[My youngest brother Henry had a passionate desire to be a sailor, and never exhibited the slightest inclination for any other career. Admiral Lake, who was a very kind friend of my father's and mother's, knowing this to be the lad's bent, offered, on one occasion, to take charge of him, and have him trained for his profession under his own supervision. Such, however, was my mother's horror of the sea, and dread of losing her darling, if she surrendered him to be carried from her to Nova Scotia, whither I think Admiral Lake was bound when he offered to take my brother with him, that she induced my father to decline this most friendly and advantageous offer. Henry never after that exhibited the slightest preference for any other profession, and always said, "They may put me at a plow-tail if they like." He went through Westminster School, after a previous training at Bury St. Edmunds, not otherwise than creditably; but a very modest estimate of his own capacity made him beg not to be sent to Cambridge, where he said he was sure he should only waste money, and do himself and us no credit. (The bitter disappointment of my brother John's failure there had made a deep impression upon him.) Finally it was decided that he should go into the army, and the friendly interest of Sir John Macdonald and the liberal price Mr. Murray gave me for my play of "Francis I." enabled me to get him a commission; it was the time when they were still purchasable. My poor mother, unable to refuse her consent to this second favorable opportunity of starting him in life, acquiesced in his military, though she had thwarted his naval, career, and was well content to see her boy-ensign sent over with his troops to Ireland. But from Ireland his regiment was ordered to the West Indies, and after his departure thither she never again saw him in her life.]

I think it would be a wise thing if I were to go to America and work till I have made 10,000l., then return to England and go the round of the provinces, and act for a few nights' leave-taking in London. Prudence would then, perhaps, find less difficulty in adjusting my plans for the future. That is what I think would be well for me to do, supposing all things remain as they are and God preserves my health and strength. It will not do to verify all Poitier's lugubrious congratulation to his children in the Vaudeville on their marriage:

"Ji! Ji! mariez-vous,
Mettez-vous dans la misère!
Ji! Ji! mariez-vous,
Mettez-vous la corde au cou."

... Jealousy, surely, is a disposition to suspect and take umbrage where there is no cause for suspicion or offense, which, to say the least of it, is very unreasonable; but that a woman should break her heart because her husband does love another woman better than her, seems to me natural enough, and with regard to Bianca, her provocations certainly warranted a very rational amount of misery; and though, had she not been a woman of violent passions and a jealous temperament, she probably would not have taken the means she did of resenting Fazio's treatment of her, it appears to me that nothing but divine assistance and the strongest religious principle could preserve one under such circumstances from despair, madness, suicide, perhaps; hardly, however, the murder of one's husband. But assassinating other people seems a much more common mode of relieving their feelings among Italians than destroying themselves, which is rather a northern way of meeting, I should say of avoiding, difficulties.

I have had a holiday this week, and every now and then have written a word or two of "La Estrella;" it will never be done, and when it is it will be the horridest trash that ever was done; but I will let you have the pleasure of reading it, I promise you. On Monday I play that favorite detestation of mine, Euphrasia; the Monday after that my father hopes to be able for Mercutio, and I return to Juliet. By the by, you say Bianca is my best part, and I think my Juliet is better; I am not sure that there is not some kindred in the characters. We are going to bring out a play of Lord Francis', translated from the French, a sort of melodrama in blank verse, in which I have to act a part that I cannot do the least in the world, but of course that doesn't signify.

["Katharine of Cleves," translated from the French play of "Henri Trois et sa Cour," and made the subject of one of Mr. Barham's inimitably comical poems in the "Ingoldsby Legends." Mdlle. Mars acted the part of the heroine in Paris, and it was one of several semi-tragical characters, in which, at the end of her great theatrical career, she reaped fresh laurels in an entirely new field, and showed the world that she might have been one of the best serious, not to say tragic, actresses of the French stage, as well as its one unrivaled female comedian.]

We have spent a wretched Christmas, as you may suppose; a house with its head sick all but to death, and all its members smitten with the direst anxiety, is not the place for a merry one. God bless you, my dear, and send you years of peace of mind and health of body! this is, I suppose, what we mean when we wish for happiness here, either for ourselves or others. Give my love and kindest good wishes to your people.

Have you seen in the papers that poor Torrijos and his little band, consisting of sixty men, several of whom John knew well, have been lured into the interior of Spain, and there taken prisoners and shot? This news has shocked us all dreadfully, especially poor John. You may imagine how grateful we are that he is now among us, instead of having fallen a victim to his chimerical enthusiasm. I hardly know how to deplore the event for Torrijos himself: death has spared him the bitter disappointment of at last being convinced that the people he would have made free are willing slaves, and that the time when Spain is to lift herself up from the dust has not yet come.

I went the other day with John to the Angerstein Gallery.... The delight I find in a fine painting is one of the greatest and most enduring pleasures I have; my mind retains the impression so long and so very vividly.... Good-by, my dearest H——.

Ever affectionately yours,