very still in their solicitations, leves sub nocte susurri are the loudest violences they offer to the solemnity of silence and dignity of municipal institutions.
Peg Plunket is dying. Do you know that H has a pension on this establishment? Poor Mr. O’Neill is very ill. Mr. Greville hardly hoped for. Mr. Sheridan[1] has one foot in his grave. By Mrs. Lefanu’s account, he is no more than sixty-six. He sailed yesterday with Miss Sheridan and Mrs. Crewe for England, to consult in London upon his case (dropsy and jaundice they say) with Dr. Turton. Between you and me, Mrs. Lefanu told me she firmly believed that, finding himself too old and weak to undertake the direction of the county schools, which do not exist anywhere but in his own brain, this disappointment of his whole life’s hopes had contributed more than disease to destroy his nerves and debilitate his faculties.
Have you seen Mr. Hitchcock’s History of the Irish Stage? It is the first volume of a work commencing at the earliest and proceeding to the latest date of theatres in this kingdom. It is full of wretched blunders in facts, and stuffed with whole pages of follies in opinions.
I fancy Jephson is the only one of my acquaintance you have in London now. Pray give him my best compliments, and believe me, dear sir, most sincerely your servant and friend, J. P. Kemble.
Two letters from Lord Charlemont form his contributions for the year; one mentions the transmission of a translation from the Italian. His name is not to be affixed, and it is to be “corrected without mercy.” His idea of rendering one language into another is perfectly just, were it always practicable.
“Not content with giving the sense of an author, I would always wish, if possible, to communicate his manner. This is, in my opinion, best done by, as far
- ↑ Mr. Thomas Sheridan, father of Richard Brinsley.
