ons, it made way for Knowles's delightful play, which had a
success as great and genuine as it was well deserved, and will not fail
to be a lasting favorite, alike with audiences and actors.]

_Thursday, June 14th._--A long break in my journal, and what a
dismal beginning to it again! At five o'clock H---- started for
Ireland.... Poor dear Dall cried bitterly at parting from her (my
aunt was to accompany me to America, and it was uncertain whether
we should see Miss S---- again before we sailed).... When I
returned, after seeing her off, I went disconsolately to my own
room. As I could not sleep, I took up the first book at hand, but
it was "Tristram Shandy," and too horribly discordant with my frame
of mind; besides, I don't like it at any time; it seems to me much
more coarse even than witty and humorous.

_Friday, 15th._-- ... Almost at our very door met old Lady Cork,
who was coming to see us: We stopped our carriages, and had a
bawling conversation through the windows respecting my plans, past,
present, and to come, highly edifying, doubtless, to the whole
neighborhood, and which ended by her ladyship shrieking out to me
that I was "a supernatural creature" in a tone which must have made
the mummies and other strange sojourners in the adjacent British
Museum jump again.... In the evening, at the theater, the play was
"The Hunchback," for Knowles's benefit, and the house was not good,
which I do think is a shame. I played well, though Miss Taylor
disconcerted me by coming so near me in her second scene that I
gave her a real slap in the face, which I was very sorry for,
though she deserved it. After the play, Mr. Harness, Mrs. Clarke,
and Miss James supped with us; and after supper, I dressed for a
ball at the G----s', ... and much I wondered what call I had to be
at a ball, except that the givers of this festival are kind and
good friends of ours, and are fond of me, and I of them. But I was
not very merry at their ball for all that. We came home at half
past two, which is called "very early." Mr. Bacon was there (editor
of the _Times_, who married my cousin, Fanny Twiss), but I had no
chance to speak to him, which I was sorry for, as I like his looks,
and I liked his books: the first are good, and the latter are
clever. I cried all the way home, which