinks this world, and the life we live in it, absolutely pleasant or good, but the poet’s ken, which is as an angel’s compared with that of other men, must see more good and beauty, as well as more evil and ugliness, than his short-sighted fellows, and the better elements predominating over the worse (as they do, else the world would fall asunder).  The man who takes so wide a view as Shakespeare, whatever his judgment of parts, must, upon the whole, pronounce the whole good rather than bad, and rejoice accordingly.  I was too tired and sleepy to talk, or even to listen, much.

Wednesday, 11th.—­ ...  Lady Charlotte Greville and General Alaba called.  I am always grateful to him for the beautiful copy of Schlegel’s “Dramatic Lectures” which he gave me.  Lady Charlotte