Pleasant was it also to hear him speak of the public singers of those early days. Braham, so great, spite of his vulgarity; Miss Stephens, so sweet to listen to, though she had no voice of power; and poor Vaughan, who had so feeble a voice, and yet was always called "such a chaste singer." How he would roar with laughter, when I would imitate Vaughan singing His hiddeus (_sic_) love provokes my rage, Weak as I am, I must engage, from Acis and Galatea. Then too his reminiscences of the said Acis and Galatea as given at the Concerts for Ancient Music. "I can see them now, the dear old _creeters_ with the gold eye-glasses and their turbans, noddling their heads as they sang O the pleasures of the plains!" 'These old _creeters_ being, as he said, the sopranos who had sung first as girls, when George the Third was king. 'He was a great lover of our old English composers, specially of Shield. Handel, he said, has a scroll in his marble hand in the Abbey on which are written the first bars of I know that my Redeemer liveth; and Shield should hold a like scroll, only on it should be written the first bars of A flaxen-headed ploughboy. 'He was fond of telling a story of Handel, which I, at least, have never seen in print. When Handel was blind he composed his "Samson," in which there is that most touching of all songs, specially to any one whose powers of sight are waning--"Total Eclipse." Mr. Beard was the great tenor singer of the day, who was to sing this song. Handel sent for him, "Mr. Beard," he said, "I cannot sing it as it should be sung, but I can tell you how it ought to be sung." And then he sang it, with what strange pathos need not be told. Beard stood listening, and when it was finished said, with tears in his eyes, "But Mr. Handel, I can never sing it like that." And so he would tell the story with tears in his voice, such as those best remember, who ever heard him read some piece of his dear old Crabbe, and break down in the reading.' With this I will conclude, and I have only now to express my sincere thanks to all who have entrusted me with letters addressed to themselves or to those whom they represent. It has been my endeavour to justify their confidence by discretion. To Messrs. Richard Bentley and Son I am indebted for permission to reprint Virgil's Garden from the Temple Bar Magazine. {0a} The portrait is from a photograph by Cade and White of Ipswich taken in 1873. WILLIAM ALDIS WRIGHT. TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 20 May, 1889. LETTERS OF EDWARD FITZGERALD