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PEN-WIPER.

A square of Canvas, two ounces of the shortest White Bugles, two skeins of Floss Silk, and a Screw Pen

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This is one of the most useful and also most brilliant of pen-wipers; and is so easily done that no difficulty can be experienced in working it, even by a child.

All the pattern is done in bugles, which are all laid on in the same direction, and with extremely strong thread, such as Evans's Mecklenburg, No. 7. The canvas should be selected of such a size that each bugle will form a square of two threads each way. When the entire design is done, the ground must be filled in, in floss silk. A bit of watered cerise silk will form a pretty lining, the edges of the canvas and silk being sewed together, and a bugle fringe added.

Squares of cloth, notched in a fanciful manner, must be placed underneath, and all united in the centre by the shank of the pen-wiper ornament, which runs through them and is screwed into the head.

These pretty little gilt ornaments are made in various designs, the first having been brought by ourselves from Paris. The English ones are much more completely finished. An elephant, a cock, a horse's head, a squirrel are among the prettiest patterns. They are extremely convenient, as they allow of the black cloth being constantly replaced. AIGUILLETTE.

SQUARE AND OBLONG NETTING, FOR ANTI-MACASSARS, &c. Although we have more than once given directions for these fashionable kinds of netting, yet, in deference to the wishes of numerous subscribers, we repeat our instructions, with some additional particulars.

In either case, begin on one stitch, in which do two. Turn the work, and do one stitch in the first and two in the next. Again turn, and net one stitch in every stitch but the last, in which do two. All the rows, until you come to

the widest width required, are done thus. A row is then done with a stitch in every stitchthat is, without any increase whatever. Now decrease, by netting together the last two stitches of every row, until at last there are only two stitches, which must be taken together. When this piece of netting is washed, stiffened, and pinned out properly, it will form a perfect square, every hole also being a perfect square, not a diamond, as in common netting. For a piece of netting in which the holes shall still be squares, but the work longer than it is wide, proceed in the same manner until the full

width is obtained. Then, after the row without increase or decrease, you will increase at the end of one row, by doing two stitches in one, and decrease at the end of the other, by netting two together: repeat these two rows alternately until the extra length is obtained; then a plain row, after which decrease at the end of every row until two stitches only are left, and take them together.

Observe that two rows make one square; thus: if the piece is required three squares longer than wide, it will want six rows between the two plain ones. AIGUILLETTE.

ARABESQUE COUNTERPANE.

MATERIALS:-Messrs. W. Evans and Co.'s Boar's Head Crochet Cotton, No. 4, and Boulton and Son's

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and music of the Italians, then, reigned in all the royal theatres of Germany at the end of the eighteenth century, as they had done ever since such things had been invented; and it was against this tyrannical domination of foreign art that Beethoven, Weber, and their partizans, taking up the art which had been attempted rather than accomplished by Keyzer, raised then the standard of revolt and insurrection. This school was to music what the insurrection of 1813 was in politics: it came to evoke the national genius, which, ever since the renaissance, had suffered itself to lie torpid, dazzled and charmed by the arts, the literature, and the civilization of me

It was in combating the influences, then, of these able masters, that truly natural Germanic art had to be born. Happily, in spite of this great movement of foreign art, which invaded all the courts of Germany, there was, towards the last years of the seventeenth century, a small number of independent spirits, who essayed to evoke the natural genius of their vater saint, and create a point of resistance to the servile imitation of Italian music and French literature, which had become so general. It was in Hamburgh, that free and commercial city, which, by its geographical situation, and the nature of its municipal institutions, escaped the influence of the courts, that, in the year 1678, was con-ridional Europe. It is curious to remark, in structed the first public theatre that Germany ever possessed. In it were successively represented the operas of Keyser, Zelemon, and Matheson, and other musicians, whose names have not been preserved. These operas, all of which were composed, as to the words, in the national language, and had German singers for interpreters, were, after all, more or less free imitations of the Italian operas, successions of airs all composed after one fashion, with here and there duets and choruses, whose harmony was very simple. That which caused the success of the Hamburgh opera, which flourished till the year 1738, was the national spirit which had presided at its institution. The people were proud to see German poets, musicians, and singers, offer an interesting spectacle which could be opposed to that presented by the Italian virtuosi, whom the princes of Germany lavished so much gold upon. This movement of independence reached Leipsic, in which city resided the great Sebastian Bach, and from thence travelled to Berlin, where two celebrated men, Kirnberger and Marpurg, placed themselves in strong opposition to the exclusive taste of Frederic the Great for Italian music and virtuosi; but it still did not produce at first any very important results in the dramatic line. It was in the religious and instrumental pieces of music, in the oratorios of Handel and the immense works of Sebastian Bach, that the natural genius made itself most especially manifest. Indeed Handel and Sebastian Bach were by far the two greatest musicians that had been produced by Germany before the arrival of Gluck, Mozart, and Joseph Haydn, whose geniuses, however, were not purely German, having a spice of Italian melody mixed with them. The operas, virtuosi,

passing, that even at the moment in which Europe seems to be on the march towards new destinies, and to be desirous of effacing all the traditional distinctions which characterize her separate and individual people, Germany, on the contrary, is endeavouring to repudiate everything belonging to the Latin civilization, the base of the general civilization of Europe, and is tracing round her frontiers a kind of feudal barrier, with the purpose of defending her mind and manners from all contact with those of the stranger. This singular phenomenon of contemporary history appears to us to be explainable by the history of the German past. Early dazzled and blinded by the éclat of France and Italy, she has long observed their double influence to retard the development of her own originality, and she is desirous of preventing the further delay of that development. It was after the middle of the last century that she awoke from her long sleep, and endeavoured to create a literature which should be the expression of her own native genius. It was the same movement to independence which created Goethe and Schiller that caused Beethoven, Weber, Schuberl, and more lately Mendelssohn, to break all relation with the Italian muse, and finish the revolution of which the school of Hamburgh, Berlin, and Leipsic had prematurely given the signal; and it is the same movement, according to us, which produces the historical phenomenon we have just noticed.

The musicians of Germany may be divided into two great families; and by so dividing them we shall give a pretty faithful expression to the two tendencies which have characterized the civilization of the Germans from the day of the renaissance to ours. Keyser, Handel, Sebas

tian Bach, Beethoven, and Weber, are the exclusive and grand representatives of the national and autochthone genius; whilst Meyerbeer, Winter, Mozart, Haydn, as to his vocal music, and Gluck, reflect the double influence of the north and south. As for the lover of Faustina, we do not recognize him as a German musician, Hasse was an obedient and joyous disciple of the Italian school. Born in the environs of Hamburgh, brought up in that city in intercourse with Keyser, whose operas he sang, and whose genius he admired, he cared nothing for the indecisive forms of the dramatic music of his own country, and ran to Italy as to the source of his inspiration and his glory. It was at Naples, under the discipline of Alexandre Scarlati, that his imagination first took flight. choyé by the ladies, who knew how to appreciate his handsome figure and fine voice, admired and feted by this naïf people, which possesses the easily-awakened and burning enthusiasm of the heroic ages, Hasse was in Italy crowned with flowers on his very début in his career, and adopted by them as a child of the same country. His numerous operas, of which only one, Antigonus, was composed to German words, resemble exactly in the distribution of their parts, &c., those of Vuier, Leo, Porpora, Pergolese, and the rest of the first masters of the school of Naples. They are successions of airs invariably coupé in the same manner; that is to say, in two parts, with the da capo, or the re-introduction of the first motif. These airs are intermingled with a duet or two, sometimes, but only rarely with a trio, and now and then with a chorus, all very simply harmonised. All those of Hasse's that it has been possible for us to examine are of this construction, and they differ only from each other by the subjects and the variety of their melodies. His instrumentation consisted merely of the quartets, accompanied by a few hautboys, the flute, and the bassoon. In the pathetic scenes he sometimes introduced the horn, and sometimes also the trumpet. Such were the materials of which alone he composed his orchestra, which was not one whit more varied than that of Handel, or of any Italian composer of the same epoch. It was by the grace and tenderness of his melodies, and by the beauty of his airs and duets, which served to exhibit and set off the talents of the most admirable virtuosi, that Hasse conquered the extraordinary renown which he enjoyed during sixty years of the century which last passed by. He was a musician, it has been well said, of instinct, who wrote with facility the happy and simple songs which his heart dictated, and who knew how to appropriate them with address to the voices of his singers. It thus happened that his operas were very much sought after by fashionable sopranists and cantatrices, and that his limpid and deliciouslysweet melodies, expressive of all the joys and pains of love, became the delight of all Europe. During ten whole years the celebrated Farinelli enlivened the sad king of Spain, Philip V., by singing to him every evening two of Hasse's

airs," Pallido e il sole," and "Pre questo dolce amplesso."

By the grace and temper of his melodies, and by the simplicity of his forms, Hasse belonged to the Italian school of the first half of the last century. He possessed both its faults and its charming qualities. He sang rather to awake desire and to distract passion, than to express either its violence or sadness. He has nothing of the profundity of his compatriot Gluck, although, like him, he was a deserter, who fled to the camp of the foreigner. Thus his influence over the music of Germany was not destined to survive him, amiable genius although he was.

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When, in 1774, Hasse repaired to Milan, in order to compose there his last opera, Ruggiero," he there encountered the young Mozart, who, at the age of fourteen years only, was writing his first dramatic essay, "Mitridate, re di ponte." In encouraging this divine composer, he pronounced these memorable words: Here is one who will cause us all to be forgotten!"

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As for the cantatrice whose name is inseparable from that of Hasse, it is necessary for us to say that she was worthy of being the interpreter of the graceful melodies of the Saxon master. In repudiating the national spirit, hardly yet awakened, of his own country, and going to seek inspiration in the land of light and melody, Hasse seemed to have espoused in the charming Faustina all the seductions of her Italy. She was of small size, and well-defined figure; and in the midst of her smiling countenance shone two of the most beautiful black eyes, full of fire and wit. Her mouth, always a little open, like a ripe pomegranate, displayed two rows of small, fine, white, handsome teeth, from which proceeded the most luminous of smiles. Well educated, highly intelligent, and of a fruitful imagination, she was a charming creature, possessed of all the grace, elegance, aud agreeableness of a true Venetian gentildonna. Her voice was a mezzo-soprano, of an extent of nearly two octaves, commencing at si below the middle line, and reaching to the upper sol, and, on occasion, to the upper si. This long and fine ladder of beautiful, pure, and silver sound, was of the most admirable flexibility, whilst each note was of the most delicious timbre. An excellent musician, gifted with the most rare dramatic instinct, she found spontaneously the most complicated ornaments, which she executed with a brio perfectly astonishing. All the marvels of vocalization, simple and double time, trills, sparks of melody, and every kind of adorable caprice which could be possibly suggested by the finest and gayest mind, were scattered from her rosy lips whenever she sang. To have any just idea of her it was necessary to see her, and especially to hear her when she attacked some very high note which she seemed to suspend in space, slowly filling it with her inextinguishable breath, which she knew how to economise with an incomparable maestria. She never gave utterance to a doubtful intonation, nor ever missed

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the end she wished to attain; and her voice, | butes which go to constitute the perfect singer, gentle, sweet, penetrating, and limpid, rather than strong, executed without the slightest error the most difficult of passages. She was a cantatrice of a kind of demi-character, touching upon the domain of passion without entering into it completely, and agitating with her wings the waters of the abyss without ever fairly plunging into it. She loved especially to lutiner the measure, to play with the rhythm as a bird sometimes balances itself upon a flexible bough, in order to manifest the grace and enjoyment of her spirit by those tempo rubato which she often employed in rapid movements, and in which she excelled at rendering manifest those thousand coquetries of the feminine imagination with which she was entirely penetrated.

Tosi thus concludes the last chapter but one of his excellent book: "Let him who would learn to sing study the method of good singers; let him study, above all, the singing of those two women, above all praise, who sustain in our days the glory of our fine art; one of them, Faustina, is inimitable for the rapidity and finish of her marvellous execution, which seems less a result of art than a gift of nature; the other of them, Cuzzoni, is more remarkable for the nobility of her style and her incomparable voice. Ah! what an exquisite union would be formed if the respective qualities of these two angelic creatures could be all given to one person, and the pathos of Cuzzoni added to the entrain, the gaiety, and the bravoure of Faustina!"

Faustina had a perfect pronunciation, and Generous, fanciful, full of wit, of verve and gave to each word its exact measure, thus pre- benign gaiety, Faustina had besides, one of those venting all unnecessary and perplexing move-thousand-sided characters which present somements of the lips. All her contemporaries agree in awarding to her that which the Italians call il canto granito, that is to say, a pearly, fluid, mellifluous, sweet, and mordant style, a happy melange of gracefulness and strength, of light and shadow, gaiety and sentiment. Mancini, Burney, Hawkings, Schubad, Rochlitz, a celebrated German critic of the 18th century, whom we have cited, Majer de Venise, President de Brosses, and many other travellers who heard

"Cette dixième muse de l'Italié,"

or who were contemporary with the echo of her renown, are unanimous in the judgment which they pass on her. This judgment is, moreover, confirmed by two other contemporaries, whose authority cannot be contested, viz: Quantz, the celebrated flautist, who was music-master to Frederic the Great, and more especially Tosi, a sopranist of the first rank, who, after having sung in the principal cities of Europe, was drawn to London, where he died, after having published a very interesting book upon the art of singing, entitled, Opinione de cantori antichi e moderni, o sieno osservazioni sopra il canto figurato." In this work, Tosi discusses, with the finest taste, all the questions which attach themselves to the fine art of singing, of which he thought he saw commence the decadence at the beginning of the 18th century; and we may explain the cry of alarm which was raised, in this respect, by so excellent a master, when we recollect that, by his age and the education he had received, he belonged to an epoch different from the one in which he wrote his book-to an epoch in which fine declamation, simple music, and recitatives, confined the fancy of the virtuoso within the narrowest limits. After an age of groping and of progress, singers had become more able, had emancipated themselves, had come to give a free scope to their imagination, often substituting it for the thought of the composer. This was what gave Tosi uneasiness when he saw appear upon the scene those marvellous sopranists who for so long a period dazzled and charmed all Europe. After having analyzed successively each of the various attri

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times the strangest and most startling contrasts. Woe to him who dared to contemn her charms, or who suffered himself to be distracted by anything else whilst she was singing! One evening, when she was playing, at the theatre of the Court of Dresden, the part of Zenobia, perceiving that the King, Auguste III, was chattering with one of the Polish Princesses, she pronounced the words

"Taci, is tel commando!" which were in her part, in such an imperious tone, and addressed them so evidently to the King, that the latter did not require to be commanded a second time, but preserved henceforth till the end of the representation the most perfect silence. The conversation of Faustina was a rolling fire of curious anecdotes, a living history of contemporary music, says Burney, who saw much of her at Venice, in 1772. She was at that time more than seventy years of age, but she had lost nothing of the gaiety of her humour or the vivacity of her mind and intellect. She still was fond of society, interested herself in everyone who was young, and, notwithstanding the ravages of time, still exhibited, at least, something of the surpassing gracefulness and beauty which she had been so famed for in her youth. She told Burney, that his countrymen, the English, understood nothing of music, and that the airs of Handel were all of them rather rude, and utterly lacking in the penetrating sweetness which distinguished those of her husband. Burney having begged her to sing him something, "Ah! non posso," she replied, heaving a sigh, "ho perduto tutte le mie facolta!" What regrets and recollections must have rushed upon her with that sigh!

There exist two portraits of Faustina-one painted at London, which represents her in all the splendour and glory of her youth, and of which one may be a reproduction, in Hawkins's History of Music; the other, painted by Rosalba, and hanging in the gallery of Dresden, amid the chefs d'oeuvre of Italian art, which were acquired, at a lavish expense, by Auguste III. Rosalba was also a Venetian, who lived a long

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