only just out of gaol, and has neither actors nor scenes to get up a play withal. While he was here, came missives from the proprietors of the Holliday Street theatre, to inform my father that it was lighted up, and requesting him to come and look at it. This was awkward rather. When Mr. ---- was gone, I came to my room, where I remained without a fire, cold without and disconsolate within, till past one o'clock. I did not know it was New-Year's eve; and so the waters carried me over this other dam without my looking back at what was past, or forward at what is to come: and why should I?--surely "the thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done, is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun:" sorrow and joy, hoping and fearing, pain and pleasure, laughing and weeping, striving and yielding,--they will all come again and again, and all things will be the same, till all things cease. _Tuesday, January, 1st_, } _New-Year's Day_, } 1833. There it lies in its cradle! its pure forehead yet unstained by sin, unfurrowed by care; and not an hour shall have passed without the traces of both becoming visible. And where is the mother gone? where is the fulfilled year?--Gone sorrowing to join the crowd of ancestors, who witness each against me for the unthrift waste I have made of the rich legacies they one by one have bestowed on me. Oh, new-born year! ere half thy hours are spent, how often will my weary spirit have wished them fleeter wings than even those they wear! What secrets are there folded in thy breast,--what undreamt-of chances,--what strange befallings,--what unforeseen sorrows,--what unexpected joys! Perhaps, in the mysterious accomplishments with which thou art laden, my death may be numbered!--perhaps, ere thy course be duly run, the death of Time may be decreed! Oh! this life, and all things in it, remind me of the thin veils of spiders' webs which divided Desire from his aim, and which, though light and transparent, were so numerous, that to lift them all away was hopeless. After breakfast, began writing journal. 'Twas not until dating it that I discovered it was New-year's day. When I did so, and looked at my strange surroundings, at the gloomy wintry sky, and thought of the heathenish disregard with which I was passing over, in this far land, the season of home-gathering and congregating of kin in my own country, I could not refrain from crying bitterly. In spite of the pouring rain, and Mr. ----'s hints to keep us away, my father, who wished to ascertain the truth of the reports with regard to the state of his theatre, set forward thither with me. We found a very large handsome house, larger, I think, than the Park, but dirty, dilapidated, and looking as if there had been eleven executions in it that morning. No actors, scarcely any scenes,--in short, such a state of things as rendered it totally impossible for us to think of acting there. Came