Rose at eight: went and took a bath. After breakfast, went to rehearsal: Venice Preserved, with Mr. Keppel, who did not appear to me to know the words even, and seemed perfectly bewildered at being asked to do the common business of the piece. "Mercy on me! what will he do to-night?" thought I. Came home and got things ready for the theatre. Received a visit from poor Mr. ----, who has got the lumbago, as Sir Peter would say, "on purpose," I believe, to prevent my riding out to-morrow. Dined at three: after dinner, played and sang through Cinderella; wrote journal: at six, went to the theatre. My gown was horribly ill-plaited, and I looked like a blue bag. The house was very full, and they received Mr. K---- with acclamations and shouts of applause. When I went on, I was all but tumbling down at the sight of my Jaffier, who looked like the apothecary in Romeo and Juliet, with the addition of some devilish red slashes along his thighs and arms. The first scene passed well and so: but, oh, the next, and the next, and the next to that! Whenever he was not glued to my side (and that was seldom), he stood three yards behind me; he did nothing but seize my hand, and grapple to it so hard, that unless I had knocked him down (which I felt much inclined to try), I could not disengage myself. In the senate scene, when I was entreating for mercy, and _struggling_, as Otway has it, for my life, he was prancing round the stage in every direction, flourishing his dagger in the air: I wish to Heaven I had got up and run away: it would but have been natural, and have served him extremely right. In the parting scene,--oh what a scene it was!--instead of going away from me when he said "farewell for ever," he stuck to my skirts, though in the same breath that I adjured him, in the words of my part, not to leave me, I added, aside, "Get away from me, oh _do_!" When I exclaimed, "Not one kiss at parting," he kept embracing and kissing me like mad: and when I ought to have been pursuing him, and calling after him, "Leave thy dagger with me," he hung himself up against the wing, and remained dangling there for five minutes. I was half crazy! and the good people sat and swallowed it all: they deserved it, by my troth, they did. I prompted him constantly; and once, after struggling in vain to free myself from him, was obliged, in the middle of my part, to exclaim, "You hurt me dreadfully, Mr. Keppel!" He clung to me, cramped me, crumpled me,--dreadful! I never experienced any thing like this before, and made up my mind that I never would again. I played of course like a wretch, finished my part as well as I could, and, as soon as the play was over, went to my father and Mr. Simpson, and declared to them both my determination not to go upon the stage again, with that gentleman for a hero. Three trials are as many as, in reason, any body can demand, and, come what come may, _I_ will not be subjected to this sort of experiment again.