180 CAMBRIDGE. JETAT. 19-22. [1830. 



worked so hard that I had no time ; I arrived here on Monday 

 and found my rooms in dreadful confusion, as they have been 

 taking up the floor, and you may suppose that I have had 

 plenty to do for these two days. The Music Meeting * was 

 the most glorious thing I ever experienced ; and as for 

 Malibran, words cannot praise her enough, she is quite the 

 most charming person I ever saw. We had extracts out of 

 several of the best operas, acted in character, and you cannot 

 imagine how very superior it made the concerts to any I ever 

 heard before. J. de Begnis f acted ' II Fanatico ' in character ; 

 being dressed up an extraordinary figure gives a much greater 

 effect to his acting. He kept the whole theatre in roars of 

 laughter. I liked Madame Blasis very much, but nothing 

 will do after Malibran, who sung some comic songs, and [a] 

 person's heart must have been made of stone not to have lost 

 it to her. I lodged very near the Wedgwoods, and lived 

 entirely with them, which was very pleasant, and had you 

 been there it would have been quite perfect. It knocked me 

 up most dreadfully, and I will never attempt again to do 

 two things the same day. 



C. Darwin to W. D. Fox. 



[Cambridge] Thursday [March, 1830]. 

 MY DEAR FOX, 



I am through my Little-Go ! ! ! I am too much exalted 

 to humble myself by apologising for not having written before. 

 But I assure you before I went in, and when my nerves were 

 in a shattered and weak condition, your injured person often 

 rose before my eyes and taunted me with my idleness. But I 

 am through, through, through. I could write the whole sheet 

 full with this delightful word. I went in yesterday, and have 



* At Birmingham. f De Begnis's Christian jname was Giuseppe. 



