When Alfred Gruenfeld was in London during the season of 1879, he was only three-and-twenty, but had so thoroughly mastered the technical difficulties of his art that — at least in that particular direction — he had nothing to learn. He was, even then, an admirable sight-reader, and gifted in no small measure with the rare faculty of felicitous improvisation. Many of my readers doubtless remember what a sensation he created at a monster concert in the Floral or St. James's Hall (I forget which) by an extempore treatment of the leading themes in Lohengrin which he played as an encore. His capacity for imitating the styles and methods of living and dead composers amounted to little short of genius.