"I succeeded better than I had dared to hope. When I walked home with Chorley and Garcia after the performance, the latter expressed himself as pleased, but pointed out certain defects to be overcome, at the same time offering to render me any assistance in his power." It was an offer of which Santley promptly availed himself, and he commenced lessons forthwith, the maestro being at the time in his fifty-third year, his pupil a lad of twenty-three. The profit which was received during those lessons the baritone has never forgotten. As to his personal memories of the maestro,--"It would require a whole book to say what I should be bound to say," he wrote to me in a letter during the preparation of the present memoir. The feelings with which the world-renowned baritone regards his old master may best be summed up in the words inscribed on the photograph which used to stand on the grand piano in Señor Garcia's home: "To the King of Masters." Moreover, I remember his remarking one day, while I was studying under the maestro, "You are learning from the greatest teacher the world has ever known." Nor is he less ardent in his admiration for Mme. Viardot-Garcia. "No woman in my day has ever approached her as a dramatic singer," he once said; "she was perfect, as far as it is possible to attain perfection, both as vocalist and actress." Santley is himself remarkable as a man no less than as an artist. After having made a name which will ever be honoured and reverenced throughout the musical world for high ideals nobly sustained, he is, though over seventy, still able to make before the public occasional appearances, in which he shows how the old Italian method, coupled with a fine intellect and dramatic instinct, can triumph over mere weight of years. As one listens it seems impossible to believe that a man who sings to-day with all the fire, vigour, and passion of youth, can have been before the public for anything like so long a period as half a century. Up to the present time Sir Charles Santley remains unquestionably the greatest baritone this country has produced. [Illustration: _Photo by Chancellor, Dublin._] Shortly after Santley had commenced lessons under the renowned teacher, he received an invitation to a party at Chorley's to meet a pupil of Garcia, Gertrude Kemble, who was about to make her _début_ at St Martin's Hall in the Christmas performance of the "Messiah." "I would have much preferred staying at home with a book," he writes. "I had made my first appearance at the Crystal Palace in the afternoon, and felt depressed with the poor impression I had made. The party, which had been arranged to give Miss Kemble an opportunity of singing before a small assembly previously to confronting the larger audience at St Martin's Hall, included the famous Adelaide Kemble, Virginia Gabriel, John Hullah, Mr and Mrs Henry Leslie, and others.