Cool and clear. This day was spent in writing my private letters home and some public ones. It kept me pretty steadily at my desk from ten until half past four o’clock, I then took a short walk with Brooks who is getting better. After dinner, I went with him to the St James’s Theatre, a small place scarcely with room enough to hold a thousand people. Only five or six performers in three pieces. They were good artists however. The first was a serious drama in four Acts called the isle of Sr Tropez. The plot is simple, and yet not without art in producing effects. A woman in love with a young man, yet marries from a sense of obligation the benefactor of her father and herself. The husband discovers the truth and becomes alienated. His friends jealous of the Wife endeavours to undermine her character in his esteem. The husband proposes to start in search of the youth, and in the mean time leaves a will in the hands of his friend which cuts off his wife and leaves all his property to him. The friend thinks he may as well inherit at once, so he cunningly infuses poison into the draught, which the Wife prepares. Of course the suspicion is fixed upon her. Thus the matter is left at the end of the third act. Then comes the denouement which detects the rogue and villain but too late to save the husband. The interest was well sustained throughout. Two comic pieces called the Bengal Tiger and Dane on both sides were performed better than they deserve to be. Home before midnight.