in Dublin, nor do I
believe she knows herself; but before this letter reaches you, you will
have found out. I had almost a mind to ask her to write to me, but then
I knew both how she hates it and how little time she was likely to have,
so I forbore. She has left me with the pleasing expectation that any of
these days her eccentric musical friend Dessauer may walk in, to be by
me received, lodged, entertained, comforted, and consoled, in her
absence (in which case, by-the-by, you know, I should associate with him
while she is away). From parts of his letters which she has read to me,
I feel very much inclined to like him, ... and I imagine I shall find
him very amusing....

You ask about our getting up of "The Hunchback" at the Francis
Egertons'. I forget whether you knew that Horace Wilson [my kind friend
and connection, the learned Oxford Professor of Sanscrit, who to his
many important acquirements and charming qualities added the
accomplishments of a capital musician and first-rate amateur actor] has
been seriously indisposed, and so out of health and spirits as to have
declined the part of Master Walter, which he was to have taken in it.
This has been a great disappointment to me, for he would have done it
admirably, and as he is a person of whom I am very fond, it would have
been agreeable to me to have had him among us, and I should have
particularly liked him for so important a coadjutor. He failing us,
however, Knowles himself has undertaken to play the part, and I shall be
glad enough to do it with him again. I have a great deal of
compassionate admiration for poor Knowles, who, with his undeniable
dramatic genius, his bright fancy, and poetical imagination, will, I
fear, end his days either in a madhouse or a poorhouse. The characters
beside Sir Thomas Clifford and Modus (which you know are taken by Henry
Greville and ----) are filled by a pack of young Guardsmen, with whom I
dined, in order to make acquaintance, at Lady Francis's t'other day. Two
of them, Captain Seymour and a son of Sir Francis Coles, are
acquaintances of yours and your people.

You ask how I am amusing myself. Why, just as usual, which is well
enough. I am of too troubled a nature ever to lack excitement, and have
an advantage over most people in the diversion I am able to draw from
very small sources.

I went last night to the French play, to see a French actress called
Dejazet make her first appearance in London. The house was filled