ters is not the common way, cannot express himself artistically. Only in a limited degree of contemplation of the constitution of the phenomena, has, within the memory of man, the artistic impulse for communication been able to expand to the capability of the most convincing representation for the senses: only from the Greek view of the world could the real artistic work of the drama spring into bloom. The subject-matter of this drama was, however, the myth, and out of its constitution alone can we comprehend the highest work of Greek art, and its form which

cozens us.

In the myth, the general poetic power of the people as yet conceives phenomena as the material eye is capable of seeing them, and not as they really are. The great variety of the phenomena, whose true connection man is not, as yet, able to comprehend, first produces on him an impression of anxiety. In order to overcome this, he seeks for some connection between the different phenomena which he may be able to understand as their cause; but the real connection can only be discovered by the understanding, which conceives the phenomena according to the reality; the connection discovered by man, while yet able only to conceive the phenomena through the impressions produced most directly upon himself, can be merely the work of his fancy, and the cause ascribed for them, merely the offspring of his powers of imagination. God and gods are the first creations of man's poetic powers; he pictures to himself in them the existence of the natural phenomena as deduced from a cause, and, as this cause, involuntarily conceives nothing else than his own human existence, on which alone this poetic cause was founded. If the impulse of the man, who wishes to overcome the anxiety produced by the variety of the phenomena, now tends to represent to him as clearly as possible the cause he has invented-since he can obtain tranquillity only through the same senses that have caused his inward anxiety-he must picture the god in a shape that not only corresponds most decidedly to the constitution of his own purely human views, but which, as an outward shape, is most intelligible to him. All comprehension comes to us through love, and man is urged, most involuntarily, towards the beings of his own species. As the human shape is the one most intelligible to him, the existence of the natural phenomena, which he does not as yet understand in their true light, is comprehensible by being resolved into human shape. All the plastic impulse of the people tends to the myth, in such a manner as to represent materially the most far-spreading connection between the most varied phenomena in the most restricted shape; this shape, at first produced only by the fancy, acts, the clearer it is meant to become, entirely in accordance with human qualities, although its substance is in truth superhuman and supernatural, namely: that co-operating polyanthropical or all-natural power and capability, which, conceived only in the connection of the working of human and natural forces generally, is certainly human and natural, but which appears supernatural and superhuman precisely from the fact of being ascribed to the imaginative shape of one individual represented in a human manner. From the capability of thus representing all imaginable realities and actualities in their widest range, in a compressed, plain, and plastic form, the people becomes, through the myth, the creator of art; for these shapes must necessarily gain artistic substance and form, if, as is again their peculiarity, they sprang only from the desire for intelligible representation of the phenomena, i. e., from the ardent longing to recognise, and, in fact, to recognise for the first time, the being most peculiar to one's self-this god-creating being even in the object represented. Art is, according to its purport, nothing more than the fulfilment of the wish to recognise one's self in an admired or beloved object; to find one's self again in the phenomena of the outward world, vanquished in their representation. The artist says to himself, in the object he has represented: "Thus art thou; thus dost thou feel and think, and thus wouldst thou act, if, free from the constraining involuntariness of the outward impressions of life, thou couldst act according to the choice of thy wish." Thus did the people represent to itself, in the myth, the divinity, the hero, and, lastly, the man.

Greek tragedy is the artistic realization of the substance and

spirit of the Greek myth. While the most widely-extending range of phenomena was narrowed in the myth, a shape becoming continually closer, the drama went still further, and displayed this shape in the closest and most compressed manner possible. The general mode of looking at the nature of the phenomena, which, in the myth, was condensed from the natural to the humanly-moral manner of so doing, here manifested itself to the universal power of conception of man in the most definite and illustrative form, and passed as a work of art from the imagination into reality. As in the drama, the figures which, in the myth, had previously only been imagined, were represented actually and corporeally by men, the actually represented action, perfectly agreeing with the constitution of the myth, was compressed into plastic solidity. If the mode of thinking of a man is only rendered convincingly clear to us by his act, and if the character of a man consists in the perfect agreement of his mode of thinking with his act, this act, and, therefore, the sentiment at the bottom of it, thus first becomes-also quite in the sense of the myth-significative and calculated for an extensive subject by being also manifested in the most compressed manner possible. An action consisting of several parts is either, if all the parts are of significative and decided importance, exaggerated, extravagant, and unintelligible, or, if the parts are merely the beginnings and sections of different actions, paltry, capricious, and insignificant. The substance of an action is the sentiment on which it is based; if this sentiment is to be great and comprehensive, exhausting the existence of man in one definite direction, it requires the action also to be decisive, singular and indivisible, for only in such an action does a great sentiment become manifest to us. The substance of the Greek myth was, from its nature, of this comprehensive but closely compressed quality, and expressed also in tragedy, most decisively, as this one, necessary, and decisive action. To cause this one action to spring, justified in its most important signification, from the sentiments of the persons of the drama, was the task of the tragic poet; and the solution of his task consisted in placing within the range of comprehension the necessity of the action from the truth of the sentiments stated. The unity in the form of his work of art was, however, prescribed in the framework of the myth, which he had merely to carry out into a life-like structure, but, on no account, for the sake of any capricious artificial structure he might think of, break up and put together afresh. The tragic poet simply communicated the purport and nature of the myth in the most convincing and intelligible manner, and tragedy is nothing more than the artistic perfection of the myth itself, while the myth is the poem produced by a general way of looking at life.

(To be continued.)

DEPARTURE FOR THE CONTINENT.-In the course of the week the following artists have quitted London for Paris, Florence, and other towns, Signor Gordigiani, Pinsati, Luchesi, Goldberg.

SIGNOR GREGORIO left London on Wednesday. His place as choir-master at the Bavarian Chapel will be filled by Herr Jansa, until his return in October.

SIGNOR COSTA-It were ungracious not to expend a few more words upon the services of Signor Costa, to whose intelligence and energy as musical director we are in a great measure indebted for the well-working of all the complex musical machinery of this gigantic establishment.* Never was his remarkable skill as a conductor more severely tested, or more strikingly exemplified, than on the first night of L'Etoile du Nord, when in the finale to the second act, for instance, the slightest wavering or inaccuracy on his part would have thrown everything and everybody into hopeless confusion, and greatly endangered the success of the opera. The difficulty of these matters is not known to the general public; but when we state that, with comparatively few rehearsals, this trying concerted piece, including four orchestras, which it took the Opéra-Comique chef d'orchestre many months to get up, went, to use a familiar phrase, "like clock-work" at Covent-garden Theatre, some idea may be formed of the conductor's merits.-From a paper called " Tam O'Shanter."

* The Royal Italian Opera.

GIACOMO MEYERBEER. (Continued from page 515.)

THE success of the Huguenots on the French stage was only interrupted by an occasional representation of Robert le Diable, or by the production, at rare intervals, of the work of some French, German, or Italian composer, destined to a short life, to be succeeded by eternal oblivion. Meyerbeer allowed the tide of success to flow on without impediment. He never hurried himself. He was slow in choosing a libretto, and, having chosen it, altered and adapted it to his own views -or, at least, prevailed upon the poet to do so. The idea and construction of some of the finest scenes in Robert, the Huguenots, and the Prophète, were Meyerbeer's. For seven years-from 1836 to 1843Meyerbeer gave the public no new composition of importance. He had, nevertheless, it was said, two grand operas finished in his portfolio, which were intended for the Académie Royale de Musique, when competent singers could be found. These were Le Prophète and L'Africaine. Meyerbeer is not easily satisfied about singers. The Prophète was not produced until 1849, and the Africaine is still a mystery.

The duties of chapel-master and director of music to his Majesty the King of Prussia fully occupied Meyerbeer's time at the Court of Berlin. He contrived, nevertheless, to devote some time to composition. In 1843, at a fête given by the king, he composed expressly for the occasion a grand cantata, with tableaux vivants, entitled Une Fête à la Cour de Ferrare, which was performed at his Majesty's private theatre at Potsdam. The subject was taken from Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, some of the most striking scenes in which-such as, "Clorinda discovering Tancred;" "Armida kneeling before Godfrey of Bouillon;" "The flight of Herminie, and her concealment by the Shepherds;" "Rinaldo with Armida;" "The Enchanted Forest ;" "The Crusaders descending from the Mountain, and beholding Jerusalem for the first time," etc., etc., were illustrated,

Une Fête à la Cour de Ferrare included an overture, a march, and an incidental morceau for each tableau. It was received with distinguished marks of favour by the royal and noble auditors. The music is characterised by all the salient qualities of Meyerbeer. The difficulties to contend with were great, but the inventive power of the musician knew no obstacles.

The betrothals of his Highness the Hereditary Prince of Wurtem burg (the present king) with the Princess Wilhelmina of Prussia, the following year, was the occasion of a new success for Meyerbeer. Berlin has religiously preserved the custom of a nuptial ceremony, formerly held in the Courts of Germany and the North, but now almost neglected. The day when the marriage contract of the eldest son of a reigning prince is signed, the bridegroom, giving his hand to a lady, and the bride, hers to a gentleman, march with great solemnity round a vast hall. They are followed by all the Court, distributed in couples. When the promenade is ended, the Prince halts, the suite doing likewise. The Royal bridegroom then exchanges his partner for that of the gentleman who follows close behind him, and the bride hers, in the same manner. The promenade then re-commences, followed by a fresh exchange of partners, and continues until all the ladies of the Court have made a tour of the apartment with the Prince, and all the gentlemen with his betrothed, passing before the Sovereign. The highest of the nobility alone are admitted to this family fete, in which the greatest magnificence of attire is indispensable. Everyone who officiates in the ceremony holds in his hand an enormous wax flambeau, from which peculiarity originated the name Fackeltanz, or dance of flambeaux. The name is a misnomer, the Fackeltanz being in reality a march, not a dance. Whatever it was, however, when the promenade commenced, the band struck up and played until the ceremony was over.

In the interim Meyerbeer had occupied himself with subjects of higher importance. A comic opera, written expressly for the of Silesia, was represented, for the first time, on the 7th December, 1844, inauguration of the new Theatre Royal at Berlin, and entitled The Camp Řellstab, the well-known German critic, furnishing the book. The cast included Mdlle. Jenny Lind, Herren Mantius, Boetticher, and Ziesche. The opera had a great success, and Mdlle. Jenny Lind owed no little of her reputation to the effect she produced in the celebrated air with two flutes. The composer, however, was not satisfied with his work. He was continually making alterations, additions, curtailments, and improvements; and the result of all this care and anxiety was the Etoile du Nord, one of the masterpieces of modern dramatic music. Meyerbeer would not accept the Camp of Silesia as a perfect work. He knew that he could make it worthier of his fame, and was unwilling to deserve the reproach of Weber, who accused him of having "sacrificed to false gods." The Camp of Silesia was metaphorically burned, and from its ashes sprang L'Etoile du Nord. The history of the Camp of Silesia, its changes, suppressions, and revivals, its withdrawal from the public, and its final transformation into the Etoile du Nord, would make an interesting episode in the annals of music. Our task, however, compels us to diverge from the opera to the composer.

(To be continued.)

YOUNG GERMANY AND RICHARD WAGNER. (From the "Morning Post.")

THE state of musical art in Germany and England is widely different. In the former country, having passed through every grade of excellence to perfection, it long ago reached its highest point, and is now fast falling to decay. Corruption has seized upon Germania's lovely muse; the subtle poison of a false philosophy runs through all her veins-the taint has reached her heart. Deck her now in flowers, and paint; convulse her beautiful limbs with galvanic shocks-make her talk when she should sing, think when she should feel, rave when she should persuade, horrify when she should delight-in vain! the withering hand of death is on her-her days are numbered. It were idle to complain of this. It is a mere repetition of Nature's history. Birth, progress, maturity, decay, death-these are the five grand words that have described, and ever will describe the career of all things animate or inanimate, which the world includes, and no man-not even Herr Wagner-can change the laws which they express, or limit their operation. There can be no doubt whatever that erroneous principles do more harm than erroneous acts. Thus, for instance (to put an extreme case), the man who commits a murder does less wrong to society than the cunning sophist, or selfdeceived philosopher, who, though innocent himself of bloodshed, seeks with all the blandishment of words to justify the hideous crime.

By a parity of reasoning, therefore, we conclude that Herr Wagner's musical principles have done more mischief to art than could even the worst of his musical works. The most hopeless mediocrity-the most insane rhapsodies, might be passed over in silence, or merely provoke a smile; but the dissemination of false theories, rendered still more seductive and dangerous by the brilliant wit, keen satire, imagination, fervid eloquence, and occasional glimpses of truth which this gentleman's literary works include, would require a strong hand to oppose them; and still, in the end, that opposition would prove useless, for the downward course once taken, none but a Sysiphus would attempt to arrest it. Herr Wagner is a necessary evil. We believe him to be quite in earnest, and perfectly conscientious. He feels inwardly impelled to act as he does, feels that he has a mission, and is only mistaken in his view of the purpose of that mission, which is to destroy and not to complete. He is the chosen instrument, and we look upon him with a kind of superstitious reverence. Germany, however, and not England, is the proper arena, for his exploits. There he is at home and natural-one of the last links of a chain which will soon end where it began, in artistic nothingness: the necessary expression of something, which, if he did not, somebody else must express; but here he is out of his element. Englandyoung and fresh in musical feeling, full of reverence for those great masters whom she is only now beginning fully to understand and apfound a national school upon the sure foundations which such models afford-cannot possibly relish corruption. England is under the influence of the Händels, Haydns, Mozarts, Beethovens, Mendelssohns, Spohrs, &c., and therefore not yet prepared, thank Heaven, for Herr Wagner's revelations. When, like Italy and Germany, she shall have completed her musical course, and run to seed, then will some significant sign of the times-some English Wagner-appear to make our darkness visible.

PARIS.

(From our own Correspondent.)

THE new director of the Italian Opera has completed his arrangements, and the Salle Ventadour-which, during the summer months has been so worthily occupied by Madame Ristori and the Piedmontese dramatic company-will, on the first of October, open for the operatic season. At the head of the list of prime donne stands the incomparable Grisi. It is some time since she has appeared before a Parisian audience, and the farewell she took of the English public at Covent Garden last year led us to fear that the queen of lyric tragedy was lost to us for ever. Her transatlantic trip, however, seems to have given her new powers, and added fresh impulse to her genius. She will be welcomed as she deserves by the Parisians, with whom she has always been so great a favourite. Mademoiselle Boccabadati is the daughter of a distinguished artist, and rumour states her to be young, pretty, and endowed with a good voice, which has been carefully cultivated. She is well versed in the music of Rossini, and is intended to fill up the vacancy which Madame Bosio's engagement at St. Petersburgh unfortunately creates. If her artistic merits be in any degree comparable with those of the charming vocalist she replaces, her success is certain. Mad. Rosina Penco is said to be the most remarkable soprano now in Italy. She is also said to possess dramatic talents of the highest order. Mad. Fiorentini is well known both here and in London. Those who have heard her in England since her return from America pronounce her greatly improved both as a singer and actress. In the latter capacity she had something to learn when last in Paris. Madame BorghiMamo stands alone as contralto, and is worth a host in herself; indeed, since Alboni reserved herself for soprano parts only, Madame Borghi has no rival. Nothing can exceed the quality of her voice, which is rich, fresh, and sympathetic: her style is pure and good, her vocalisation excellent, and her dramatic capabilities of no inferior order. Madame Borghi's engagement will go far to ensure success to the new direction. Mdile. Pozzi is seconda donna.

First on the list of tenors stands Mario, with regard to whose vocal and dramatic excellence, when he is "i' the vein," criticism is idle and praise superfluous. True it is that both he and Grisi are pronounced "ruins" by the intelligent critic of the Indépendance Belge, but as that same gentleman is incapable of discerning the dramatic genius of Rachel, or of appreciating the merits of Cruvelli, he may be safely left in possession of his somewhat singular taste. Signor Carrion is said to possess a tenor voice of good quality, and has lately sung with considerable success at the opera at Vienna. Signor Salvi is well known. Of Signor Mongini, the fourth on the list, I know nothing.

MM. Graziani and Everardi are the barytones. The former was a favourite here during the last two seasons, and possesses a voice of a charming and fresh character, though he has much to learn, whether as a vocalist or actor. M. Angelini is the first basso, M. Zucchini the comic basso, and MM. Mei, Soldi, Rossi, etc., complete the list. Among the operas promised during the season are Don Giovanni, Barbiere, Mosè, Semiramide, Otello, La Gazza Ladra, Cenerentola, besides popular productions of Verdi, Bellini, Donizetti, and Mercadante. More than one new opera will also be produced, and, if any young maestro can offer a new work of sufficient merit, the management will be too glad to hear from him.

At the Grand-Opéra, M. Charles Wicart has made his début with a moderate amount of success. Of Belgian extraction, he received his musical education at the Conservatoire of Paris. He was then engaged, first at Lyons, afterwards at Toulouse, and lately he has been singing at Brussels. He possesses a tenor voice of moderate compass but good quality, which, however, he has the bad habit of forcing beyond its capacity. He is likewise addicted to singing sharp, and is too fond of sudden and violent contrasts. All these defects must be remedied, and he must also learn something of the first rudiments of acting, ere he can worthily fill the post to which he aspires. He made his

bow to the audience in Gueymard's part in the Juive, and was re-called at the fall of the curtain. Madame Lafon is a fair representative of Rachel, and Mdlle. Dussy, a young singer of remarkable promise, and whose improvement of late has been most extraordinary, is a charming Eudoxie.

Les Vêpres Siciliennes has now been performed twenty-three times, and with a success continually increasing. It is not too much to say that the capabilities of the house would be taxed, were its dimensions doubled. A night never passes that crowds are not refused, after every hole and corner commanding even a glimpse of the stage has been occupied. Much of this is owing to Madlle. Sophie Cruvelli, who, in the part of Hélène, has literally taken Paris by storm. Never have her wonderful vocal and dramatic attainments been displayed to greater advantage. It would seem as if when about to retire, in the very zenith of her fame, she was determined to establish a reputation second to that of no artist who ever trod the lyric stage, and she has fully succeeded; for whether we look to the compass, freshness, purity, and quality of her voice, her wonderful vocalisation, her intelligent interpretation of the music of every school from Beethoven to Verdi, her noble carriage and deportment, or dramatic genius which has enabled her to assume every variety and shade of character known to the lyric stage, from Leonora and Norma to Cherubino and Amina, she now stands without a rival. Rachel, speaking of Mdlle. Cruvelli's capabilities as an actress, declared, "she alone is worthy to be my successor;" but alas! dis aliter visum, and she will bid adieu to the stage at an age whereat most artists are making their début.

All hope of presenting Santa Chiari-the new opera of the Duke of Saxe Coburg-before the Queen of England on her approaching visit, has now vanished. Everybody worked hard, from M. Crosnier to the scene painters, but the thing was found to be impossible, and its production is consequently postponed until the end of next month. The committee of management, however, may easily console themselves, for it seems wilful waste to present so choice a novelty at a time when the public are greedily devouring the dainties already prepared for them. Meanwhile it may not be uninteresting to your readers to have a sketch of the subject, which the princely maestro has chosen for his theme.

In the early part of the last century Peter the Great married his son Alexis, then aged 21, to the Princess of Wolfenbüttel, sister of the Empress of Germany. Peter, busied with schemes of aggression abroad, and assimilation and amelioration at home, had altogether neglected his parental duties; the education of the Czarevitch having been confided to bigots of the old Russian school, averse to change and opposed to progress. Too late the Czar discovered his error, and endeavoured, with the aid of foreign professors, to cultivate the shallow mind of his son; but the mischief was done, the seed sown of fanatics had taken deep root, and the Czarewitch like the deaf adder, refused to hear the voice of the foreign charmers, and stopped his ears to the instruction they strove to convey, Convinced that the nation was opposed to his father's magnificent projects, he joined a conspiracy against him, and, being discovered, fled to Vienna, and eventually to Naples. In the king of that state, Peter had a friend as firm as King Bomba to Czar Alexander, and Alexis was arrested by Romanzoff and Tolstoy, carried to Petersburgh, and there strangledby his father's hand, as was generally believed.

Some historians have supposed that his wife did not share her husband's fate, but that, plunged like Juliet in a death-like trance, she afterwards escaped; and the Duke has followed this version. The opera opens in 1715, and the first two acts take place in the Kremlin, at Moscow. The scene of action is then changed to the Hartz mountains, where the princess is supposed to have taken refuge, and the composer has availed himself of the numerous legends and mysterious tales of which they have ever been the subject.

Le Mariage d'Olympe has been for the present withdrawn from the boards of the Vaudeville, in consequence of the absence of Félix, whose congé will not expire before November. It is reported that M. Augier has another piece nearly finished, of a

different stamp from that whose production in the Place de la Bourse has caused much regret to his friends, and they are many.

At the Variétés, a very pretty, very graceful, and very charming actress, Mdlle. Caroline Bader, has made a hit in a one-act trifle entitled Une Femme qui Mord. The plot is simple and absurd enough. Mdlle. Aurore is a grisette of marvellous virtue and probity. She has encouraged the addresses of M. Alcide Jolivet, and too late discovers, or fancies she has discovered, that one of her country cousins loves the same Lothario. She determines on sacrificing herself on the altar of friendship, and on putting an end to M. Jolivet's amatory career. M. Jolivet, however, is for once of fixed and settled purpose. Aurore has promised him her hand, and he insists on her fulfilling her engagement. Determined, however, not to be baffled, Aurore feigns hydrophobia, barks at M.Jolivet, and with her pretty pouting lips dissevered to shew a brilliant set of teeth, she pursues him to the staircase, down which he rushes at full speed. However, a letter arrives from the country cousin giving up all claim on M. Jolivet, and the curtain falls on his being promised the hand of the fair Aurore. One would willingly run some danger from lips whereof "One was thin,

Compared to that was next her chin,

Some bee had stung it newly"

and in addition to the charm of beauty, Madlle. Bader is possessed of considerable intelligence, and promises well as an actress. Charles Pérey is droll and funny as M. Jolivet. Bouffé is playing the Père Turlututu, and is as charming a centenarian as ever.

The Folies Nouvelles has adapted Blue Beard for one of its pantomimic entertainments, and Paul Legrand, disguised as Pierrot, destroys his wife with sword and kick, after a most ridiculous manner. The Blue Beard of the Folies Nouvelles, however, though a cruel husband, cannot endure a separation from his children, and, on setting out for the wars, attaches two of them to his waist like cartridge boxes, and departs happy. Eventually Pierrot pays the forfeit of his crimes, and is blown from a gun. M. Durondeau, painter, author, and actor, is the adapter of the piece, which, like most of the productions of the artists of the Charivari, who have undertaken the management of this entertaining and prosperous little theatre, is both amusing and funny.

The Cirque has produced another Paris, in opposition to that which has achieved such success at the Porte St. Martin. MM. Theodore Barrière and Henri de Kock are the authors of the new drama, whereof the first half alone, coming down to the time of Henry IV., has yet been produced, and lasts until one in the morning.

LEIPSIC (From a Correspondent.)-A rumour is abroad that Herr Schleinitz (active) Director of the "Conservatorium," has resigned his office, which creates no little sensation among the teachers and members of the Academy, by whom he is much respected. He has directed the affairs of the institution since the death of Mendelssohn, of whom he was an intimate friend and who appointed him to the post.

The Stadt-Theater will shortly again be thrown open to the public. The construction of the heating apparatus is progressing, and the lessee, Herr Wirsing, is travelling in search of an entirely new troupe of singers and actors. Herr Riccius, up to the present time conductor of the Euterpe concerts-which after the Gewandhaus are the best-has been engaged as Kappellmeister. The Gewandhaus concert season is expected to commence this year, as usual, in the beginning of October. Miss Arabella Goddard is engaged for at least one concert.

BERLIN.-The Royal Opera-house has been re-opened, but for ballets only, twice a week, until the 11th inst., when the regular season will commence. The interior of the house has undergone some extensive alterations, the "parquet' being enlarged by the addition of 500 places.

MAYENCE.-Richard Wagner's Lohengrin, Donizetti's Don Sebastian, and a new opera by Herr Capellmeister Reiss, will be produced early in the season.

THE TRIUMPH OF RACHEL. (From the "Sunday Times.")

To estimate to its full value the success of Mdlle. Rachel in this country, it is necessary to bear in mind one important factnamely, that she acts in a foreign language without the assistance of music.

The accomplished few, to whom French is almost as familiar as English, may think this statement a mere piece of pompous frivolity; but it, nevertheless, involves a truth that many a manager has discovered by his own individual experience, and to his own infinite loss. During a tolerably long series of years, the St. James's Theatre, under the management of Mr. Mitchell, opened, as certainly as the winter arrived, for the performance of French plays-by a company sometimes admirably completealways distinguished by the presence of one or two of the most celebrated actors from Paris. The habitués of the St. James's used to look forward to the French plays just as regularly as the lovers of music anticipate the Opera, and a programme of the season was always issued, to show the sort of entertainment designed by the manager for his patrons. The days when French plays were merely performed by itinerant companies, that took up their quarters sometimes at the Lyceum, sometimes at the Adelphi, were thought to belong to an obsolete state of barbarism. In short, nothing could wear a more decided appearance of permanency than the dramatic series annually given under Mr. Mitchell's management. Alas! the French drama, as an entertainment of constant recurrence, is now forgotten entirely; and when, last year, M. Lafont gave a series of performances that lasted a single month, it was felt that this was no revival of the custom once established by Mr. Mitchell. This year, M. Levassor made an experiment, with a sort of semi-dramatic entertainment, which, though somewhat flimsy in its character, sufficiently displayed his admirable talent, to render it in some measure attractive, had it not been for the fatal obstacle of theforeign language. There lies the difficulty, and a difficulty all but insuperable, however the "highly accomplished" portion of the community, real or pretended, may affect to despise it. A theatre is not like a church, that can rely upon a single congregation attending the same service over and over again; but it requires a perpetually-changing audience, and such an audience can only be supplied, for a length of time, by an apparently inexhaustible multitude. We do hear, now and then, to be sure, of some extraordinary fanatic, who goes to see the same piece twenty times, but such a person is an isolated exception, not a rule; and wherever there is what is called a long " run," we may be satisfied that the masses have been appealed to with success. Now, a vast multitude that understands French sufficiently to follow a play in that language, with anything like indolent enjoyment, is not to be found in London, and hence the patrons of the St. James's Theatre were not much more than sufficient to make up two or three respectable audiences. As the same persons grew tired, after a while, of the same amusements, the French plays ultimately ceased for want of efficient support. A pendant to the picture is to be found in Paris, where every attempt to establish an English company has proved still more abortive, from the circumstance that the French who know English are far fewer than the English who know French.

The greatness of the conqueror is shown by the magnitude of the obstacles he surmounts. What, then, shall we say of Mdlle. Rachel, who has invariably drawn crowded houses whenever she has paid London a visit ?

STRASBURGH.—The season of the German Operatic Company was brought to a close with La Muette de Portici.

HAMBURG.-A very successful concert has been given for the benefit of the Klein-kinderhewahranstalt. Among the celebrities present were M. Vivier, and Concertmeister David, from Leipsic.

MANNHEIM.-Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser has been produced. WARSAW.-Rossini's Guillaume Tell has been produced, in Italian, under the title of Charles the Bold, (!).

VIENNA.-Flotow's new opera, Albin, composed expressly for the Imperial Opera-house, will not be produced before December.