James Parton, Horace Greeley, T. W. Higginson, J. S. C. Abbott, E. M. Hoppin, William Winter, Theodore Tilton, Fanny Fern, Grace Greenwood, Mrs. E. C. Stanton, Women of the age; being natives of the lives and deeds of the most prominent women of the present gentlemen

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[444] need of pausing upon it here. From Italy Ristori turned her eyes to France. To conquer Paris would be to conquer Europe; for Paris was the art-capital of the continent. Taking all the risks, therefore, Ristori selected an Italian company and made her way to the renowned metropolis. It was during the season of the first Universal Exposition, on the 22d of May, 1855, that she made her first appearance in Paris. Silvio Pellico's “Francesca da Rimini” --embodying that sweet, sad story which readers of English poetry have learned by heart in the tenderly musical and delicately colored poem of Leigh Hunt — was the opening piece in this important season. Ristori played Francesca. It is a character that reveals her sweetness more than her strength; but her personation of it was a perfect success. Seven nights afterwards she played Myrrha. All Paris was at her feet. “Ristori,” wrote Jules Janin, then the representative dramatic critic “she is tragedy itself; she is comedy; she is the drama.” “Our language is too poor,” said Lamartine, “to express the worth of that woman.” Her first season in Paris extended to the 10th of September. At its close she had given three representations of Francesca, seventeen of Myrrha, twenty-two of Mary Stuart, and seven of Pia da Tolomei; and she had earned half a million francs. More than that — she had conquered the capital. All the intellect and culture of Paris honored the artist; AryScheffer painted her portrait; the Italian residents of Paris gave her a medal; and a diamond bracelet, presented by the Emperor of the French, testified to the imperial homage of “Napoleon III. to Adelaide Ristori.” Her second season in Paris was like the first; nor did less success attend her in the other great cities of Europe. At the subsequent incidents of her European career it is only needful to glance in brief and rapid review. In 1857 she visited Spain; and it is recorded, in illustration of her marvellous personal magnetism, that,