My Fazio had a pair of false black whiskers on, which distilled a black stripe of trickling cement down his cheeks, and kept me in agony every time he had to embrace me. My voice was horrible to hear; alternately like Mrs. ---- and ----, and every now and then it was all I could do to utter at all. This audience is the most unapplausive I ever acted to, not excepting my _excitable_ friends north of the Tweed. They were very attentive, certainly, but how they did make me work! 'Tis amazing how much an audience loses by this species of hanging back, even where the silence proceeds from unwillingness to interrupt a good performance: though in reality it is the greatest compliment an actor can receive, yet he is deprived by that very stillness of half his power. Excitement is reciprocal between the performer and the audience: he creates it in them, and receives it back again from them; and in that last scene in Fazio, half the effect that I produce is derived from the applause which I receive, the very noise and tumult of which tends to heighten the nervous energy which the scene itself begets. I know that my aunt Siddons has frequently said the same thing. And besides the above reason for applause, the physical powers of an actor require, after any tremendous exertion, the rest and regathering of breath and strength, which the interruption of the audience affords him; moreover, as 'tis the conventional mode of expressing approbation in a theatre, it is chilling and uncomfortable to go toiling on, without knowing whether, as the maidservants say, "one gives satisfaction or no." They made noise enough, however, at the end of the play. Came home, supped, and to bed; weary to death, and with a voice like a cracked bagpipe. _Saturday, 13th._ Rose at half-past eight. After breakfast, wrote journal; practised for an hour; got things ready for to-morrow; put on my habit, which I had no sooner done than the perverse clouds began to rain. The horses came at two, but the weather was so bad that I sent them away again. Practised for another hour, read a canto in Dante, and dressed for dinner. After dinner, worked and practised. Came to my own room, and tried to scribble something for the Mirror, at my father's request; the editors having made an especial entreaty to him that I might write something for them, and also sit to some artist for them. I could not accomplish any thing, and they must just take something that I have by me: as for my physiognomy, that they shall certainly not have with my own good leave. I will never expend so much useless time again as to sit for my picture; nor will I let any unhappy painter again get abused for painting me as I am, which is any thing but what I look like. Lawrence alone could do it: there is no other that could see my spirit through my face; and as for the face without that, the less that is seen of it the better. Came down to tea, and found a young gentleman sitting with my father; one Mr. ----.