performers making music at one time, wasn't it,
wonderful to get so many together at one time?
My goodness! what a nation! In the roast-beef
and fowl department of this same Crystal
Palace, I listen and overhear a conversation:
' Waiter, you must consume an immense number
of fowls here every day?' ' Yes, sir, great
number, sir.' 'How many, now?' 'About
two thousand, sir.' 'Two thousand! Two
thousand fowls and four thousand performers!
Wonderful! Something like a holiday this!'"

And so this wicked, wicked Frenchman will
go on sneering and snarling, and telling fibs, as
I firmly believe, into the bargain, till I am obliged
at last to cut him short. But oh dear, oh dear,
I'm a poor ignorant woman, and I can't convince
him. I wish, though, that somebody who could
do so would once for all come forward and tell
these Frenchmen that we are not so barbarous
as they imagine, that mountebanks do not kick
poor defenceless women about our streets, that
we do not bury Mr. James Watt or anybody else
in the Green Park, and that it is quite possible
for a foreigner to come over and spend a week
or even a fortnight in London, walking about
its streets and visiting its public places, and inhabiting
its vilest quarters, and go back without
having quite got to the bottom of the English
character, or having a perfect knowledge of all
our habits and ways.

I should like these Frenchmen to be instructed
about our life in England whether they like it or
not, and if I did but know how to speak their
horrid conceited language, which they think
everybody ought to know— though there's such
much larger tracts of the world where English is
spoken than French — I say, if I knew their language,
I would go over myself and preach to them
and cram a little knowledge of us down their
throats, that I would. I should like them to
know what English life is as I have seen it when
I was in service, and before I married my poor
dear sergeant — the life in a pure innocent
country-house, well kept and liberally conducted
and with plenty of gaiety going on, and good
done as well; where self-interest wasn't the
only thing considered from morning till night,
and where there were other things thought of
than making money and overreaching each other
amongst the gentlemen, and falling in love with
all the wrong people among the ladies.

Now what a curious thing it is that all this
that I am venturing to say, should have come
out of my having gone to the rehearsal of the
Handel Festival. And yet so it is. If I had
not gone to that very performance and so had
the opportunity of comparing my own impressions
of it with that Frenchman's sneers — for
they were nothing better — I should never have
got so angry with him as to be obliged to relieve
myself in this literary fashion.

But when I remember this performance, then
I do feel both angry and surprised that any one
should go away from it with the heart to find
fault and sneer. And how me and Charley did
enjoy it, as we sat there all alone in that great
crowd. The boy is quick, and notices more than
I do, and many a thing would have escaped me
if he hadn't called my attention to it.

"What a lot of ladies in spectacles, mother,"
he whispers to me, soon after we had got into
our places. And sure enough I never did in my
life see so many ladies, and gentlemen too, if
you come to that, in spectacles. Look where
you would, there were the glasses gleaming and
shining again. It did seem to me that they
were mostly clergymen, and their wives and
sisters that wore spectacles, and there they
would sit with their books of the music and
words, following each little bit and pointing it
out to each other, and beating time with their
hands, and then looking at one another and
smiling and nodding softly when the music came
to the quieter parts. And good and innocent
and happy they looked, and I don't think that
spiteful Frenchman could find many such in his
country for all his boasting. Lots and lots of
Frenchmen I saw all mixed about with such
people as I have mentioned, and sharper and
more worldly-wise they looked perhaps, but not
good, no, not if I can tell what faces mean.

While I was thinking of these things and
of the number of lodging-houses that could
have been supplied by all the bedroom chairs
which were got together under that glass
roof, my little boy began whispering me again
to look at a lady who was sitting two or three
rows on in front, and who had actually brought
her work with her and was stitching away
just as if she had been at home. Well to be
sure, I thought to myself, you must have a
collected mind to go on like that all through
the performance. For she did so — sat and
stitched and stitched all the time the music was
going on. But oh dear me! there are such
queer people in the world. Why, when the
luncheon-hour came and me and Charley was wandering
about the building eating our sandwiches,
we came upon one party of friends who were sitting
in a pew in the church-furniture department,
and pic-nicking away there like anything. Lots
of such things as that we saw, me and Charley.

But the music!

It's not for such as me to speak of that music.
What do I know about it? When the organs
come and play against the area-railings in Soane-street
I don't like it a bit, and when Miss
Tympanum had my second floor I certainly didn't
care for her playing, which used to crash through
the house all day long. But this music of Mr.
Handel's does seem to me to be very different,
and I had rather hear it than even the band of
my poor sergeant-major's regiment playing in the
distance as the troops marched away. There
seemed to be something so innocent about this
music at the Crystal Palace. It seemed as if it
came from a heart that was at peace and full of
happiness and sunshine. I dare say a gentleman
might write very good music and very fine tunes
and yet lead a very bad life. But I do not believe
that such music as that which me and
Charley heard at that rehearsal could come from
any but a good and innocent man. It seemed all
so light-hearted and happy.