the ruin off.

I was greeted this morning, when I came down to breakfast, with a
question that surprised and amused we very much. "Pray, Fanny,"
said John, "did you ever thank Mr. Bacon (one of the editors of the
_Times_) for his book (the "Life of Francis I." which Mr. Bacon had
been kind enough to send me); for here is a very abusive critique
in to-day's _Times_ of the play last night." "Well," thought I,
"that's a comical _sequitur_, and a fine estimate of criticism;"
but the conclusion was droller still. I had not forgotten to thank
the friendly author for his book, nor had he written the article in
question; but it seems a young gentleman, much in love with Miss
Phillips (a promising and very handsome young actress at Drury
Lane), had found pulling me to pieces the easiest way of showing
his admiration for her. That is not a very exalted style of
criticism either, but it is just as well that one should
occasionally know what the praise and blame one receives may be
worth. It seems that when it was determined that Miss Sheriff
should come out, Mr. Welsh, whose pupil she was, made a great
feast, and invited two-and-twenty gentlemen connected with the
press to a private hearing of her.... In the evening, we all went
to hear her, being every way much interested in her success. John
and Henry went into the front of the house; my mother, Dr. Moore
(the Rev. Dr. Moore, a great friend of my father and mother's), and
myself, went up to our own box. The house was crammed, the pit one
black, crowded mass. Poor child! I turned as cold as ice as the
symphony of "Fair Aurora" (the opera was "Artaxerxes") began, and
she came forward with Mr. Wilson. The bravos, the clapping, the
noise, the great sound of popular excitement overpowering in all
its manifestations; and the contrast between the sense of power
conveyed by the acclamations of a great concourse of people, and
the weakness of the individual object of that demonstration, gave
me the strangest sensation when I remembered my own experience,
which I had not seen. When I saw the thousands of eyes of that
crowded pitful of men, and heard their stormy acclamations, and
then looked at the fragile, helpless, pretty young creature
standing before them trembling with terror, and all woman's fear
and sham