present situation affords anxiety enough to warrant our not looking further in anticipation of vexation, but even if the present be regarded with the best hope of success in his undertaking, the natural consideration must be, as far as he is concerned, “What follows?” It is rather a melancholy consideration that such abilities should be wasted and misapplied.  Our own country is in a perilous state of excitement, and these troubled times make politicians of us all.  Of course the papers will have informed you of the risings in Kent and Sussex; London itself is in an unquiet state that suggests the heaving of a volcano before an eruption.  It is said that the Duke of Wellington must resign; I am ignorant, but it appears to me that whenever he does it will be a bad day’s work for England.  The alarm and anxiety of the aristocracy is extreme, and exhibits itself, even as I have had opportunity of observing in society, in the half-angry, half-frightened tone of their comments on public events.  If one did not sympathize with their apprehensions, their mode of expressing them would sometimes be amusing.

The aspect of public affairs is injurious to the theater, and these graver interests thin our houses while they crowd the houses of Parliament.  However, when we played “The Provoked Husband” before the king and queen the other night, the theater was crammed from floor to ceiling, and presented a most beautiful coup d’oeil.  I have just come out in Mrs. Haller.  It seems to have pleased the people very much.  I need not tell you how much I dislike the play; it is the quintessence of trashy sentimentalism; but our audiences cry and sob at it till we can hardly hear ourselves speak on the stage, and the public in general rejoices in what the servant-maids call “something deep.”  My father acts the Stranger with me, which makes it very trying to my nerves, as I mix up all my own personal feelings for him with my acting, and the sight of his anguish and sense of his displeasure is really very dreadful to me, though it is only all about “stuff and nonsense” after all.

I must leave off writing; I am excruciated with the toothache,
which has tormented me without respite all day.  I will inclose a
line to Mrs. K——­, which I will beg you to convey to her.

With kindest love to all your circle, believe me ever yours,

F. A. K.

Thank you for your delicious French comic song; you should come to
London to hear how admirably I sing it.

Mrs. K——­ was a Miss Dawson, sister of the Right Honorable George Dawson, and the wife of an eminent member of the Irish bar.  She was a woman of great mental cultivation and unusual information upon subjects which are generally little interesting to women.  She was a passionate partisan of Owen the philanthropist and Combe the phrenologist, and entertained the most sanguine hopes of the regeneration of the whole civilized world through the means of