the death of the composer of La Sonnambula, Maria Malibran, whose most peerless assumption was perhaps that of the heroine of this opera, breathed her last in smoky Manchester. Hers is typically the story of the lyrical or dramatic artist. Greeted like a conqueror half over two continents, delighting unnumbered thousands and receiving all that ephemeral fame has to give, she fell meteor-like, at the acme of her career, and left behind-what? De Musset's touching lines give the answer :

Une croix et l'oubli, la nuit et le silence!

Ecoutez! c'est le vent, c'est l'océan immense;

C'est un pêcheur qui chante au bord du grand chemin.

Et de tant de beauté, de gloire et d'espérance,

De tant d'accords si doux d'un instrument divin,

Pas un faible soupir, pas un écho lointain.

After all, such a lot is not a sad one; it is an old saying and a true one that no man can possess everything in this world-❝ nor woman neither" --and perishable roses are fairer than everlasting flowers.

With the name of Malibran closes the period in the history of La Scala during which its managers were able as a rule to command the services of artists of European reputation. After 1836 the increasing demands of great artists and the furious competition of the opera-houses of Paris, London, and St. Petersburg, made it necessary, with few exceptions, for the Milanese to content themselves with the performances of singers of lesser fame. But when we cast a retrospective glance over the twenty years preceding this date, we cannot but be struck by the galaxy of famous names which meets our eyes. Season after season Pasta, Grisi, Rubini, Tamburini, and Lablache appeared before the audience of La Scala. Lablache came to Milan from Sicily in 1820, bringing with him what was already no mean reputation. He made his début at La Scala in La Cenerentola; in 1821 Mercadante wrote for him the rôle of the father in his chef-d'œuvre, Elisa e Claudio; and in 1832 Meyerbeer made his acquaintance and requested him to sing in his new opera, L'Esule di Granata. During his earlier visits to Milan Lablache came in contact with a superannuated buffo named Raffanelli, an excellent singer, who in his youth had formed part of the celebrated Italian troupe which made so much sensation in Paris in 1789, and who was now occupying the humble position of cashier to the Scala Theatre. It was from this man that he learnt the secret of that exquisite and delicate distinction in the manner of rendering the music of different schools and epochs, for which he was afterwards justly extolled. Raffanelli posted himself in an obscure box while the general rehearsals were proceeding, and made his remarks upon Lablache's acting, diction, and vocalisation, which were modified, amplified, or corrected on the following day in accordance with the tenor of the veteran's observations. It testifies much to Lablache's intelligence and modesty that he was willing to be schooled and tutored by the old ex-buffo, and it is certain that his admirable style was largely attributable to the lessons thus received.

La Scala seems to have been the first important opera-house at which Rubini appeared. There is a curious anecdote, and one illustrating the cost at which those surprising high notes, always so dear to the public, are sometimes produced, in relation to his connection with this theatre. Pacini's opera, Il Talismano, was put upon the stage during the spring season of 1829, and Rubini, as the hero, made his entry with a recitative in which a phrase occurred where the high B flat was suddenly attacked and sustained, to the enormous delight of the audience, who invariably made the house resound with cries of "Un altra volta un altra volta!" Seven times was the B flat given and repeated with success; but on the eighth evening, when the great tenor came forward, and, casting up his eyes, drew a long breath preparatory to striking the note, not a sound followed!-his voice had failed him. The audience encouraged him with sympathetic cheers to a second attempt, and, making a tremendous muscular effort, he threw out a blast clear and pure as ever was silver trumpet. The public enthusiasm knew no bounds; but, in the moment of the exertion, the singer had experienced the sensation of something violently snapping in his chest; and when the scene was over-for, borne up by excitement, he went through it as though nothing had happened-he sent for the surgeon of the theatre, who discovered that he had broken his clavicle. He asked how long it would take to mend, to which the surgeon replied, two months of perfect repose. Rubini stoutly declared that he could not break his engagement, and it was at length agreed that he should keep quiet in the day but continue to sing at night. Many years after, when he had retired from the stage, though his voice was still so beautiful that those who heard it asserted there was nothing to be compared to it, Rubini returned to Milan; and his portly figure and red silk handkerchief were for a long time conspicuous features in the Scala pit. He would attend almost every performance, listening with marked attention to the music and uttering an indignant "hush" when, to obtain a hearing, any poor artist had to carry on an unequal struggle with the din of conversation.

Milan is associated with the youth of the two latest famous Italian composers no less than with that of their predecessors. Here Donizetti produced Anna Bolena, his thirty-second, opera, but the first which stamped him as an original master. There is no record of this event either in the archives of La Scala or in those of the Teatro della Canobbiana, and we therefore conclude the work was written for the Carcano theatre, temporarily converted into an opera-house. In 1832 his L'Elisir d'Amore was brought out at the Canobbiana, and in 1834 Lucrezia Borgia was produced at the Scala-the former with great, the latter with no very signal success. Of Verdi the story is told that he was sent to the Milanese Conservatoire in 1833 by a lawyer of the name of Antonio Barezzi, who had detected in him the germs of genius whilst he was yet working as a lad in his father's mill in the Parmese village of Busseto. The professional authorities, less discriminating,

either refused to admit him because to their minds his appearance denoted the reverse of a musical organisation, or dismissed him, after a brief trial, owing to his displaying "a total want of musical talent." On this point accounts differ. Anyhow, Verdi was faithful to the ars divina, discouragements notwithstanding. Turned away from the Conservatoire, he sought the tuition of one Lavigna, maestro del cembalo at the Scala. Lavigna's system of instruction consisted in setting his pupils to write pieces as best they could for his subsequent correction; the method was simple, but, to judge by the results, effective. With him Verdi remained for several years. It is said that when, in 1842, the young composer offered his Nabuco to the directors of La Scala, his old patron the lawyer again came to his aid, and, by dint of expending considerable sums in caution-money, induced the not too willing impresario to accept the work. It proved an unequivocal success, and made the reputation of Verdi, who was thirty times summoned to the footlights, where he stood in threadbare coat and much worn boots, with his eyes irresistibly fixed upon the box which contained a certain delighted old miller from Busseto.

We have thus briefly sketched some of those scenes, notable in Art history, which flit before the mind of the musical amateur when he takes his place in the great theatre of Milan. But the Scala is suggestive of memories yet more stirring than the triumphs of its stage. To do honour to what a strange medley of kings and governments has it not been lit a giorno, and crowded with starred and diamond-bedecked multitudes!-fêtes of the Cisalpine Republic, fêtes of the AustroRussian victories, fêtes of the Peace of Luneville; gala performances for Prince Eugène Beauharnais and his Bavarian bride, for "His Majesty the Emperor and King, Napoleon," for the return of the National Army. Once more, representations "By Command" of Austrian Archdukes and Viceroyalty-down to the days of wild exultation, when people were still full of faith in Imperial promises, and when the King of Sardinia and he whom he called his "magnanimous ally" graced the Scala with their presence on the morrow of Magenta. Another visit of the King in the August of the same year; visits also of the Tuscan and Æmilian deputations, which came in bearing their adherence to the nation's unity; then a performance on behalf of the exodus of patriotic Venetians; again, one of welcome to the National Guard of liberated Naples; and, in October, 1870, the reception of the Roman deputation and the celebration of the crowning of the national edifice. Latest of all, the other day, another Emperor to be entertained quite a different one to the last or those who went before him; an Emperor come across the Alps neither for battle nor penance, but just to stand here father-like beside Italy's future Queen, and bow low his hoary head to a throng of free Italian men and women. Wonderful the fated march of events which has made this Hohenzollern prince the fulfiller of Dante's prophecy-the Imperial Dux from the North, who

with one swift strong blow sweeps over the temporal Popedom and its

Gallic prop.

Non sarà tutto tempo senza reda

L'Aguglia

un cinquecento dieci e cinque

Messo di Dio, anciderà la fuja

E quel gigante che con lei delinque.

Surely it seems, as we go through the annals of La Scala, that we see rising before us the whole drama, stranger, more impossible than any fiction that has been enacted in these our times, in what the first Napoleon was wont to speak of as "ce beau théâtre de l'Italie." And now that we have wandered into politics, it may be as well to say a word in regard to the underlying significance of those outbursts of enthusiasm, those unexampled operatic triumphs, of which La Scala was the scene during the darkest days of alien subjugation. How could a people bent beneath a foreign yoke find heart to rejoice even in the sweetest melodies of Rossini or at Rubini's most honied notes? A great poet, a German, touched upon this point, hard upon fifty years ago, with that luminous insight that makes us sometimes doubt if poets are not after all the wise men of the earth, and we, the votaries of prose and common sense, be not the fools and blind-if it is not they who see realities and we visions. He says-whether the story was vero or ben trovato is not material—but he says: "One of my Britons regarded the Italians as being politically indifferent, because they seemed to listen with equanimity, when we strangers chatted on the Catholic Emancipation and the Turkish War; and he was unjust enough to say as much, mockingly, to a pale Italian with a jet-black beard. We had the previous evening seen the début of a new opera in La Scala, and witnessed the tremendous enthusiasm which a first success excites. 'You Italians,' said the Englishman, 'appear to be dead to everything save music, which is the only thing which seems to excite you.' injustice,' said the pale one, shrugging his shoulders. 'Ah!' sighed he, 'Italy sits elegiacally dreaming on her ruins, and when she is at times suddenly awakened by the melody of a song and springs wildly up, this sudden inspiration is not due to the song itself, but rather to the ancient memories and feelings which the song has awakened-which Italy has ever borne in her heart, and which now mightily gush forth— and this is the meaning of the wild tumult which you have heard in La Scala."

"You do us

Heinrich Heine wrote thus in 1823. It is so true that not a word can be now added to it or taken from it. The soul of Italy, gagged in speech, found utterance in song; and thus the golden period of Italian opera comes to have a connection with subsequent events little suspected by those who deem man's spirit a thing made up of nicely docketed pigeon-holes and fail to see that life is one, whether its manifestations be art, literature, politics, or religion.

318

Humour.

A FASHION has sprung up of late years of regarding the sense of humour as one of the cardinal virtues. It naturally follows that everybody supposes that he possesses the quality himself, and that his neighbours do not. It is indeed rarer to meet man, woman, or child who will confess to any deficiency in humour than to a want of logic. Many people will confess that they are indolent, superstitious, unjust, fond of money, of good living, or of flattery: women will make a boast of cowardice and men of coarseness; but nobody ever admits that he or she can't see a joke or take an argument. If people were to be taken at their own valuation, logical acumen and a keen perception of the humorous would be the two most universal qualities in the world. Nothing, on the other hand, is more common than the most sweeping condemnation of other men or races. It wants a surgical operation, says the familiar phrase, to get a joke into the head of a Scotchman. The French, says the ordinary Briton, have no sense of humour; the Germans are too elephantine, too metaphysical, too sentimental, or too what you will, to perceive humour; the Irish are witty, if you please, but wit is the antithesis of humour; the Americans have a kind of cynical irony which with them passes for humour, but it has not the true kindly genial flavour of the English article; and even amongst this favoured race how many possess the genuine faculty? All women notoriously hate humour; and the audience of the true humorist is limited even amongst males. Every humorist-except the sacred exceptions-is called a cynic. He disgusts three hearers for one whom he pleases. If you doubt it, try the ironical method with a popular audience or in a newspaper article. You will soon discover that the lady who was seriously shocked when Sydney Smith proposed to take off his flesh and sit in his bones, or the Irish bishop who thought some statements in "Gulliver" incredible, possessed about the average sensibility. The most dangerous of all figures of speech is the ironical. Half your hearers think that you are laughing at virtue, and the other half have a puzzled impression that you are laughing at themselves. If you would succeed with a large audience, you may be dull, or bombastic, or sentimental, or flimsy, or muddled but a touch of humour is the one deadly sin. And yet, we all swear that we love humour above all things. We enjoy Shakspeare's humour; but he has been dead a long time, and the bravest of men does not dare to say what he really thinks about the national poet; we are fond of Charles Lamb, but Lamb's writings were caviare to the