It is most strange that in no country on earth is this afflicting and humiliating spectacle so openly exhibited as in the religious and decorous England. The evil goes to such an extent, that in the theatres it is often difficult to keep off these repulsive beings, especially when they are drunk, which is not seldom the case. They beg in the most shameless manner, and a pretty, elegantly dressed girl does not disdain to take a shilling or a sixpence, which she instantly spends in a glass of rum, like the meanest beggar. And these are the scenes, I repeat, which are exhibited in the national theatre of England, where the highest dramatic talent of the country should be developed; where immortal artists like Garrick, Mrs. Siddons, Miss O'Neil, have enraptured the public by their genius, and where such actors as Kean, Kemble, and Young, still adorn the stage. Is not this--to say nothing of the immorality--in the highest degree low and undignified? It is wholly inconsistent with any real love of art, or conception of its office and dignity. The turbulent scenes I have described above scarcely ever arise out of anything connected with the performance, but have almost always some source quite foreign to it, and no way relating to the stage. Farewell! Ever your L----. LETTER VI. _London, Nov. 25th, 1826._ BELOVED, It is sometimes a perfect want with me to spend a day entirely alone in my own room. I pass it in a sort of dreamy brooding. I go over the past and the future,--all that I have felt and suffered,--till, by the mixture of so many colours, one misty grey tint overspreads the whole; and the dissonances of life melt away at length, in a soft objectless melancholy. The barrel-organs which resound day and night in every street, and are at other times insufferable, are favourable to such a state of mind. They too mingle a hundred different airs, till all music loses itself in an indistinct dreamy ringing in the ears. A much more entertaining thing is another sort of street performance,--a genuine national comedy. It afforded me great amusement from my window, and is well worth a somewhat particular description. The hero of this drama is Punch,--the English Punch,--perfectly different from the Italian Pulcinella. I send you a faithful portrait of him in the act of beating his wife to death;--for he is the most godless droll that ever I met with; and as completely without conscience as the wood out of which he is made;--a little, too, the type of the nation he represents.