Adah Menken was at this time in her twenty-seventh year, and had a few years previously become the wife of Heenan, the pugilist, whose fine figure had won her regards when the wealthiest men in California were competing for her favours. The union was not a happy one, for which result both the parties have been blamed; and the cause of difference was probably one in respect of which neither could reproach the other without provoking recrimination. Heenan, who was then in London, might often have been seen at Astley’s during his wife’s engagement, and it was said that both desired a reconciliation, and that Adah had come to England with that view; but nothing came of it. ‘The beautiful Menken’ went to Paris, and was said to be on terms of tender intimacy with the elder Dumas. She died in Paris shortly afterwards, and her remains rest in the cemetery of Père La Chaise. Adah Isaacs Menken was undoubtedly a woman of rare natural talents and great accomplishments. While in London, she published a volume of poems, with the general title of _Infelicia_, which correctly describes their tone and character. Some of them are as wild as anything which has emanated from Walt Whitman, and more are replete with the weird fancies and wayward genius of Poe; but all are pervaded by a deep and touching melancholy, which seems to shadow forth the spectre that haunted the author’s gay and brilliant life, like the garlanded skeleton at the festive board of the ancient Egyptians. From the suggestive title to the last of the little head-and-tail pieces, designed probably by Adah herself, everything in the book impresses a lesson which may be read in Ecclesiastes. In the first of these tiny engravings we seem to read the moral of the author’s life-story. It represents a woman stretched on the shore of a stormy sea, with her face to the earth, and her dark hair flowing over her recumbent form, which is faintly illuminated by the fitful light of a moon half-obscured by drifting masses of black clouds. The book was dedicated to Dickens, and contains a photographic reproduction of a letter from the great novelist, thanking ‘Dear Miss Menken’ for her portrait, and giving the desired permission to the dedication.