A friend of my mother’s writes to her from Brighton, 28 October 1841, “I have been twice to be charmed though not mesmerized by that delightful pet of yours Jullien and his helps (at the Town Hall) and a very grand affair they made of it. After beautiful Overtures, Waltzes and a capital set of Irish Quadrilles by Jullien, they gave us the Storming of St Jean d’Acre in perfection. The piece commenced with a slow movement of ‘God save the Queen,’ and after sundry descriptive morceaux the attack began and Jullien was in all his glory. Bombs, cannon, musquetry, bells tolling, shouts of victory, etc., and lots of blue lights, Roman Candles and last (though not least in effect) that beautiful rich crimson light that you saw last year.” And one of my great-aunts who liked all that, complained in later years that Wagner was so noisy. Jullien brought Berlioz to England. My father was at the Opera, 25 June 1853, for the first night of _Benvenuto Cellini_, and was impressed by it, or rather by the final scene, the casting of the statue. And it might be more impressive now with better stage machinery for it--the furnace, the molten metal running down into the mould, and then the breaking of the mould revealing the great figure of Perseus still aglow with heat.--The real statue is said to be Cellini’s masterpiece; but I do not agree. I think myself that he surpassed it in the relief of Perseus and Andromeda on the pedestal below. On first hearing Boito’s _Mefistofele_ I recognized the chirruping of the angels as a familiar sound, but could not recollect where I had heard it. I had really heard it in expresses between Paris and Marseilles. Some of the P.L.M. carriages had wheels, or springs, or something, which gave forth just that sound when they were running fast; and it may be heard on some of the G.W.R. carriages, but with a different rhythm and pitch. A railwayman assures me that the English engines talk and (being foul-mouthed creatures) use unseemly words. Since learning this from him, I have distinctly heard an engine saying, “blów and blást it, fétch anóther,” when sent off up these gradients here with load enough for two; and then, quite cheerfully, “nów I’ve dóne it, nów I’ve dóne it,” when it has reached the top. Writing from Teignmouth on 3 August 1854, my grandfather says, “There is nothing new here, but a ship of this place has just arrived literally gutted by the Greek pirates. She was laden with raisins. The crew were obliged to beg for their lives, they had but three biscuits left on coming to Falmouth. That must be put stop to somehow.” Greece was a nuisance then: the coast had been blockaded by the English fleet, and French and English troops were landed at the Piræus in May to stop the Greeks from siding with the Russians in the Crimean war. He writes on 2 April, “As war is declared, the papers will be interesting. I fancy people have been too sanguine.”