on costumes of every period and country. Whilst running through a volume, a pretty combination in colours strikes Sir Augustus, and he jots it down for the coming pantomime. A hundred reference books are glanced through. I run over the pages containing the original score of Wagner's "Tannhäuser," which cost £200; and then, over an early cup of coffee, we turn over leaf after leaf of one of many volumes of odd cuttings of intense interest. Here is a letter from Lefroy, confessing his guilt. Lefroy, it seems, used to occupy his time in prison by writing such letters to prominent individuals. Then we come to many interesting pages in the family history. Sir Augustus's grandmother was Madam Elizabeth Ferron, the famous opera singer, who popularised the opera, "No song—no supper." We read through her engagement agreement—she was getting £30 a week in 1828 at the Royal English Opera House, now the Lyceum Theatre, and soon afterwards £40 a night at Drury Lane—at that time considered a big salary. On the next page is the engagement of Donata, the famous one-legged dancer, who danced himself to death; and the telegram announcing the burning of Covent Garden Theatre on March 5, 1856.
The bedroom and library.
From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry.
The bedroom suite—a work of art—is of walnut, inlaid with red tortoiseshell and ivory, and exquisitely engraved. Hanging to a convenient post at the head are telegram forms, slips of paper, and pencil. If the master of the house has an idea in the middle of the night, paper and pencil are handy. On a small table is a huge cut-glass bottle of what looks like smelling-salts.
"The finest remedy for headache in the world," says Sir Augustus. "It is Dr. Lennox Browne's recipe, and is simply lumps of carbonate of ammonia steeped in eau-de-Cologne."
In a corner is the safe. Hey, presto! and I have in my hand the gold snuff-box studded with diamonds which he received on the occasion of the German Emperor's visit.
The two rooms next to the bedroom are not without interest. The first apartment is devoted to a score of testimonials, framed, and the various patents granted to him—among others, the approval of Her Majesty to his election as Sheriff, and the patent of a fact which will be new to many, namely, that of the knighthood conferred on him by the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, ten years ago. The room adjoining this has a great cabinet containing all the sketches of past Drury Lane pantomimes, from the earliest time of the Dykwynkyn régime, and on a table near the window numbers of silver mementoes, one of which is a substantial silver snuff-box, presented by the renowned E. T. Smith to E. L. Blanchard, and afterwards passed on by his widow to Augustus Harris.
Downstairs a room is devoted to the storage of nearly every opera produced for the last eighty years, including the collection of his grandmother and father. On the wall hangs "The Glossop " pedigree, for Sir Augustus Harris's real name is Glossop, and Harris a nom de théâtre, originally assumed by his father. The pedigree starts from 1624, and it shows that nearly all the male members of the Glossop family for two centuries have been clergymen.
