He became at once the idol of the Muscovites, and admirers journeyed from St. Petersburg and the provinces to hear him. When I visited St. Petersburg in 1897, I found Vladimir Stassov full of enthusiasm for the genius of Shaliapin. Unluckily for me, the season of the Private Opera Company had just come to an end, but I learnt at secondhand to know and appreciate Shaliapin in all his great impersonations. By 1899 the Imperial Opera of Moscow had engaged him at a salary of 60,000 roubles a year. His fame soon spread abroad and he was in request at Monte Carlo, Buenos Aires, and Milan; in the last named city he married, and installed himself in a house there for a time. Visits to New York and Paris followed early in this century, and finally, through the enterprise of Sir Joseph Beecham, London had an opportunity of hearing this great artist during the season of 1913. Speaking to me of his London experiences, Shaliapin was evidently deeply moved by, and not a little astonished at, the enthusiastic welcome accorded to him and to his compatriots. He had, of course, been told that we were a cold and phlegmatic race, but he found in our midst such heart-felt warmth and sincerity as he had never before experienced outside Russia. Shaliapin's romantic history has proved a congenial soil for the growth of all manner of sensational tales and legends around his life and personality. They make amusing material for newspaper and magazine articles; but as I am here concerned with history rather than with fiction, I will forbear to repeat more than one anecdote connected with his career. The incident was related to me by a famous Russian musician. I will not, however, vouch for its veracity, but only for its highly picturesque and dramatic qualities. A few years ago the chorus of the Imperial Opera House desired to present a petition to the Emperor. It was arranged that after one of the earlier scenes in _Boris Godounov_ the curtain should be rung up again, and the chorus should be discovered kneeling in an attitude of supplication, their faces turned towards the Imperial box, while their chosen representative should offer the petition to the "exalted personage" who was attending the opera that night. When the curtain went up for the second time it disclosed an unrehearsed effect. Shaliapin, who was not aware of the presentation of the petition by the chorus, had not left the stage in time. There, among the crowd of humble petitioners, stood Tsar Boris; dignified, colossal, the very personification of kingly authority, in his superb robes of cloth of gold, with the crown of Monomakh upon his head. For one thrilling, sensational moment Tsar Boris stood face to face with Tsar Nicholas II.; then some swift impulse, born of custom, of good taste, or of the innate spirit of loyalty that lurks in every Russian heart, brought the dramatic situation to an end. Tsar Boris dropped on one knee, mingling with the supplicating crowd, and etiquette triumphed, to