At Home And Abroad Part 17

From the older turning to the young, I must speak with pleasure of several girls I know in London, who are devoting themselves to painting as a profession. They have really wise and worthy views of the artist's avocation; if they remain true to them, they will enjoy a free, serene existence, unprofaned by undue care or sentimental sorrow. Among these, Margaret Gillies has attained some celebrity; she may be known to some in America by engravings in the "People's Journal" from her pictures; but, if I remember right, these are coa.r.s.e things, and give no just notion of her pictures, which are distinguished for elegance and refinement; a little mannerized, but she is improving in that respect.

The "People's Journal" comes nearer being a fair sign of the times than any other publication of England, apparently, if we except Punch.

As for the Times, on which you all use your scissors so industriously, it is managed with vast ability, no doubt, but the blood would tingle many a time to the fingers' ends of the body politic, before that solemn organ which claims to represent the heart would dare to beat in unison. Still it would require all the wise management of the Times, or wisdom enough to do without it, and a wide range and diversity of talent, indeed, almost sweeping the circle, to make a People's Journal for England. The present is only a bud of the future flower.

Mary and William Howitt are its main support. I saw them several times at their cheerful and elegant home. In Mary Howitt I found the same engaging traits of character we are led to expect from her books for children. Her husband is full of the same agreeable information, communicated in the same lively yet precise manner we find in his books; it was like talking with old friends, except that now the eloquence of the eye was added. At their house I became acquainted with Dr. Southwood Smith, the well-known philanthropist. He is at present engaged on the construction of good tenements calculated to improve the condition of the working people. His plans look promising, and should they succeed, you shall have a detailed account of them. On visiting him, we saw an object which I had often heard celebrated, and had thought would be revolting, but found, on the contrary, an agreeable sight; this is the skeleton of Jeremy Bentham. It was at Bentham's request that the skeleton, dressed in the same dress he habitually wore, stuffed out to an exact resemblance of life, and with a portrait mark in wax, the best I ever saw, sits there, as a.s.sistant to Dr. Smith in the entertainment of his guests and companion of his studies. The figure leans a little forward, resting the hands on a, stout stick which Bentham always carried, and had named "Dapple"; the att.i.tude is quite easy, the expression of the whole quite mild, winning, yet highly individual. It is a pleasing mark of that unity of aim and tendency to be expected throughout the life of such a mind, that Bentham, while quite a young man, had made a will, in which, to oppose in the most convincing manner the prejudice against dissection of the human subject, he had given his body after death to be used in service of the cause of science. "I have not yet been able," said the will, "to do much service to my fellow-men by my life, but perhaps I may in this manner by my death." Many years after, reading a pamphlet by Dr. Smith on the same subject, he was much pleased with it, became his friend, and bequeathed his body to his care and use, with directions that the skeleton should finally be disposed of in the way I have described.

The countenance of Dr. Smith has an expression of expansive, sweet, almost childlike goodness. Miss Gillies has made a charming picture of him, with a favorite little granddaughter nestling in his arms.

Another marked figure that I encountered on this great s...o...b..ard was Cooper, the author of "The Purgatory of Luicides," a very remarkable poem, of which, had there been leisure before my departure, I should have made a review, and given copious extracts in the Tribune. Cooper is as strong a man, and probably a milder one, than when in the prison where that poem was written. The earnestness in seeking freedom and happiness for all men, which drew upon him that penalty, seems unabated; he is a very significant type of the new era, and also an agent in bringing it near. One of the poets of the people, also, I saw,--the sweetest singer of them all,--Thom. "A Chieftain unknown to the Queen" is again exacting a cruel tribute from him. I wish much that some of those of New York who have taken an interest in him would provide there a nook in which he might find refuge and solace for the evening of his days, to sing or to work as likes him best, and where he could bring up two fine boys to happier prospects than the parent land will afford them. Could and would America but take from other lands more of the talent, as well as the bone and sinew, she would be rich.

But the stroke of the clock warns me to stop now, and begin to-morrow with fresher eye and hand on some interesting topics. My sketches are slight; still they cannot be made without time, and I find none to be had in this Europe except late at night. I believe it is what all the inhabitants use, but I am too sleepy a genius to carry the practice far.

LETTER IX.

WRITING AT NIGHT.--LONDON.--NATIONAL GALLERY.--MURILLO.--THE FLOWER GIRL.--NURSERY-MAIDS AND WORKING-MEN.--HAMPTON COURT.--ZOoLOGICAL GARDENS.--KING OF ANIMALS.--ENGLISH PIETY.--EAGLES.--SIR JOHN SOANE'S MUSEUM.--KEW GARDENS.--THE GREAT CACTUS.--THE REFORM CLUB HOUSE.--MEN COOKS.--ORDERLY KITCHEN.--A GILPIN EXCURSION.--THE BELL AT EDMONTON.-- OMNIBUS.--CHEAPSIDE.--ENGLISH SLOWNESS.--FREILIGRATH.--ARCADIA.-- ITALIAN SCHOOL.--MAZZINI.--ITALY.--ITALIAN REFUGEES.--CORREGGIO.-- HOPE OF ITALIANS.--ADDRESSES.--SUPPER.--CARLYLE, HIS APPEARANCE, CONVERSATION, &C.

Again I must begin to write late in the evening. I am told it is the custom of the literati in these large cities to work in the night. It is easy to see that it must be almost impossible to do otherwise; yet not only is the practice very bad for the health, and one that brings on premature old age, but I cannot think this night-work will prove as firm in texture and as fair of hue as what is done by sunlight. Give me a lonely chamber, a window from which through the foliage you can catch glimpses of a beautiful prospect, and the mind finds itself tuned to action.

But London, London! I have yet some brief notes to make on London. We had scarcely any sunlight by which to see pictures, and I postponed all visits to private collections, except one, in the hope of being in England next time in the long summer days. In the National Gallery I saw little except the Murillos; they were so beautiful, that with me, who had no true conception of his kind of genius before, they took away the desire to look into anything else at the same time. They did not affect me much either, except with a sense of content in this genius, so rich and full and strong. It was a cup of sunny wine that refreshed but brought no intoxicating visions. There is something very n.o.ble in the genius of Spain, there is such an intensity and singleness; it seems to me it has not half shown itself, and must have an important part to play yet in the drama of this planet.

At the Dulwich Gallery I saw the Flower Girl of Murillo, an enchanting picture, the memory of which must always

"Cast a light upon the day, A light that will not pa.s.s away, A sweet forewarning."

Who can despair when he thinks of a form like that, so full of life and bliss! Nature, that made such human forms to match the b.u.t.terfly and the bee on June mornings when the lime-trees are in blossom, has surely enough of happiness in store to satisfy us all, somewhere, some time.

It was pleasant, indeed, to see the treasures of those galleries, of the British Museum, and of so charming a place as Hampton Court, open to everybody. In the National Gallery one finds a throng of nursery-maids, and men just come from their work; true, they make a great deal of noise thronging to and fro on the uncarpeted floors in their thick boots, and noise from which, when penetrated by the atmosphere of Art, men in the thickest boots would know how to refrain; still I felt that the sight of such objects must be gradually doing them a great deal of good. The British Museum would, in itself, be an education for a man who should go there once a week, and think and read at his leisure moments about what he saw.

Hampton Court I saw in the gloom, and rain, and my chief recollections are of the magnificent yew-trees beneath whose shelter--the work of ages--I took refuge from the pelting shower. The expectations cherished from childhood about the Cartoons were all baffled; there was no light by which they could be seen. But I must hope to visit Hampton Court again in the time of roses.

The Zoological Gardens are another pleasure of the million, since, although something is paid there, it is so little that almost all can afford it. To me, it is a vast pleasure to see animals where they can show out their habits or instincts, and to see them a.s.sembled from, all climates and countries, amid verdure and with room enough, as they are here, is a true poem. They have a fine lion, the first I ever saw that realized the idea we have of the king of the animal world; but the groan and roar of this one were equally royal. The eagles were fine, but rather disgraced themselves. It is a trait of English piety, which would, no doubt, find its defenders among ourselves, not to feed the animals on Sunday, that their keepers may have rest; at least this was the explanation given us by one of these men of the state of ravenous hunger in which we found them on the Monday. I half hope he was jesting with us. Certain it is that the eagles were wild with famine, and even the grandest of them, who had eyed us at first as if we were not fit to live in the same zone with him, when the meat came round, after a short struggle to maintain his dignity, joined in wild shriek and scramble with the rest.

Sir John Soane's Museum I visited, containing the sarcophagus described by Dr. Waagen, Hogarth's pictures, a fine Ca.n.a.letto, and a ma.n.u.script of Ta.s.so. It fills the house once the residence of his body, still of his mind. It is not a mind with which I have sympathy; I found there no law of harmony, and it annoyed me to see things all jumbled together as if in an old curiosity-shop. Nevertheless it was a generous bequest, and much may perhaps be found there of value to him who takes time to seek.

The Gardens at Kew delighted me, thereabouts all was so green, and still one could indulge at leisure in the humorous and fantastic a.s.sociations that cl.u.s.ter around the name of Kew, like the curls of a "big wig" round the serene and sleepy face of its wearer. Here are fourteen green-houses: in one you find all the palms; in another, the productions of the regions of snow; in another, those squibs and humorsome utterances of Nature, the cactuses,--ay! there I saw the great-grandfather of all the cactuses, a h.o.a.ry, solemn plant, declared to be a thousand years old, disdaining to say if it is not really much, older; in yet another, the most exquisitely minute plants, delicate as the tracery of frostwork, too delicate for the bowers of fairies, such at least as visit the gross brains of earthly poets.

The Reform Club was the only one of those splendid establishments that I visited. Certainly the force of comfort can no farther go, nor can anything be better contrived to make dressing, eating, news-getting, and even sleeping (for there are bedrooms as well as dressing-rooms for those who will), as comfortable as can be imagined. Yet to me this palace of so many "single gentlemen rolled into one" seemed _stupidly_ comfortable, in the absence of that elegant arrangement and vivacious atmosphere which only women can inspire. In the kitchen, indeed, I met them, and on that account it seemed the pleasantest part of the building,--though even there they are but the servants of servants.

There reigned supreme a genius in his way, who has published a work on Cookery, and around him his pupils,--young men who pay a handsome yearly fee for novitiate under his instruction. I was not sorry, however, to see men predominant in the cooking department, as I hope to see that and washing transferred to their care in the progress of things, since they are "the stronger s.e.x."

The arrangements of this kitchen were very fine, combining great convenience with neatness, and even elegance. Fourier himself might have taken pleasure in them. Thence we pa.s.sed into the private apartments of the artist, and found them full of pictures by his wife, an artist in another walk. One or two of them had been engraved. _She_ was an Englishwoman.

A whimsical little excursion we made on occasion of the anniversary of the wedding-day of two of my friends. They had often enjoyed reading the account of John Gilpin's in America, and now thought that, as they were in England and near enough, they would celebrate theirs also at "the Bell at Edmonton." I accompanied them with "a little foot-page,"

to eke out the train, pretty and graceful and playful enough for the train of a princess. But our excursion turned out somewhat of a failure, in an opposite way to Gilpin's. Whereas he went too fast, we went too slow. First we took coach and went through Cheapside to take omnibus at (strange misnomer!) the Flower-Pot. But Gilpin could never have had his race through Cheapside as it is in its present crowded state; we were obliged to proceed at a funeral pace. We missed the omnibus, and when we took the next one it went with the slowness of a "family horse" in the old chaise of a New England deacon, and, after all, only took us half-way. At the half-way house a carriage was to be sought. The lady who let it, and all her grooms, were to be allowed time to recover from their consternation at so unusual a move as strangers taking a carriage to dine at the little inn at Edmonton, now a mere alehouse, before we could be allowed to proceed. The English stand lost in amaze at "Yankee notions," with their quick come and go, and it is impossible to make them "go ahead" in the zigzag chain-lightning path, unless you push them. A rather old part of the plan had been a pilgrimage to the grave of Lamb, with a collateral view to the rural beauties of Edmonton, but night had fallen on all such hopes two hours at least before we reached the Bell. _There_, indeed, we found them somewhat more alert to comprehend our wishes; they laughed when we spoke of Gilpin, showed us a print of the race and the window where Mrs. Gilpin must have stood,--balcony, alas!

there was none; allowed us to make our own fire, and provided us a wedding dinner of tough meat and stale bread. Nevertheless we danced, dined, paid (I believe), and celebrated the wedding quite to our satisfaction, though in the s.p.a.ce of half an hour, as we knew friends were even at that moment expecting us to _tea_ at some miles'

distance. But it is always pleasant in this world of routine to act out a freak. "Such a one," said an English gentleman, "one of _us_ would rarely have dreamed of, much, less acted." "Why, was it not pleasant?" "Oh, _very_! but _so_ out of the way!"

Returning, we pa.s.sed the house where Freiligrath finds a temporary home, earning the bread, of himself and his family in a commercial house. England houses the exile, but not without house-tax, window-tax, and head-tax. Where is the Arcadia that dares invite all genius to her arms, and change her golden wheat for their green laurels and immortal flowers? Arcadia?--would the name were America!

And now returns naturally to my mind one of the most interesting things I have seen here or elsewhere,--the school for poor Italian boys, sustained and taught by a few of their exiled compatriots, and especially by the mind and efforts of Mazzini. The name of Joseph Mazzini is well known to those among us who take an interest in the cause of human freedom, who, not content with the peace and ease bought for themselves by the devotion and sacrifices of their fathers, look with anxious interest on the suffering nations who are preparing for a similar struggle. Those who are not, like the brutes that perish, content with the enjoyment of mere national advantages, indifferent to the idea they represent, cannot forget that the human family is one,

"And beats with one great heart."

They know that there can be no genuine happiness, no salvation for any, unless the same can be secured for all.

To this universal interest in all nations and places where man, understanding his inheritance, strives to throw off an arbitrary rule and establish a state of things where he shall be governed as becomes a man, by his own conscience and intelligence,--where he may speak the truth as it rises in his mind, and indulge his natural emotions in purity,--is added an especial interest in Italy, the mother of our language and our laws, our greatest benefactress in the gifts of genius, the garden of the world, in which our best thoughts have delighted to expatiate, but over whose bowers now hangs a perpetual veil of sadness, and whose n.o.blest plants are doomed to removal,--for, if they cannot bear their ripe and perfect fruit in another climate, they are not permitted to lift their heads to heaven in their own.

Some of these generous refugees our country has received kindly, if not with a fervent kindness; and the word _Correggio_ is still in my ears as I heard it spoken in New York by one whose heart long oppression could not paralyze. _Speranza_ some of the Italian youth now inscribe on their banners, encouraged by some traits of apparent promise in the new Pope. However, their only true hope is in themselves, in their own courage, and in that wisdom winch may only be learned through many disappointments as to how to employ it so that it may destroy tyranny, not themselves.

Mazzini, one of these n.o.ble refugees, is not only one of the heroic, the courageous, and the faithful,--Italy boasts many such,--but he is also one of the wise;--one of those who, disappointed in the outward results of their undertakings, can yet "bate no jot of heart and hope," but _must_ "steer right onward "; for it was no superficial enthusiasm, no impatient energies, that impelled him, but an understanding of what _must_ be the designs of Heaven with regard to man, since G.o.d is Love, is Justice. He is one who can live fervently, but steadily, gently, every day, every hour, as well as on great, occasions, cheered by the light of hope; for, with Schiller, he is sure that "those who live for their faith shall behold it living."

He is one of those same beings who, measuring all things by the ideal standard, have yet no time to mourn over failure or imperfection; there is too much to be done to obviate it.

Thus Mazzini, excluded from publication in his native language, has acquired the mastery both of French and English, and through his expressions in either shine the thoughts which animated his earlier effort with mild and steady radiance. The misfortunes of his country have only widened the sphere of his instructions, and made him an exponent of the better era to Europe at large. Those who wish to form an idea of his mind could not do better than to read his sketches of the Italian Martyrs in the "People's Journal." They will find there, on one of the most difficult occasions, an ardent friend speaking of his martyred friends with, the purity of impulse, warmth of sympathy, largeness and steadiness of view, and fineness of discrimination which must belong to a legislator for a CHRISTIAN commonwealth.

But though I have read these expressions with great delight, this school was one to me still more forcible of the same ideas. Here these poor boys, picked up from the streets, are redeemed from bondage and gross ignorance by the most patient and constant devotion of time and effort. What love and sincerity this demands from minds capable of great thoughts, large plans, and rapid progress, only their peers can comprehend, yet exceeding great shall he the reward; and as among the fishermen, and poor people of Judaea were picked up those who have become to modern Europe a leaven that leavens the whole ma.s.s, so may these poor Italian boys yet become more efficacious as missionaries to their people than would an Orphic poet at this period. These youths have very commonly good faces, and eyes from which that Italian fire that has done so much to warm the world glows out. We saw the distribution of prizes to the school, heard addresses from Mazzini, Pistracci, Mariotti (once a resident in our country), and an English gentleman who takes a great interest in the work, and then adjourned to an adjacent room, where a supper was provided for the boys and other guests, among whom we saw some of the exiled Poles. The whole evening gave a true and deep pleasure, though tinged with sadness. We saw a planting of the kingdom of Heaven, though now no larger than a grain of mustard-seed, and though perhaps none of those who watch the spot may live to see the birds singing in its branches.

I have not yet spoken of one of _our_ benefactors, Mr. Carlyle, whom I saw several times. I approached him with more reverence after a little experience of England and Scotland had taught me to appreciate the strength and height of that wall of shams and conventions which he more than any man, or thousand men,--indeed, he almost alone,--has begun to throw down. Wherever there was fresh thought, generous hope, the thought of Carlyle has begun the work. He has torn off the veils from hideous facts; he has burnt away foolish illusions; he has awakened thousands to know what it is to be a man,--that we must live, and not merely pretend to others that we live. He has touched the rocks and they have given forth musical answer; little more was wanting to begin to construct the city.

But that little was wanting, and the work of construction is left to those that come after him: nay, all attempts of the kind he is the readiest to deride, fearing new shams worse than the old, unable to trust the general action of a thought, and finding no heroic man, no natural king, to represent it and challenge his confidence.

Accustomed to the infinite wit and exuberant richness of his writings, his talk is still an amazement and a splendor scarcely to be faced with steady eyes. He does not converse,--only harangues. It is the usual misfortune of such marked men (happily not one invariable or inevitable) that they cannot allow other minds room to breathe and show themselves in their atmosphere, and thus miss the refreshment and instruction, which the greatest never cease to need from the experience of the humblest. Carlyle allows no one a chance, but bears down all opposition, not only by his wit and onset of words, resistless in their sharpness as so many bayonets, but by actual physical superiority, raising his voice and rushing on his opponent with a torrent of sound. This is not the least from unwillingness to allow freedom to others; on the contrary, no man would more enjoy a manly resistance to his thought; but it is the impulse of a mind accustomed to follow out its own impulse as the hawk its prey, and which knows not how to stop in the chase. Carlyle, indeed, is arrogant and overbearing, but in his arrogance there is no littleness or self-love: it is the heroic arrogance of some old Scandinavian conqueror,--it is his nature and the untamable impulse that has given him power to crush the dragons. You do not love him, perhaps, nor revere, and perhaps, also, he would only laugh at you if you did; but you like him heartily, and like to see him the powerful smith, the Siegfried, melting all the old iron in his furnace till it glows to a sunset red, and burns you if you senselessly go too near. He seemed to me quite isolated, lonely as the desert; yet never was man more fitted to prize a man, could he find one to match his mood. He finds such, but only in the past. He sings rather than talks. He pours upon you a kind of satirical, heroical, critical poem, with regular cadences, and generally catching up near the beginning some singular epithet, which, serves as a _refrain_ when his song is full, or with which as with a knitting-needle he catches up the st.i.tches if he has chanced now and then to let fall a row. For the higher kinds of poetry he has no sense, and his talk on that subject is delightfully and gorgeously absurd; he sometimes stops a minute to laugh at it himself, then begins anew with fresh vigor; for all the spirits he is driving before him seem to him as Fata Morganas, ugly masks, in fact, if he can but make them turn about, but he laughs that they seem to others such dainty Ariels. He puts out his chin sometimes till it looks like the beak of a bird, and his eyes flash bright instinctive meanings like Jove's bird; yet he is not calm and grand enough for the eagle: he is more like the falcon, and yet not of gentle blood enough for that either. He is not exactly like anything but himself, and therefore you cannot see him without the most hearty refreshment and good-will, for he is original, rich, and strong enough to afford a thousand, faults; one expects some wild land in a rich kingdom. His talk, like his books, is full of pictures, his critical strokes masterly; allow for his point of view, and his survey is admirable. He is a large subject; I cannot speak more or wiselier of him now, nor needs it; his works are true, to blame and praise him, the Siegfried of England, great and powerful, if not quite invulnerable, and of a might rather to destroy evil than legislate for good. At all events, he seems to be what Destiny intended, and represents fully a certain side; so we make no remonstrance as to his being and proceeding for himself, though we sometimes must for us.

I had meant some remarks on some fine pictures, and the little I saw of the theatre in England; but these topics must wait till my next, where they may connect themselves naturally enough with what I have to say of Paris.

LETTER X.

MORE OF LONDON.--THE MODEL PRISON AT PENTONVILLE.--BATHING ESTABLISHMENT FOR THE POOR.--ALSO ONE FOR WASHING CLOTHES.--THE CReCHES OF PARIS, FOR POOR PEOPLE'S CHILDREN.--OLD DRURY IN LONDON.--SADLER'S WELLS.--ENGLISH AND FRENCH ACTING COMPARED.-- MADEMOISELLE RACHEL.--FRENCH TRAGEDY.--ROSE CHENY.--DUMAS.--GUIZOT.-- THE PRESENTATION AT COURT OF THE YOUNG d.u.c.h.eSS.--BALL AT THE TUILERIES.--AMERICAN AND FRENCH WOMEN.--LEVERRIER.--THE SORBONNE.-- ARAGO.--DISCUSSIONS ON SUICIDE AND THE CRUSADES.--ReMUSAT.--THE ACADEMY.--LA MENNAIS.--BeRANGER.--REFLECTIONS.

Paris.

When I wrote last I could not finish with London, and there remain yet two or three things I wish to speak of before pa.s.sing to my impressions of this wonder-full Paris.

I visited the model prison at Pentonville; but though in some respects an improvement upon others I have seen,--though there was the appearance of great neatness and order in the arrangements of life, kindness and good judgment in the discipline of the prisoners,--yet there was also an air of bleak forlornness about the place, and it fell far short of what my mind demands of such abodes considered as redemption schools. But as the subject of prisons is now engaging the attention of many of the wisest and best, and the tendency is in what seems to me the true direction, I need not trouble myself to make prude and hasty suggestions; it is a subject to which persons who would be of use should give the earnest devotion of calm and leisurely thought.

The same day I went to see an establishment which gave me unmixed pleasure; it is a bathing establishment put at a very low rate to enable the poor to avoid one of thee worst miseries of their lot, and which yet promises _to pay_. Joined with this is an establishment for washing clothes, where the poor can go and hire, for almost nothing, good tubs, water ready heated, the use of an apparatus for rinsing, drying, and ironing, all so admirably arranged that a poor woman can in three hours get through an amount of washing and ironing that would, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, occupy three or four days.

Especially the drying closets I contemplated with great satisfaction, and hope to see in our own country the same arrangements throughout the cities, and even in the towns and villages. Hanging out the clothes is a great exposure for women, even when they have a good place for it; but when, as is so common in cities, they must dry them in the house, how much they suffer! In New York, I know, those poor women who take in washing endure a great deal of trouble and toil from this cause; I have suffered myself from being obliged to send back what had cost them so much toil, because it had been, perhaps inevitably, soiled in the drying or ironing, or filled with the smell of their miscellaneous cooking. In London it is much worse. An eminent physician told me he knew of two children whom he considered to have died because their mother, having but one room to live in, was obliged to wash and dry clothes close to their bed when they were ill. The poor people in London naturally do without washing all they can, and beneath that perpetual fall of soot the result may be guessed. All but the very poor in England put out their washing, and this custom ought to be universal in civilized countries, as it can be done much better and quicker by a few regular laundresses than by many families, and "the washing day" is so malignant a foe to the peace and joy of households that it ought to be effaced from the calendar. But as long as we are so miserable as to have any very poor people in this world, _they_ cannot put out their washing, because they cannot earn enough money to pay for it, and, preliminary to something better, washing establishments like this of London are desirable.

One arrangement that they have here in Paris will be a good one, even when we cease to have any very poor people, and, please Heaven, also to have any very rich. These are the _Creches_,--houses where poor women leave their children to be nursed during the day while they are at work.

I must mention that the superintendent of the washing establishment observed, with a legitimate triumph, that it had been built without giving a single dinner or printing a single puff,--an extraordinary thing, indeed, for England!

To turn to something a little gayer,--the embroidery on this tattered coat of civilized life,--I went into only two theatres; one the Old Drury, once the scene of great glories, now of execrable music and more execrable acting. If anything can be invented more excruciating than an English opera, such as was the fashion at the time I was in London, I am sure no sin of mine deserves the punishment of bearing it.