erformance, but was
afraid he would be disappointed in me.

"Dear Camma," he answered, "I have given your messages to my father,
but believe me, who am not 'common report,' that he will thoroughly
appreciate your noble, _most_ beautiful and imaginative rendering of
'Camma.' My father and myself hope to see you soon, but not while this
detestable cold weather lasts. We trust that you are not now really the
worse for that night of nights.

"With all our best wishes,

"Yours ever sincerely,

"HALLAM TENNYSON."

"I quite agree with you as to H.I.'s Synorix."

The music of "The Cup" was not up to the level of the rest. Lady
Winchilsea's setting of "Moon on the field and the foam," written within
the compass of eight notes, for my poor singing voice, which will not go
up high nor down low, was effective enough, but the music as a whole was
too "chatty" for a severe tragedy. One night when I was singing my very
best:

"Moon, bring him home, bring him home,
Safe from the dark and the cold,"

some one in the audience _sneezed_. Every one burst out laughing, and I
had to laugh too. I did not even attempt the next line.

"The Cup" was called a failure, but it ran 125 nights, and every night
the house was crowded! On the hundredth night I sent Tennyson the Cup
itself. I had it made in silver from Mr. Godwin's design--a
three-handled cup, pipkin-shaped, standing on three legs.

"The Cup" and "The Corsican Brothers" together made the bill too heavy
and too long, even at a time when we still "rang up" at 7:30; and in the
April following the production of Tennyson's beautiful tragedy--which I
think in sheer poetic intensity surpasses "Becket," although it is not
nearly so good a play--"The Belle's Stratagem" was substituted for "The
Corsican Brothers." This was the first real rollicking comedy that a
Lyceum audience had ever seen, and the way they laughed did my heart
good. I had had enough of tragedy and the horrors by this time, and I
could have cried with joy at that rare and welcome sight--an audience
rocking with laughter. On the first night the play opened propitiously
enough with a loud laugh due to the only accident of the kind that ever
happened at the Lyceum. The curtain went up before the staff had
"cleared," and Arnott, Jimmy and the rest were seen running for their
lives out of the center entrance!

People said that it was so clever of me to play Camma and Letitia Hardy
(the comedy part in "The Belle