T is, unfortunately, impossible to obtain a portrait of Professor Huxley in the days when he was not yet a professor—when he was catching sticklebacks and chasing butterflies at his father's school at Ealing—for at thirty-one, the age at which his earliest photograph was taken, he was already a professor of two sciences—of Natural History at the Royal School of Mines, and of Physiology at the Royal Institute. As assistant-surgeon to H.M.S. Rattlesnake he had spent three years in studying natural history off the Australian coasts, and had written out the record of his observations in the earliest of his books. The Admiralty refused to pay a penny of the publishing expenses; the young assistant-surgeon's salary was seven-and-sixpence a day; and the volume only saw the light some five years later, when it was issued by the Ray Society. But, from the days of his first fight with fortune, Professor Huxley's fame rose steadily, and by the time at which our second portrait shows him he had been President of the British Association, and had developed that limpidity of style and strength of logic which makes him both the most redoubtable antagonist in the literary arena, and the most popular exponent of the discoveries of science. Professor Huxley's health, never of the very best, has latterly compelled him to withdraw entirely from the active duties of the many posts which he has held; but the magazine articles which he occasionally puts forth show all his early faculties as strong as ever.
For the above interesting early photograph we are indebted to the kindness of Professor and Mrs. Huxley.
ADELINA PATTI.
F ever an artist was "cradled in song," that artist was Adelina Patti. Before she could utter a word she could hum every air she had heard her mother rehearsing for the opera. Her musical precocity was so extraordinary that she could detect the least falsity of intonation in any vocal performance, and on one occasion when she had been admitted behind the scenes to the dress rehearsal of a new opera in New York, she managed to startle the leading lady—a singer of some reputation—very considerably, by running up to her and exclaiming, in her little shrill Yankee accent, "I guess you don't know the proper way to trill, you rest too long on the first note. Listen to me, and try to do it as I do!" And from her baby lips issued a trill so long-sustained and so pure of intonation, that the whole company of artists applauded with surprise and rapture. The appearance of Adelina was much what would be imagined—always tiny for her age, but lithe and straight, with her thick, black locks braided on either side of her face, her eyes keen as a hawk's, whilst her clear brow, mobile mouth, and determined chin each in turn emphasised the expression with which she was animated at the moment. The street arabs of New York nicknamed her "the little Chinee girl," because of her big, black eyes and somewhat yellow skin, when she used to run up and down Broadway bowling her hoop. Of her phenomenal success, when she appeared as a prima-donna of seven summers at Niblo's Garden in New York, it would be idle to repeat an oft-told tale. But we are fortunately able to reproduce a photograph of the little prima-donna; for which, as well as for the notes above, we are indebted to the kindness of a friend of the great singer. The signature across the photograph is Adelina Patti's own.
