e both likely to be lost in the
box-book, I sent the whole away to Mr. Notter, the box-book keeper,
to whom you had better apply.

Yours ever truly,
F. A. K.

This and the preceding note refer to my benefit, of which, according to
a not infrequent custom with the more popular members of the profession,
I had undertaken to manage the business details, but found myself, as I
have here stated, quite incompetent to encounter the worry of
applications for boxes, and seats, and special places, etc., etc., and
have never since, in the course of my whole public career, had anything
to do with the management of my own affairs.

GREAT RUSSELL STREET, March, 1831.
DEAR MRS. JAMESON,

I was not at home yesterday afternoon when you sent to our house,
and all the evening was so busy studying that I had not time to
answer your dispatch. Thank you for your last year's letter; it is
curious to look back, even to so short a time, and see how the past
affected one when it was the present. I remember I was very happy
and comfortable at Bath, the critics notwithstanding. Thank you,
too, for your more recent epistle. I am grateful for, and gratified
by, your minute observation of my acting. I am always thankful for
your criticisms, even when I do not quite agree with them; for I
know that you are always kindly anxious that I should not destroy
my own effects, which I believe I not unfrequently do. With regard
to my action, unless in passages which necessarily require a
specific gesture, such as, "You'll find them at the Marchesa
Aldabella's," I never determine any one particular movement; and,
of course, this must render my action different almost every time;
and so it depends upon my own state of excitement and inspiration,
so to speak, whether the gesture be forcible or not. My father
desires me to send you Retsch's "Hamlet;" it is his, and I request
you not to judge it too hastily: I have generally heard it abused,
but I think in many parts it has very great merit. I am told that
Retsch says he has no fancy for illustrating "Romeo and Juliet,"
which seems strange. One would have thought he would have delighted
in portraying those lovely human beings, whom one always imagines
endow