Worked till dinner-time. ---- dined with us: what a handsome man he is; but oh, what a within-and-without actor! I wonder whether I carry such a brand in every limb and look of me; if I thought so, I'd strangle myself. An actor shall be self-convicted, in five hundred. There is a ceaseless striving at effect, a straining after points in talking, and a lamp and orange-peel twist in every action. How odious it is to me! Absolute and unmitigated vulgarity I can put up with, and welcome; but good Heaven defend me from the genteel version of vulgarity! to see which in perfection, a country actor, particularly if he is also manager, and sees occasionally people who bespeak plays, is your best occasion. My dear father, who was a little elated, made me sing to him, which I greatly gulped at. When he was gone, went on playing and singing. Wrote journal, and now to bed. I'm dead of the side-ach.[5] _Sunday, 9th._ Rose at eight. While I was dressing, D---- went out of the room, and presently I heard sundry exclamations: "Good God, is it you! How are you? How have you been?" I opened the door, and saw my uncle. * * * * * After breakfast, went to church with my father: on our way thither-ward met the Doctor, and the Doctor's friend, and Mr. ----, to whom I have taken an especial fancy. The church we went to is situated half way between the Battery and our hotel. It is like a chapel in the exterior, being quite plain, and standing close in among the houses; the interior was large and perfectly simple. The town is filling, and the church was well attended. 'Tis long since I have heard the church service so well read; with so few vices of pronunciation, or vulgarisms of emphasis. Our own clergy are shamefully negligent in this point; and if Chesterfield's maxim be a good one in all cases, which it is, surely in the matter of the service of God's house 'tis doubly so; they lose an immense advantage, too, by their slovenly and careless way of delivering the prayers, which are in themselves so beautiful, so eloquent, so full of the very spirit of devotion; that whereas, now, a congregation seems but to follow their leader, in gabbling them over as they do, were they solemnly, devoutly, and impressively read, many would feel and understand, what they now repeat mechanically, without attaching one idea to the words they utter. There was no clerk to assist in the service, and the congregation were as neglectful of the directions in the prayer-book, and as indolent and remiss in uttering the responses, as they are in our own churches; indeed, the absence of the clerk made the inaudibility of the congregation's portion of the service more palpable than it is with us. The organ and chanting were very good; infinitely superior to the performances of those blessed little parish cherubim, who monopolise the praises of God in our churches, so much to the suffering of all good Christians not favoured with deafness. The