to others.  I know but one term that, as the old writers say, “delivers” her fully, and though it is not unfrequently applied, I think she is the only person I know who really deserves it; she is absolutely unselfish.  I am sure, dear H——­, you will excuse this panegyric, though you do not know how well it is deserved; the proof of its being so is that there is not one of us but would say the same of aunt Dall.

My father’s benefit took place last Wednesday, when I acted Isabella; the house was crowded, and the play very successful; I think I played it well, and I take credit to myself for so doing, for I dislike both play and part extremely.  The worst thing I do in it is the soliloquy when I am about to stab Biron, and the best, my death.  My dresses were very beautiful, and I am exceedingly glad the whole thing is over.  I suppose it will be my last new part this season.  I am reading with great pleasure a purified edition, just published, of the old English dramatists; the work, as far as my ignorance of the original plays will enable me to judge, seems very well executed, and I owe the editor many thanks for some happy hours spent with his book.  I have just heard something which annoys me not a little:  I am to prepare to act Mrs. Haller.  I know very well that nobody was ever at liberty in this world to do what they liked and that only; but when I know with what task-like feeling I set about most of my work, I am both amused and provoked when people ask me if I do not delight in acting.  I have not an idea what to do with that part; however, I must apply myself to it, and try; such mawkish sentiment, and such prosaic, commonplace language seem to me alike difficult to feel and to deliver.

My dear H——­, I shall be in Ireland the whole month of July.  I am coming first to Dublin, and shall afterward go to Cork.  You really must not be away when I come, for if you are, I won’t come, which is good Irish, isn’t it?  I do not feel as you do, at all, about the sea.  Instead of depressing my spirits, it always raises them; it seems to me as if the vast power of the great element communicated itself to me.  I feel strong, as I run by the side of the big waves, with something of their strength, and the same species of wild excitement which thunder and lightning produce in me always affects me by the sea-shore.  I never saw the sea but once violently agitated, and then I was so well pleased with its appearance that I took a boat and went out into the bustle, singing with all my might, which was the only vent I could find for my high spirits; it is true that I returned in much humiliation, very seasick, after a short “triumph of Galatea” indeed.

You ask me in one of your last why I do not send you verses any more, as I used to do, and whether I still write any.  So here I send you some which I improvised the other day in your honor, and which, written hurriedly as they were, will not, I think, stand the test