My determination to soften the character of Camiola is another indication of my imperfect comprehension of my business as an actress, which was not to reform but to represent certain personages.  Massinger’s “Maid of Honor” is a stern woman, not without a very positive grain of coarse hardness in her nature.  My attempt to soften her was an impertinent endeavor to alter his fine conception to something more in harmony with my own ideal of womanly perfection.  I was a very indifferent actress and had not begun to understand my work, nor was Mr. Macready far wrong when, many years after, he spoke to me as “not knowing the rudiments of my profession.”

JOURNAL, 1831.

Thursday, April 21st.—­Walked in the square, and studied Lady Teazle.  The trees are thickly clothed with leaves, and the new-mown grass, even in the midst of London, smelt fresh and sweet; I was quite alone in the square, and enjoyed something like a country sensation.  I went to Pickersgill, and Mrs. Jameson came while I was sitting to him; that Medora of his is a fine picture, full of poetry.  We dined with the Harnesses; Milman and Croly were among the guests (it was a sort of Quarterly Review in the flesh).  I like Mr. Milman; not so the other critic.

Friday, 22d.—­Visiting with my mother; called on Lady Dacre, who gave me her pretty little piece of “Wednesday Morning,” with a view to our doing it for my father’s benefit.  It is really very pretty, but I fear will look in our large theater as a lady’s water-color sketch of a landscape would by way of a scene.  I walked in the square in the afternoon, and studied Lady Teazle, which I do not like a bit, and shall act abominably.  At the theatre to-night the house was not very full, and the audience were unpleasantly inclined to be political; they took one of the speeches, “The king, God bless him,” and applied it with vehement applause to his worthy Majesty, William IV.

Saturday, 23d.—­After my riding lesson, went and sat in the library to hear Sheridan Knowles’s play of “The Hunchback.”  Mr. Bartley and my father and mother were his only audience, and he read it himself to us.  A real play, with real characters, individuals, human beings, it is a good deal after the fashion of our old playwrights, and does not disgrace its models.  I was delighted with it; it is full of life and originality; a little long, but that’s a trifle.  There is a want of clearness and coherence in the plot, and the comic part has really no necessary connection with the rest of the piece; but none of that will signify much, or, I think, prevent it from succeeding.  I like the woman’s part exceedingly, but am afraid I shall find it very difficult to act.

After dinner there was a universal discussion as to the possibility and probability of Adorni’s self-sacrifice in “The Maid of Honor,” and as the female voices were