s family objected to his
following the profession, for they were Legitimists and strong
Catholics, and held the stage in that contempt that was usual at the
beginning of the last century."

The artist himself as a youth was crazy about music, and used to
practise his voice wherever and whenever he could. But his father
discouraged him. The father died in his arms, singing one of Count de
Segur's songs.

He remained at the Birkbeck Laboratory for two years, leaving there in
1854, when his parent, still convinced of the future before his son in
the pursuit of science, set him up on his own account in a chemical
laboratory in Barge Yard, Bucklersbury, in the City. The house is still
standing. "It was," says du Maurier, "a fine laboratory, for my father,
being a poor man, naturally fitted it up in the most expensive style."
"The only occasion," he continues, "on which the sage of Barge Yard was
able to render any real service to humanity was when he was engaged by
the directors of a Company for working certain gold mines in Devonshire
which were being greatly boomed, and to which the public was subscribing
heavily, to go down to Devonshire to assay the ore. I fancy they
expected me to send them a report likely to further tempt the public. If
this was their expectation, they were mistaken, for after a few
experiments I went back to town and told them that there was not a
vestige of gold in the ore. The directors were of course very
dissatisfied with this statement, and insisted on my returning to
Devonshire to make further investigation. I went and had a good time of
it down in the country, for the miners were very jolly fellows; but I
was unable to satisfy my employers, and sent up a report which showed
the public that the whole thing was a swindle, and so saved a good many
people from loss."

[Illustration: Queen Prima-Donna at Home

_Chorus_. "O, Mamma!--_Dear_ Mamma!--_Darling_ Mamma!! _Do_ leave
off!!!"

(Showing that no one is a prophet in his own country.)

_Punch_, November 7, 1874.]

Du Maurier told the story of this business in _Once a Week_ in
1861; it is written in a highly amusing strain.

We have taken relevant extracts, as follows, from the amusing story,
partly because it exhibits the artist for the first time as an Author,
and partly because it continues the narrative of his life:--

Section 3

"Somebody who took a great interest in me (my father) had just
established me in the