hear, voices that fire me like a trumpet, or melt me like a flute. Those godlike instruments make more music for me than all the fiddles that ever squeaked since the time that Nero fiddled when Rome was afire."
Among his brother-dramatists he yielded Boucicault the first place. "Like Shakespeare and Molière," he said, "the beggar steals everything he can lay his hands on; but he does it so deftly, so cleverly, that I can't help condoning the theft. He picks up a pebble by the shore and polishes it into a jewel. Occasionally, too, he writes divine lines, and knows more about the grammar of the stage than all the rest of them put together." Byron's fertility and fecundity excited his astonishment more than his admiration. Up to the production of "'Twixt Axe and Crown," he maintained that Tom Taylor was the strongest and straightest playwright we have; "but," said he, "one must draw the line at Shakespeare and milk-and-water."
Critics he detested, and alleged that their attempted jurisdiction was a simple impertinence to men of letters. He was never weary of dilating upon "the insolence, the ignorance, and the intolerable stupidity of the gentlemen who arrogate to themselves the right to form and guide public opinion. My great disadvantage among these gentry is because I write the English language, which they don't understand, and because I belong to the 'not inconsiderable class of men who have not the advantage of being dead!' While Dickens and Bulwer and Thackeray were alive, these gadflies stung and irritated them. Living, they were very small potatoes; dead, they are giants. There's one comfort: when I 'move over to the majority' I shall take my proper place, and leave these noble youths to the congenial occupation of making mud pies wherewith to bespatter the coming race of authors."
Caricaturists of noble ideas, especially caricaturists of his own works, and society journalists, he designated "the scavengers of literature;" and yet, with characteristic inconsistency, he suffered himself to be exhibited "At home" in one of the very journals he continually decried.
When we were without company, we sometimes played a game of whist: he took dummy, and always beat us. Apropos of cards,—one evening, strolling down Piccadilly, we turned into the Egyptian Hall, to see Maskelyne and Cook's entertainment. The room was very full, but the officials, who knew me, brought us two chairs in front. Beade became very much interested in a remarkable mechanical figure which played at cards and won every game. After observing it for some time, he was convinced that he had discovered the trick of it. I had little difficulty in persuading him to mount the platform and try his skill against Psycho. To his astonishment, he was beaten easily, almost ignominiously.
"Well," he said, as we came away, "that's extraordinary! I never found a man who could lick me game and game; yet I've been knocked out of time three games running by a beastly automaton. There is something in this more than natural,—if philosophy could find it out."
Of many pleasant evenings at Albert Gate, I remember one or two, especially one where We had merely a partie car- rée,—our hostess, Beade, myself, and Edwin James, the once eminent barrister, then recently returned from America. The brilliant career of this unfortunate gentleman, and the melancholy termination which compelled him to fly the country, will be fresh in most men's minds. On his return, after an absence of some years, he was left in the cold by all his old friends and associates; but Beade stood manfully by him. I Was particularly interested in the record of this blighted life. The name of Bonaparte had always been hateful to me since the coup d'état, and I had a vivid recollection of James's magnificent defence of Dr. Bernard. Nor was this all: I was cognizant of many generous acts done by Mr. James in his days of prosperity. One which occurred
