“Bluecher is a veteran-looking soldier, a very fine head, monstrous mustaches.  His head is bald, like papa’s, his hair gray, and he wears powder.  Understanding that he was to be at Covent Garden Theatre, I went, as the best place to see him, and I was not disappointed.  He was in the Prince’s box, and I had a good view of him during the whole entertainment, being directly before him for three or four hours.  A few nights since I also went to the theatre to see Platoff, the hetman (chief) of the Cossacks.  He has also a very fine countenance, a high and broad forehead, dark complexion, and dark hair.  He is tall and well-made, as I think the Cossacks are generally.  He was very much applauded by a crowded house, the most part collected to see him.”

The following letter is from Washington Allston written in Bristol, on July 5, 1814:—­

MY DEAR SIR,—­I received your last on Saturday and should have answered your first letter but for two reasons.

First, that I had nothing to say; which, I think, metaphysicians allow to be the most natural as well as the most powerful cause of silence.

Second, that, if I had had anything to say, the daily expectation which I entertained of seeing you allowed no confidence in the hope that you would hear what I had to say should I have said it.

I thank you for your solicitude, and can assure you that both Mrs. Allston and myself are in every respect better than when we left London.  Mr. King received me, as I wished, with undiminished kindness, and was greatly pleased with the pictures.  He has not, however, seen the large one, which, to my agreeable surprise, I have been solicited from various quarters to exhibit, and that, too, without my having given the least intimation of such a design.  I have taken Merchant Tailors’ Hall (a very large room) for this purpose, and shall probably open it in the course of next week.

Perhaps you will be surprised to hear that I have been retouching it.  I have just concluded a fortnight’s hard work upon it, and have the satisfaction to add that I have been seldom better satisfied than with my present labor.  I have repainted the greater part of the draperies—­ indeed, those of all the principal figures, excepting the Dead Man—­with powerful and positive colors, and added double strength to the shadows of every figure, so that for force and distinctness you would hardly know it for the same picture.  The “Morning Chronicle” would have no reason now to complain of its “wan red."...

I am sorry that Parliament has been so impolite to you in procrastinating the fireworks.  But they are an unpolished set and will still be in the dark age of incivility notwithstanding their late illuminations.  However I am in great hopes that the good people of England will derive no small degree of moral embellishment from their pure admiration of the illustrious General B——­, who, it is said, for drinking and gaming has no equal.