rendering of Bianca in "Fazio," and Marianna in "the Wife." Nothing
finer did ever stage exhibit--the veterans of all nations said so,
and my boyish heart and head felt it in every minute cell. The lady
was just matured, strong, better than merely beautiful, born from the
footlights, had had three years' practice in London and through the
British towns, and then she came to give America that young maturity
and roseate power in all their noon, or rather forenoon, flush. It was
my good luck to see her nearly every night she play'd at the old
Park--certainly in all her principal characters. I heard, these years,
well render'd, all the Italian and other operas in vogue, "Sonnambula,"
"the Puritans," "Der Freischutz," "Huguenots," "Fille d'Regiment,"
"Faust," "Etoile du Nord," "Poliuto," and others. Verdi's "Ernani,"
"Rigoletto," and "Trovatore," with Donnizetti's "Lucia" or "Favorita"
or "Lucrezia," and Auber's "Massaniello," or Rossini's "William Tell"
and "Gazza Ladra," were among my special enjoyments. I heard Alboni
every time she sang in New York and vicinity--also Grisi, the tenor
Mario, and the baritone Badiali, the finest in the world.

This musical passion follow'd my theatrical one. As a boy or young man
I had seen, (reading them carefully the day beforehand,) quite all
Shakspere's acting dramas, play'd wonderfully well. Even yet I cannot
conceive anything finer than old Booth in "Richard Third," or "Lear,"
(I don't know which was best,) or Iago, (or Pescara, or Sir
Giles Overreach, to go outside of Shakspere)--or Tom Hamblin in
"Macbeth"--or old Clarke, either as the ghost in "Hamlet," or as
Prospero in "the Tempest," with Mrs. Austin as Ariel, and Peter
Richings as Caliban. Then other dramas, and fine players in them,
Forrest as Metamora or Damon or Brutus--John R. Scott as Tom Cringle
or Rolla--or Charlotte Cushman's Lady Gay Spanker in "London
Assurance." Then of some years later, at Castle Garden, Battery, I