[Later, March 17 or 18.] On Monday we had to dinner Severn and Cawthorn, the Bookseller and print-virtuoso; in the evening Severn went home to paint, and we other three went to the play, to see Sheil's new tragedy ycleped Evadne. In the morning Severn and I took a turn round the Museum--There is a Sphinx there of a giant size, and most voluptuous Egyptian expression, I had not seen it before. The play was bad even in comparison with 1818, the Augustan age of the Drama, "comme on sait," as Voltaire says--the whole was made up of a virtuous young woman, an indignant brother, a suspecting lover, a libertine prince, a gratuitous villain, a street in Naples, a Cypress grove, lilies and roses, virtue and vice, a bloody sword, a spangled jacket, one Lady Olivia, one Miss O'Neil alias Evadne, alias Bellamira, alias--Alias--Yea, and I say unto you a greater than Elias--There was Abbot, and talking of Abbot his name puts me in mind of a spelling-book lesson, descriptive of the whole Dramatis personae--Abbot--Abbess--Actor-- Actress--The play is a fine amusement, as a friend of mine once said to me--"Do what you will," says he, "a poor gentleman who wants a guinea, cannot spend his two shillings better than at the playhouse." The pantomime was excellent, I had seen it before and I enjoyed it again. Your Mother and I had some talk about Miss H.---- Says I, will Henry have that Miss ----, a lath with a boddice, she who has been fine drawn--fit for nothing but to cut up into Cribbage pins, to the tune of 15.2; one who is all muslin; all feathers and bone; once in travelling she was made use of as a lynch pin; I hope he will not have her, though it is no uncommon thing to be _smitten with a staff_; though she might be very useful as his walking-stick, his fishing-rod, his tooth-pik, his hat-stick (she runs so much in his head)--let him turn farmer, she would cut into hurdles; let him write poetry, she would be his turn-style. Her gown is like a flag on a pole; she would do for him if he turn freemason; I hope she will prove a flag of truce; when she sits languishing with her one foot on a stool, and one elbow on the table, and her head inclined, she looks like the sign of the crooked billet--or the frontispiece to Cinderella, or a tea-paper wood-cut of Mother Shipton at her studies; she is a make-believe--She is bona _s_ide a thin young 'oman--But this is mere talk of a fellow-creature; yet pardie I would not that Henry have her--Non volo ut eam possideat, nam, for, it would be a bam, for it would be a sham--