My Reminiscences. By Luigi Arditi. (Skeffington and Son.)— These "Reminiscences"
of Signor Arditi, edited by the Baroness von Zedlitz, are exactly what we might expect. Stage-folk, despite (or by reason of) their special genius, are often in other matters merely grown-up children. "Men, women, and persons on the stage" was the American humourist's division of mankind. With what amazing gravity and detail does Arditi relate how and when the Prince of Wales offered him "a weed ; " and to glorify "the Diva," with what gusto he tells us how at supper at Craig- y-nos they consumed four hundred and fifty bottles of champagne. The book overflows with such trivialities. But it has one note- worthy merit—its unfailing good nature. Signor Arditi rarely relates an unpleasant story, even of a rival conductor. He is alive to the great merits of Wagner, and while upholding the claims of Italian opera, shows at least an appreciation of German music. But the book is the merest chit-chat, which may pleasantly while away an idle hour, especially for those with operatic memories of Grisi and Mario, Patti and Nilsson. Judging by the letters of Madame Arditi, an American lady with much of her countrywomen's sharpness of observation, it might have been as well if she had undertaken to write her husband's " Life." We might then have got an altogether better book ; for notwith- standing the immense number of published reminiscences of this kind, few really faithful pictures of stage life, as seen by an intelligent and acute observer, are to be met with.
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