Here is a letter to his eldest sister:  ’The weather has been better suited for work, and I feel pretty well satisfied with my Hebrew.  What makes it so difficult is principally this, that as it is an Oriental language, it is entirely different in structure, and in its inflections, &c., from any language I ever came across.  I can’t fall back upon anything already learnt to help me; but I see my way pretty clear now, and shall soon have little more than a knowledge of the meaning of the words to learn, which is only a matter of patience, and can be learnt with a good dictionary and practice.  A real complete knowledge of the grammar is of course the great thing.

’The great Dresden fair, called the Vogelschiesser, is going on; it began last Sunday and ends next Sunday.  About half a mile from the town there is a very large meadow by the river, where a small town of booths, tents, &c., is erected, and where shooting at targets with wooden darts, sham railway-trains and riding-horses, confectionery of every kind, beer of every name, strength, and colour, pipes, cigars, toys, gambling, organ-grinding, fiddling, dancing, &c., goes on incessantly.  The great attraction, however, is the shooting at the bird, which occupies the attention of every Saxon, and is looked upon as the consummation of human invention and physical science.  A great pole, nearly 80 feet high, is erected with a wooden bird, about the size of a turkey, at the top; to hit this with a crossbow from a regular stand, about 50 feet from the foot of the pole, is the highest ambition of this great people.  The accompaniments are rich in the extreme:  cannon firing, drums rolling, for a successful shot, the shooting society, who exist only for the sole honour and glory of hacking this bird to pieces, the presence of the King, I think to-day, and the intense interest taken in the amusement by the whole population; certainly the Germans are satisfied with less than any people I ever saw (barring two things, smoke and beer, in which they are insatiable).  I went out to see it all, but it rather bored me after an hour or so.  Tom F——­ and I threw some dice for a pair of braces for Arthur, which we presented in due form; and we had some shots at the targets—­mine were eminently unsuccessful.

’Last night we had a great treat.  Emil Devrient, who has been acting in London, you know, came back, and acted Marquis Posa in “Don Carlos.”  The play acts very much better than it reads.  Schiller certainly has great dramatic genius; only I agree with Goethe that there is always a longing for exhibiting cruelty in its most monstrous form, and refinement of cruelty and depravity overstepping almost the natural conditions of humanity.  I always thought Iago about the most awful character in Shakspeare; but Schiller’s Philip ii. is something beyond even this, without perhaps so much necessity for the exhibition of this absolute delight in evil.  It is long since I have been so excited in a theatre.  I was three rows from the stage, heard and understood everything, and was so completely carried away by the grandeur and intense feeling of Devrient (who was well supported by the Don Carlos), that I had some difficulty to keep quiet, and feel to-day rather odd, shaken, as it were, from such a strain upon the feelings.’