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Bunn, a scuffle ensued, and GENIUS, right, and "STRENGTH triumphed!" Can a more insolent piece of legal mendacity than this be imagined? One would think that the assault had been committed in a fair and open manner; that we had a fight to see who was the best man, and that Mr. Macready, being the strongest, TRIUMPHED! A person, for an imaginary injury, enters the room of another, and, the said room being in comparative darkness, half murders him; and yet there is to be found a limb of the law to designate such conduct as "the triumph of RIGHT and STRENGTH!" What the unfortunate word "genius" had to do with the conflict, Heaven only knows, unless it was that order of genius which conceives and carries into execution the glories of the Newgate Calendar; but to assert that it was "right" to perpetrate the deed of a ruffian, and that it was "strength" which defeated a man rendered powerless by a treacherous aggression, almost before he knew who was his aggressor, is surely the very acme of human impudence, deception, meanness, and folly. I did not expect anything at Serjeant Talfourd's hands beyond common courtesy; but I certainly did not expect he would go out of the way to heap on me uncommon abuse. His speech was remarkable for a deficiency of reason, and a superabundance of frivolity; for a display of gross flattery, without discernment, towards the defendant, and for a profusion of personal rudeness, without an atom of sense, directed against the plaintiff. I have,

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on more occasions than one, been apprised of remarks that Mr. Serjeant Talfourd has been pleased to pass upon me, and I have been debarred, under a pledge, from taking any notice of them: but whenever he will do me the favour to make them in a more overt manner than his client acted towards me, I will endeavour, as overtly, to let him witness the triumph, at all events, of "RIGHT" and "STRENGTH." A latent object the learned Serjeant had in view, was to puff himself into greater notoriety than even the formance of his own "poetry" in the tragedy of Ion could then procure for him: at all events, to let the bar, through him, give a lift to the stage. Our jurisprudence, however, must be in a very questionable condition, when an advocate is obliged to resort to misrepresentation for the support of a bad cause, and can advance as truths a series of impertinences, which, if he were unprotected by the cloth of his calling, he would not venture, out of the precincts of Westminster Hall, to utter. Not only have I never given Serjeant Talfourd the slightest ground of offence, but I have on all occasions extended to him uncalled-for courtesies. I am not one of those who follow in the wake of this barrister's bleatings, because he forms one of a clique whose daily business of life is to cry up themselves, and to cry down every other soul upon earth. The tragedies of Ion and the Athenian Captive bear the stamp of a high order of talent, but the admiration of the public has not kept pace with that of their author, who, Narcis

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sus-like, will some day or other expire in the fountain of his own genius, absolutely out of self-love. And so much, at present, for "my learned friend," Mr. Serjeant Talfourd.

There was but one light in which this affair was viewed by all classes of society laying any claim to respectability; and now that the intemperate feelings which led to it have probably subsided, Mr. Macready may be assured he never lost grade until that occurrence, and that his character received thereby a self-inflicted wound, the cicatrice of which will not easily be effaced. The attentions that were shown to me on the occasion by noblemen and gentlemen of the highest rank were alone sufficient to convince me that such was a general feeling; and though it would ill become me to go through the ostentatious ceremony of displaying their names, yet the kindness which led them to evince towards me such regard has left an imperishable impress on my memory.

CHAPTER III.

Illness and recovery-Production of the Maid of Artois-Criticism on Madame Malibran-Brilliant result of drinking a pint of porter -Ingenious mode of supplying it-Receipts to the performance of "Shakspeare's representative" pitted against the receipts to Madame Malibran-Average of the monies taken during her respective visits to England-Cooper's speech-Advertisement for a tenantBenefits, or otherwise, of an Act of Parliament-The late and present lessee of Drury Lane-Elliston, and the late Mr. Calcraft, M.P.-The worth of a patent, and the number of claimants upon it-A "feast of reason and a flow of soul" at the "Piazza"-A speech, and an advertisement extraordinary.

HOWEVER troublesome and tedious the progress of recovery from so sudden an attack on a frame by no means so thin and genteel as it was wont to be' the delay it occasioned in the production of the new opera for Madame Malibran was a much more important affair. I could not entrust that production to any other, (and above all to another "learned friend," Mr. Cooper, then the stage manager,) because, as author and manager, the entire preparation had devolved upon me, and it would have taken me more time, even had my condition admitted of it, to have

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instilled my crude notions into the noddle of another, than it did in the first instance to devise them. It should be borne in mind that Madame Malibran could not remain in England beyond a given time, and that if even she could, the London season was waning fast apace. There were but two characters, La Sonnambula and Fidelio, in which she was prepared ; and although their attraction was but slightly abated, every repetition of either tended to abate it the more. It would have been no difficult task to have proved special damages," as will be presently shown; and if I had been only thinking, as Mr. Serjeant Talfourd observed, "of pounds, shillings, and pence," assuredly I should have gone for them-but I was only thinking how soon I could get on the Drury Lane stage. I went there upon crutches to attend the last six rehearsals of the Maid of Artois, which was eventually represented on the 26th May. The effect produced by Madame Malibran upon the town in the character of Isoline made amends for every indignity, and for every pang, that had been endured.

With those inflated people, who are in the habit of decrying everything which is not their own, it were waste of words to argue; and with persons of competent judgment, acknowledged science, and refined taste, argument is unnecessary: it will be therefore only reminding them of what they know already, in saying that this opera contains some of the most exquisite passages of modern composition, and fully confirmed the impression Mr. Balfe's genius had created by the