that an earthquake had been felt along the coast near Dover.  A——­ says the world is coming to an end.  We certainly live in strange times, but for that matter so has everybody that ever lived.

[In the admirable letter of Lord Macaulay to Mr. Ellis, describing the division of the house on the second reading of the Reform Bill, given in Mr. Trevelyan’s life of his uncle, the great historian says Horace Twiss’s countenance at the liberal victory looked like that of a “damned soul.”  If, instead of a lost soul, he had said poor Horace looked like a lost seat, he would have been more accurate, if not as picturesque.  Mr. Twiss sat for one of Lord Clarendon’s boroughs, and the passage of the Reform Bill was sure to dismiss him from Parliament; a serious thing in his future career, fortunes, and position.]

I must now tell you what I do next week, that you may know where to find me.  Monday, the king goes to hear “Cinderella,” and I have a holiday and go with my mother to a party at Dr. Granville’s.  Tuesday, I act Belvidera, and afterward go to Lady Dacre’s; I do this because, as I fixed the day myself for her party, not expecting to act that night, I cannot decently get off.  Lady Macdonald’s dinner party is put off; so until Saturday, when I play Beatrice, I shall spend my time in practicing, reading, writing (not arithmetic), walking, working cross-stitch, and similar young-ladyisms.

Good-by, my dear H——.  Give my love to Dorothy, if she will take it; if not, put it to your own share.  I think this letter deserves a long answer.  Mrs. Norton, Chantrey, and Barry Cornwall have come in while I have been finishing this letter; does not that sound pretty and pleasant? and don’t you envy us some of our privileges? My mother has been seeing P——­’s picture of my father in Macbeth this morning, and you never heard anything funnier than her rage at it:  “A fat, red, round, staring, pudsy thing! the eyes no more like his than mine are!” (certainly, no human eyes could be more dissimilar); “and then, his jaw!—­bless my soul, how could he miss it! the Kemble jawbone!  Why, it was as notorious as Samson’s!” Good-by.  Your affectionate

FANNY.

Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Ponsonby, the famous friends of Llangollen, kept during the whole life they spent together under such peculiar circumstances a daily diary, so minute as to include the mention not only of every one they saw (and it must be remembered that their hermitage was a place of fashionable pilgrimage, as well as a hospitable refuge), but also what they had for dinner every day—­so I have been told.

The little box on the stage I have alluded to in this letter as Mrs. Siddons’s was a small recess opposite the prompter’s box, and of much the same proportions, that my father had fitted up for the especial convenience of my aunt Siddons whenever she chose to honor my performances with her presence.  She came to it several times, but the draughts in crossing the stage were bad, and the exertion and excitement too much for her, and her life was not prolonged much after my coming upon the stage.