The one-half which is nearest you forms a portion of "the lovely fields of your beautiful country;" the other half is an accursed territory. There is a flint upon the border-line. You take up one-half of it, fit it to your gun, and break your hostile neighbour's head with it; the other half will break your own! But here is something still more absurd. A portion of the territory 66 is ceded by treaty. That which was before your country, is no longer your country, and as a good patriot you learn to hate it. A while ago it was dulce et decorum" to die for it, y los Tevedos! Now, it is a fine thing to kill every man who dares to defend it, and die ravaging it with fire and sword-your whilom fatherland! what asses we are! "Vat is Lor Cardoggin ?" exclaimed a foreigner, 66 The leading articles of our "best possible instructors" are set up most appropriately in "long PRIMER," to denote the puerile quality of their contents. An admirable device the Allies have hit upon for restoring the Sultan's sovereignty in Syria-by destroying all the Syrian towns. His sway will thus be reduced to nil, which is exactly suited to the Porte's capacity to govern. There is peace in bombarded Beyrout: "Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant!" - The Earl of Cardigan is the greatest bather in the empire, being continually in "hot water." Yet, filthy fellow, he never comes clean out of it! Since there is no living with Lord Cardigan, why should not "a dead set" be made against him? THE SABINE RAPE: AN EPIGRAM. "Immortal gods! behold a senseless beast ; M. AMONGST Scenic exhibitions, that to which people least of all resort for the sake of the theatre itself is unquestionably the Opera. How little flattering soever the expression of this opinion may be to composers, ballet-masters, and writers of libretti, it must nevertheless be avowed, though La Sylphide should lose her wings an hour the sooner, though La Fille du Danube should drown herself in despair in the bosom of her mother, though the Lac des Fées should in revenge extend its inundation over heaven and earth. The confession is a painful one, but it is absolutely necessary, Alas! I Puri tani themselves, great and memorable sufferers though they be, are not exempt from the common lot. We go to see Puritani-to see other people; we go to hear Puritani-to hear different things. The Opera is, in truth, much more in front of the stage than on the stage itself. Its pervading presence is felt everywhere; in those charming faces, so rosy and smiling, and fresh and exhaling perfume, which stoop gracefully over the fronts of the boxes; [1840. in those blonds or dark-brown tresses which wave with the slightest breath of air over shoulders of dazzling whiteness, more beautiful in outline, more elegant in form than the most exquisite of Canova's marbles; it is there, in the look, the smile which the anxious lover seeks amidst a thousand looks and smiles, and which from afar, in the midst of the stately, silent crowd, comes calmly and sweetly like hope to his heart. Yes, the Opera is in all this, and still more in those piquantes conversations which are held in an under tone, and of which every disjointed word is caught up by eager listeners, with hands joined as in prayer. Take away from it this every-day attribute of its existence, which lives but by the tender effulgence of its waxen tapers, and the gorgeous splendour of its central sun; take away from it all those charming bouquets, which fall as it were from hand to hand, and the Opera is no more! One evening, as the audience were departing, after witnessing the performance of one of Bellini's operas, a person, whose opinion was asked as to the merits of Bellini, replied: "Bellini's is undoubtedly fine music, brilliant, learned, inspired. But it will not succeed at the Opera, it makes too much noise; and leaves one no opportunity of making himself heard in conversation. C'est affreux quand on cause!" It must be confessed that Bellini is a merciless maestro, and has inflicted without the slightest sprinkling of pity the rudest possible blow on the Opera of the avant-scène, in favour of the Opera of the stage; saving one, he has wrought the destruction of the other. There are others, on the contrary (for upon what question is opinion not divided?) who invoke blessings on Bellini and his music, and exalt them both with extravagant enthusiasm: "He alone (they will tell you) has arrived at a proper understanding of what the Opera is, both for his own purpose and for his audience. He alone will survive this era of false composers. An opera of Bellini's is equivalent to a five hours' téte-àtéte. However full a box may be, you can chat as freely as if you had but a single listener. The music is there to protect you. O, la bella musica! La buona musica! But these are precious little secrets of the frequenters of the Opera, upon which I am most imprudently letting in the daylight. Babbling were an excellent thing in its way, if long tongues did not happen to be sometimes too communicative. Accordingly, since indiscretion is of all possible faults in the polite world the greatest and most pitilessly unpardonable, I shall be very careful how I reveal those trivial but sacred mysteries of the heart which lie perdus beneath diamonds and flowers, and smiles and tears. EPIGRAM. Written after a Sojourn of a Week at the Hotel, Richmond. Whoever would find the Philosopher's Stone, The omnipresence of English Quackery may be estimated from the fact, that we have met the following advertisement in several Italian papers: "Il sig. E. Smith, dottore in medicina della facoltà di Londra, in seguito a permesso ottenuto dall'ill. mo Magistrato del Protomedicato dell'Università di Torino per lo smercio dell'estratto di salsapariglia C. ridotto in pillole, ne ha stabilito un deposito nella regia farmacia Masino, presso la chiesa di S. Filippo." The sincerity of De Beriot's grief for the loss of the incomparable Malibran may be estimated from the fact of his having married a Prussian Countess the other day: What mourner half so true as he? A sturdy beggar once was asked, SOLIMAN PACHA.-M. Eusèbe de Lalle has just published a most interesting work in Paris, called Pérégrinations en Orient, from which we extract the following description :— "Soliman Pacha, whose countrymen always describe him, through preference, by his French name, as 'General Sèves,' was born at Lyons. I shall say nothing here about his apostacy, further than that he was born at a period when religion was totally annihilated in France, and that he is a Voltairien and a Deist. He is a man of great talents, very much resembling Suwarrow in character, a great conversationist, and, like Suwarrow, frequently shrouding his real character under an exterior of buffoonery. He is perfectly versed in the Oriental languages and habits, and as perfectly in those of Europe. In every department of Turkish life, at the divan and the table, he is quite at home; but his proper sphere is the field of battle. He is renowned for his rapid coup-d'œil, and for his electric courage. It is in the field that we must admire his Herculean structure, and his lion countenance. In the bosom of his family he is esteemed a model of tender kindness. His sole wife is a young Greek, whom he redeemed from slavery after the expedition of the Morea. His eldest daughter is affianced to a son of Ibrahim Pacha : and he has several male children besides. One day that I visited him en famille, I found him engaged with a tailor, with whom he was discussing as to the choice of certain ornaments, to be added to several Arnaut dresses of crimson velvet; nothing being, in his estimation, too brilliant for the decoration of his wife and children, who, it must be confessed, are exceedingly beautiful. With all his occupations, he finds a good deal of time to spend with them in private. The tailor whom he had employed upon this occasion was the most fashionable of Aleppo, and had finished, the evening before, a complete nizam dress for Prince Pückler-Muskau." - A Taste of PHILOLOGY: Our fair readers may remember that some years since, the trousers, which were then much more generally worn by ladies than now, were universally called pan-jams. The name is still heard occasionally principally amongst children. It is not, however, mere infantine gibberish, but a very good word, pan-jambe, which in the French signifies a "flap or lappet for the legs." In horrible juxta-position with the inquest on the unfortunate woman who was crushed to pieces on the Southampton line, come the frightful catastrophes on the Birmingham and Great Western lines, where four men are instantaneously reduced to mummy, and a fifth has his legs shattered to such a degree that amputation becomes absolutely indispensable. Once for all, if life and limb are left any longer at the mercy (!) of money-grinding and irresponsible directors, then John Bull's name shall be John Donkey for the future. A sage ass once a river crossing, Now this our donkey Solon suited; A brother donkey, told the trick, His load was wool, and drowned him! THE LIVING SINGERS OF ITALY. The most renowned bassi-cantanti, or bayrotones, are Ronconi, Marini, Baroiĺhet (French), Cartagenova, Salvatori, and Ferlotti. The cantatrici are la Schoberlechner (German), la Streponi, la Unghez (German), la Derancourt, la Hallez, E. la Meguillet (these three French), la Frezzolini, la Ronzi de Begnis, and la Marini. The enumeration here is according to the renown which the several artists have achieved. None but the prime donne assolute are included, and no mention is made of those who have acquired celebrity in London. The singers in the foregoing list comprise the vocal aliment of la Scala at Milan, San Carlo at Naples, la Fenice at Venice, la Pergola at Florence, together with the theatres of Rome, Turin, Bologna, and Genoa, all of which are of the first order; besides those of Trieste, Verona, Padua, Novara, Mantua, Vicenza, Parma, Lucca, Sinigaglia, Ancona, Palermo, Udino, Treviso, Ferrara, Placenza, Bergamo, Belluna, Modena, &c., all of which are of the second order, but become theatres of the first order at certain seasons of the year, when the feast of each of these towns is celebrated. Spain and some of the German states are likewise visited from time to time by the best Italian artists, and there are besides a hundred small towns in Italy which have their opera at certain seasons of the year. The artists whom we have enumerated above constituting the most distinguished portion of the vocal phalanx of Italy, and their number being excessively disproportioned to that of the existing theatres, it may readily be conceived what a quantity of mediocrity, and even of artistical nullity, creeps in feeble insignificance beneath the superior sphere which is occupied only by the élite, to whom, as the Italians express it, a cartello has been awarded. Next to Rubini's throne stands Donzelli, the charm of whose voice, and the power of whose organ, place him still, though advanced in years, at the head of the tenors of Italy. In his person is renewed the vocal phenomenon presented by Nozzari, who, in the language of Italy, "created" a role with great_success at sixty-four years of age. Donzelli is very famous in Otello, and has recently at Bergamo "made," as it is phrased, the principal vocal part most triumphantly in the Esule di Roma. The music of Otello is a little too fioriture for the quality of Donzelli's voice, and he therefore sings it with a slight, but disagreeable, appearance of fatigue. We heard him last year at Venice in the Bravo, and it was truly an admirable performance. Donzelli's repertory is rather limited, and the Bravo is his great cheval de bataille. In fact, he never sings now but in four or five operas. His voice is a tenore seria, which does not extend beyond B flat. Donzelli has grown rich; he talks every year of retiring, and each year he appears again on the boards. Should Rubini retire definitively, there is not the slightest chance of Donzelli coming over as his successor. The voice of the latter is rich and powerful to such a degree, that la Schoberlechner, the first cantatrice in Italy, has almost entirely lost her voice in endeavouring to make it heard by the side of this all-absorbing singer. Moriani is a young tenor, whose voice is the most remarkable in Italy. His organ is of rare force, clearness, and purity; in the opinion of many excellent judges, surpassing that of Rubini in its quality of sound. But it is not at all so capable of ready modulation and application to every description of music. He requires flowing cantabile phrases, slow recitatives, andante and adagio passages; allegro and stretto movements are incomparably less favourable to the developement of his powers. Moriani is also deficient as an actor. He is admirable in some parts of Lucrezia Borgia, Lucia and Parasina. His voice gives beautiful expression to love, grief, melancholy, and all the tender passions; but rebels against the expression of an ardent temperament, against wrath, impetuosity, and situations demanding enthusiasm and rapture. His greatest triumph is in singing his last aria in la Lucia, which he gives with a truly divine expression. Like all the Italian singers (Ronconi excepted) Moriani pays but little attention to making his gestures, and the forte or piano of his song, accord with the words and sentiments to which he gives utter ance. Nevertheless it must be decided, upon a careful balancing of his good qualities and defects, that Moriani is the only Italian tenor who can succeed Rubini in London and Paris. "A cet égard," says one of the most competent critics in France, mon opinion est absolue.” 66 Salvi's reputation has sprung up into strength within the last two years. His voice is a graceful tenor, and he is an accomplished singer, |