It was under the co-consulship of Maretzek and Ullmann that Adelina Patti made her operatic début at the Academy of Music. The date was November 24, 1859, the opera "Lucia di Lammermoor." Twenty-five years later Patti was again the prima donna of the Academy, though Mapleson was now the manager. It was the second year of the rivalry between the Academy and the Metropolitan Opera House, and Colonel Mapleson conceived the idea of profiting by the anniversary. At first it was planned that "Lucia" should be given, with Brignoli as Edgardo, the part he had sung in the opera at Patti's début, but two months before the time the tenor died. Instead, "Martha" was performed, in a manner wholly commonplace in all respects except as to the titular rôle, in which Mme. Patti appeared, as a matter of course. There was only a little perfunctory applause, but Colonel Mapleson had resolved that the scene should be enacted, of which we have often read, in which the devotees of the prima donna unhitch the horses from her carriage, and themselves drag it, with wild rejoicings, through the streets. To make sure of such a spontaneous ovation in staid New York was a question which Mapleson solved by hiring fifty or more Italians (choristers, probably) from the familiar haunts in Third Avenue, and providing them with torches, to follow the carriage, which was prosaically dragged along to its destination at the Windsor Hotel. As a demonstration it was the most pitiful affair that I have ever witnessed. In fact, it seemed to me such a humiliation of the great artist that on the next opera night I suggested to my colleague of The Times newspaper that something adequate and appropriate to so interesting an anniversary be arranged. He agreed and within a fortnight or so a banquet was given in Mme. Patti's honor at the Hotel Brunswick, under the auspices of a committee consisting of a number of well-known gentlemen, including Judge Daly, William Steinway, and Nahum Stetson. The committee of arrangements, having visited Mme. Patti and gained her consent, went to work right merrily, but before the invitations were issued an obstacle was met which threatened shipwreck to the amiable enterprise; the wives of several gentlemen who had been invited privately refused pointblank to break bread with the prima donna on account of the scandal caused by her separation from the Marquis de Caux and marriage to Nicolini, the tenor. Somewhat perplexed, the two critics visited her a second time, and put the matter to her as delicately as possible. Would she, under the circumstances, be the guest of a number of gentlemen, representative of the legal, artistic, and literary professions? Again she accepted, and without a moment's hesitation. So, instead of the gathering that had been planned, there was a stag party of about seventy gentlemen in the ballroom of the Brunswick, handsomely decorated and discreetly lighted with wax candles.