HAVING been repeatedly urged by numerous friends on both sides of the Atlantic to set forth a few of the difficulties attending the career of an impresario, who, during the last thirty years, has fought many operatic battles, I have undertaken the task, having at the present moment for the first time in my recollection a few weeks of comparative repose before again renewing my lyrical campaigns. I willingly sat down to the work, trusting that an account of the few partial defeats and the many brilliant victories incident to my life may be found interesting. This being my first appearance as an author, I am naturally unpractised in the artifices of style familiar to more experienced hands. Some of my plain statements of facts will not, I fear, be fully appreciated by the personages to whom they refer; and in case they should feel offended by my frankness, I ask their pardon beforehand, convinced that they will readily accord it.