nizzi sat
next me at the Academy dinner, and took it very ill that I disparaged
----. The amateurs here are getting up another pantomime, but quarrel so
violently among themselves that I doubt its ever getting on the stage.
Webster expounded his scheme for rebuilding the Adelphi to Stanfield and
myself last night, and I felt bound to tell him that I thought it wrong
from beginning to end. This is all the theatrical news I know.

I write by this post to Georgy. Love to Mamey, Katey, Harry, and the
noble Plorn. I should be glad to see him here.

Ever affectionately.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday, May 5th, 1856._

MY DEAR GEORGY,

You will not be much surprised to hear that I have done nothing yet
(except for H. W.), and have only just settled down into a corner of the
school-room. The extent to which John and I wallowed in dust for four
hours yesterday morning, getting things neat and comfortable about us,
you may faintly imagine. At four in the afternoon came Stanfield, to
whom I no sooner described the notion of the new play, than he
immediately upset all my new arrangements by making a proscenium of the
chairs, and planning the scenery with walking-sticks. One of the least
things he did was getting on the top of the long table, and hanging over
the bar in the middle window where that top sash opens, as if he had got
a hinge in the middle of his body. He is immensely excited on the
subject. Mark had a farce ready for the managerial perusal, but it won't
do.

I went to the Dover theatre on Friday night, which was a miserable
spectacle. The pit is boarded over, and it is a drinking and smoking
place. It was "for the benefit of Mrs. ----," and the town had been very
extensively placarded with "Don't forget Friday." I made out four and
ninepence (I am serious) in the house, when I went in. We may have
warmed up in the course of the evening to twelve shillings. A Jew played
the grand piano; Mrs. ---- sang no end of songs (with not a bad voice,
poor creature); Mr. ---- sang comic songs fearfully, and danced clog
hornpipes capitally; and a miserable woman, shivering in a shawl and
bonnet, sat in the side-boxes all the evening, nursing Master ----, aged
seven months. It was a most forlorn business, and I should have
contributed a sovereign to the treasury, if I had known how.

I walked to Deal and back that day, and