. . . You like to hear of men and manners. Have I not been to London for
a whole fortnight, seen Alfred, Spedding, all the lawyers and all the
painters, gone to Panoramas of Naples by Volcano-light (Vesuvius in a
blaze illuminating the whole bay, which Morton says is not a bit better
than Plymouth Sound, if you could put a furnace in the belly of Mount
Edgecumbe)--gone to see the Antigone of Messrs. Sophocles and Mendelssohn
at Covent Garden--gone to see the Infant Thalia--now as little of an
Infant as a Thalia--at the Adelaide Gallery. So! you see things go on as
when you were with us. Only the Thalia has waxed in stature: and perhaps
in wisdom also: but that is not in her favour. The Antigone is, as you
are aware, a neatly constructed drama, on the French model; the music
very fine, _I_ thought--but you would turn up your nose at it, I dare
say. It was horribly ill sung, by a chorus in shabby togas, who looked
much more like dirty bakers than Theban (were they?) respectable old
gentlemen. Mr. Vandenhoff sat on a marble camp-stool in the middle, and
looked like one of Flaxman's Homeric Kings--very well. And Miss
Vandenhoff did Antigone. I forget the name of the lady who did Ismene;
{189} perhaps you would have thought her very handsome: but I did not,
nor was she considered at all remarkable, as far as I could make out. I
saw no pantomimes: and all the other theatres were filled with Balfe,
whom perhaps you admire very much. So I won't say anything about him
till you have told me what you think on his score. . . .
Well and have you read 'Eothen' which all the world talks of? And do you
know who it is written by? . . . Then Eliot Warburton has written an
Oriental Book! Ye Gods! In Shakespeare's day the nuisance was the
Monsieur Travellers who had 'swum in a gundello'; but now the bores are
those who have smoked _tschibouques_ with a _Peshaw_! Deuce take it: I
say 'tis better to stick to muddy Suffolk.
_To Bernard Barton_.
GELDESTONE, _April_ 3/45.