--it must
go to the Printers along with the Play which it prates about.

I think I once knew why the two Cities in Egypt and Boeotia were alike
named Thebes; and perhaps could now find out from some Books now stowed
away in a dark Closet which affrights my Eyes to think of. But any of
your learned friends in London will tell you, and probably more
accurately than Paddy. I cannot doubt but that Sphinx and heaps more of
the childish and dirty mythology of Greece came from Egypt, and who knows
how far beyond, whether in Time or Space!

Your Uncle, the great John, did enact OEdipus in some Tragedy, by whom I
know not: I have a small Engraving of him in the Character, from a
Drawing of that very clever artist De Wilde; {210} but this is a heavy
Likeness, though it may have been a true one of J. K. in his latter
years, or in one of his less inspired--or more asthmatic--moods. This
portrait is one of a great many (several of Mrs. Siddons) in a Book I
have--and which I will send you if you would care to see it: plenty of
them are rubbish such as you would wonder at a sensible man having ever
taken the trouble to put together. But I inherit a long-rooted Affection
for the Stage: almost as real a World to me as Jaques called it. Of
yourself there is but a Newspaper Scrap or two: I think I must have cut
out and given you what was better: but I never thought any one worth
having except Sir Thomas', which I had from its very first Appearance,
and keep in a large Book along with some others of a like size: Kean,
Mars, Talma, Duchesnois, etc., which latter I love, though I heard more
of them than I saw.

Yesterday probably lighted you up once again in London, as it did us down
here. 'Richard' thought he began to feel himself up to his Eyes again:
but To-day all Winter again, though I think I see the Sun resolved on
breaking through the Snow clouds. My little Aconites--which are
sometimes called 'New Year Gifts,' {211a} have almost lived their little
Lives: my Snowdrops look only too much in Season; but we will hope that
all this Cold only retards a more active Spring.

I should not have sent you the Play till Night had I thought you would
sit up that same night to read it. Indeed, I had put it away for the
Night Post: but my old Hermes came in to say he was going into Town to
market, and so he took it with him to Post.

Farewell for the present--till next Full Moon? I am really glad that all
that Atlantic worry has blown