which he intended to dedicate to poor English people, who might come out here, and die without the means of being decently laid to rest. We looked, with this view, at a patch of ground on the slope of a high hill, well shadowed over with trees, and descending to a great depth to a dark pond, shining in the hollow like an emerald. 'Twas sad and touching to gaze at that earth, with the thought that amidst strangers, and in a strange land, the pity of a fellow-countryman should here allot to his brethren a grave in the quiet and solemn beauty of this hallowed ground. Our time was limited; so, after lingering for a short space along the narrow pathways that wind among dwellings of the dead, we rode home. We reached Boston at a quarter to seven. My father and D---- were already gone to the theatre. I dressed, and went over myself immediately. The play was begun: the house was not very full. The managers have committed the greatest piece of mismanagement imaginable,--they advertise my father alone in Hamlet to-night, and instead of making me play alone to-morrow night, and so securing our attraction singly before we act together, we are _both_ to act to-morrow in Fazio, which circumstance, of course, kept the house thin to-night. My father's Hamlet is very beautiful. 'Tis curious, that when I see him act I have none of the absolute feeling of contempt for the profession that I have while acting myself. What he does appears, indeed, like the work of an artist; and though I always lament that he loves it as he does, and has devoted so much care and labour to it as he has, yet I certainly respect acting more while I am seeing him act than at any other time.[95] Yet surely, after all, acting is nonsense, and as I sit here opposite the churchyard, it seems to me strange to think, that when I come down into that darkness, I shall have eaten bread, during my life, earned by such means. The Ophelia was perfectly beautiful: I think I scarcely ever saw a more faultless piece of mortality in point of outward loveliness. The eyes and brow of an angel, serene and calm, yet bright and piercing; a mouth chiselled like a Grecian piece of sculpture, with an expression of infinite refinement; fair round arms and hands, a beautifully-moulded foot, and a figure that seemed to me perfectly proportioned. It did not perhaps convey to me the idea of such absolute loveliness as ----'s figure did; but altogether I think I never saw a fairer woman--it was delightful lo look at her.[96] The audience are, upon the whole, cold;--very still and attentive, however, and when they do warm, it is certainly very effectually, for they shout and hurrah like mad. * * * * * _Wednesday, 27th._