ays making them sadly tiresome. The first that he saw at the principal
theatre was a version of Balzac's _Pere Goriot_. "The domestic Lear I
thought at first was going to be very clever. But he was too
pitiful--perhaps the Italian reality would be. He was immensely
applauded, though." He afterwards saw a version of Dumas' preposterous
play of _Kean_, in which most of the representatives of English actors
wore red hats with steeple crowns, and very loose blouses with broad
belts and buckles round their waists. "There was a mysterious person
called the Prince of Var-lees" (Wales), "the youngest and slimmest man
in the company, whose badinage in Kean's dressing-room was irresistible;
and the dresser wore top-boots, a Greek skull-cap, a black velvet
jacket, and leather breeches. One or two of the actors looked very hard
at me to see how I was touched by these English peculiarities--especially
when Kean kissed his male friends on both cheeks." The arrangements of
the house, which he described as larger than Drury-lane, he thought
excellent. Instead of a ticket for the private box he had taken on the
first tier, he received the usual key for admission which let him in as
if he lived there; and for the whole set-out, "quite as comfortable and
private as a box at our opera," paid only eight and fourpence English.
The opera itself had not its regular performers until after Christmas,
but in the summer there was a good comic company, and he saw the
_Scaramuccia_ and the _Barber of Seville_ brightly and pleasantly done.
There was also a day theatre, beginning at half past four in the
afternoon; but beyond the novelty of looking on at the covered stage as
he sat in the fresh pleasant air, he did not find much amusement in the
Goldoni comedy put before him. There came later a Russian circus, which
the unusual rains of that summer prematurely extinguished.

The Religious Houses he made early and many enquiries about, and there
was one that had stirred and baffled his curiosity much before he
discovered what it really was. All that was visible from the street was
a great high wall, apparently quite alone, no thicker than a party wall,
with grated windows, to which iron screens gave farther protection. At
first he supposed there had been a fire; but by degrees came to know
that on the other side were galleries, one above another, one above
another, and nuns always pacing them to and fro. Like the wall of a
racket-ground outside, it was