“For myself, as ignorant of Latin or of Greek as the smuggest alderman or slimmest damsel present, I had my own share in the pageant. In spite of all remonstrance the dear Doctor would insist on my writing the authorised account of the play—the grand official critique which filled I know not how many columns of _The Reading Mercury_, and was sent east, west, north and south wherever mammas and grand-mammas were found. Of course it was necessary to mention everybody and to commit all the injustice which belongs to a forced equality by praising some too little and some too much. The too little was more frequent than the too much, for the boys, as a body, did act marvellously, especially those who filled the female parts, making one understand how the ungentle sex might have rendered the Desdemonas and the Imogens in James’s day.... One circumstance only a little injured the perfect grouping of the scene. The visitation occurred in October, not long after the conclusion of the summer holidays, and between cricket and boating and the impossibility of wearing gloves ... our Helens and Antigones exhibited an assortment of sunburnt fists that might have become a tribe of Red Indians.... Sophocles is Sophocles nevertheless; and seldom can his power have been more thoroughly felt than in these performances at Reading School.” “The good Doctor,” she continues, “full of kindness, and far too learned for pedantry, rewarded my compliance with his wishes in the way I liked best, by helping me to enter into the spirit of the mighty masters who dealt forth these stern Tragedies of Destiny. He put into my hands le Père Brumoy’s ‘Théâtre des Grecs,’ and other translations in homely French prose, where the form and letter were set forth, untroubled by vexatious attempts at English verse—grand outlines for imagination to colour and fill up.” In the month of May, 1809, Mary was staying in Hans Place with her friend Miss Rowden, who had become the Head of the school on the retirement of Monsieur and Madame St. Quintin; these latter, however, still continued to live in Hans Place although in a different house. Mary went much into society with her kind friends, and greatly enjoyed frequent visits to the theatre.