Farewell, believe me
Ever yours most respectfully,
Fanny.
[It was lucky for me, under the circumstances, that my notion of Queen Katharine's relations with Cardinal Wolsey were different from those of a lady whom I saw in the part, who at the end of the scene where he finds her working among her women affably gave him her hand. Katharine of Arragon would have been more likely (though not likely) to give him her foot.]
King Street, Friday, 23d.
Dear Hal,
... I had heard a very good summary of D'Israeli's speech from Lord Dacre, the day I dined at Lady Grey's, and know why he said Cobden was like Robespierre. Here's goodly work in Paris now! What wonderful difficult people to teach those French are! However, their lesson will, of course, be set them over and over again, till they've learnt it. Henry Greville had a letter from Adelaide the day before yesterday, in which she says that the people had risen en masse at Rome, and, with the Princes Borghese and Corsini at their head, had gone to the Quirinal, and demanded of the pope that no ecclesiastic (himself, I suppose, excepted) should have any office in the government, and the pope had consented.
She gave a most comical account of the King of Naples, who, it seems, during the late troubles walked up and down his room, wringing his hands, and apostrophizing a figure of the Virgin with "Madonna mia! Madonna mia! ma che imbroglio che m'ha fatto quel Vicario del figlio tuo!" Isn't that funny?
In a letter posted this morning I have told you my general impression of Macready's Macbeth. It is generally good,—better than good in parts,—but nowhere very extraordinary. It is a fair, but not a fine, performance of the part.
I cannot believe that he is purposely unjust to his fellow-actors: but he is so absorbed in himself and his own effects as to be absolutely regardless of them; which, of course, is just as bad for them, though the guilt of his selfishness must be according to its being deliberate or unconscious.