Some such feeling I must have expressed to him as we sauntered along, for he told me, by way of rejoinder, that he had very early learnt his lesson not to endeavour to intrude his own opinions into the columns of the _Times_. Near the beginning of his career, he had indulged in some unfavourable comment upon the performance of the orchestra, which provoked an angry letter of remonstrance from the player of the trombone--a letter of remonstrance that in its turn called down a sharp rebuke upon the critic from the great editor, Mr. Delane. “I wish it to be understood,” he curtly intimated to Oxenford, “that the _Times_ has no desire to be embroiled in controversy with trombone players.” And Oxenford assured me that he had since acted upon this clear note of warning, and had accordingly avoided as much as possible any kind of criticism that might invite a retort from the injured player, though he had on one occasion, as he confessed, indulged in an epigram that might, he feared, have injured his position. It was of some young actor, whose performance seemed to him more than usually incompetent, that he ventured the remark: “We are told that Mr. So-and-so is a promising performer. For our own part we can only say that we care not how often he promises so long as he never again performs.” But this was an isolated instance in the powers of sarcasm which he undoubtedly possessed, and for the most part he continued to the end of his career in a spirit of unruffled urbanity. The visit of the French players during the Franco-German War stirred London not a little, and undoubtedly exercised a considerable influence upon the younger representatives of dramatic art in England. Delaunay and Got were in their separate ways perfect masters of that restrained and balanced art which is the outcome of the French system of training, exhibited in its perfect form in the French National Theatre. And the restraint and modesty of their methods strongly appealed to that younger school of actors in England who were already striving after a greater naturalness of interpretation. But their appeal was made for the most part in the region of comedy, and it was the advent of Salvini, with his larger and more passionate individuality, that gave a new impulse to the rendering of tragic character. Salvini was beyond question a superb performer. His natural equipment for an actor, as exhibited in a voice of unexampled power and charm, was in itself more than sufficient to warrant the extraordinary outburst of enthusiasm which greeted his appearance in London. And yet, for all his undeniable power, his actual rendering of the character of Othello never seemed to me to be in perfect keeping with the spirit and intention of the author. Overmastering in his strength and superb in his rendering of the more passionate passages of the play, he missed, as I felt at the time, and as I still feel, the tragic sublimity that marks the closing scenes of the drama.