as St. Paul’s.  This turner inside out and upside down of our body, social and political, this hero of reform, one of the ablest men in England—­I suppose in Europe—­he rode with us for a long time, and I thought how H——­ would have envied me this conversation with her idol....  In the evening, at the theater, though I had gone over my part before going there, for the first time in my play-house experience I was out on the stage.  I stopped short in the middle of one of my speeches, thinking I had finished it, whereas I had not given Mr. Warde the cue he was to reply to.  How disgraceful!...  After the play, my mother called for us in the carriage, and we went to Lady Dacre’s, and had a pleasant party enough....  C——­ G——­ was there, with her mother (the clever and accomplished authoress of several so-called fashionable novels, which had great popularity in their day).  Miss G——­, now Lady E——­ T——­, used to be called by us “la Dame Blanche,” on account of the dazzling fairness of her complexion.  She was very brilliant and amusing, and I remember her saying to one of her admirers one evening, when her snowy neck and shoulders were shining in all the unveiled beauty of full dress, “Oh, go away, P——­, you tan me.”  (The gentleman had a shock head of fiery-red hair.)

Friday.—­ ...  I am horribly fagged, and after dinner fell fast asleep in my chair.  At the theater, in the evening, the house was remarkably good for a “second night,” and the play went off very well....  My voice was much better to-night, though it cracked once most awfully in the last scene, from fatigue....  I think Lord Francis, or the management, or somebody ought to pay me for the bruises and thumps I get in this new play.  One arm is black and blue (besides being broken every night) with bolting the door, and the other grazed to the bone with falling in fits upon the floor on my elbows.  This sort of tragic acting is a service of some danger, and I object to it much more than to the stabbing and poisoning of the “Legitimate Drama;” in fact, “I do not mind death, but I cannot bear pinching.”

Saturday.—­ ...  Rode in the park with my father.  Lord John Russell rode with us for some time, and was very pleasant.  He made us laugh by telling us that Sir Robert Inglis (most bigoted of Tory anti-reformers) having fallen asleep on the ministerial benches at the time of the division the other night, they counted him on their side.  What good fun!  I never saw a man look so wretchedly worn and harassed as Lord John does.  They say the ministry must go out, that they dare not make these new peers, and that the Bill will stick fast by the way instead of passing.  What frightful trouble there will be!...

Sunday, 22d.—­ ...  After church looked over the critiques in the Sunday papers on “Katharine of Cleves.”  Some of them were too good-natured, some too ill-natured.  The Spectator was exceedingly amusing.