prejudices both for and against dress too far. It is no rule either way. A fop is not necessarily a fool, nor without feeling. A man may even wear stays, and not be effeminate; or a pink coat, without making his friends blush for him. The celebrated beau, Hervey, threw the scavenger that ridiculed him in the street into his own mud-cart; and a person in our own time, who has carried extravagance of dress and appearance to a very great pitch indeed, is, in reality, a very good-natured, sensible, modest man. The fault, in such cases, is neither in the head or heart, but in the cut of a coat-collar, or the size of a pair of whiskers.-Farley and J. Russel were Major Dumpling and Captain Bibber in the same piece: and a scene of high farce they made of it. The one is an officer in the army, the local militia; the other is an officer in the navy. The one excels in eating, the other in drinking. The one is most at home in the kitchen; the other in the cellar. The one is fat, huge, and unwieldy; the other, dapper, tight, and bustling. Farley is an actor with whose merit, in such parts, the public are well acquainted: Russel is one who will be liked more, the more he is known. Both in Captain Bibber, Blondeau, the French showman in Pigeons and Crows, and in Silvester Daggerwood, he has acquitted himself with great applause, and entered into the humour, eccentricity, and peculiar distinctions of his characters, with spirit and fidelity. His mimicry is also good, and he sings a French rondeau, or a sailor's ditty, con amore. The part of Major Dumpling was originally played by Mr. Tokely. It was one of three parts (Crockery and Peter Pastoral were the other two) for which he seemed born, and having rolled himself up in them, like the silk-worm, he died. Poor Tokely! He relished his parts; with Crockery doated over an old sign-post, or wept with honest Peter over a green leaf.

His tears were tears of oil and gladness. But he also relished his morning's draught, and sipped the sweets till he was drowned in a butt of whiskey. The said fair-looking, round-faced, pot-bellied, uncouth, awkward, outof-the-way, unmeaning, inimitable Crockery, or Peter Pastoral, or Ma

jor Dumpling, was the very little child that in the year 1796, Kemble used to carry off triumphantly on his arm in the original performance of Pizarro! Thinking of these things, may we not say, sic transit gloria mundi? So flies the stage away, and life flies after it as fast!-Mrs. Gibbs, "that horse-whipping woman,” in Teazing made Easy, does not, however, wear the willow on his account, but looks as smiling, as good-humoured, as buxom, as in the natural and professional life-time of Mr. Tokely, and drinks her bowl of cream as Cowslip, and expresses her liking of a roast-duck with the same resig nation of flesh and spirit as ever.

Mr. Liston in Pigeons and Crows plays the part of Sir Peter Pigwiggin, knight, alderman, and pin-maker. What a name, what a person, and what a representative! We never saw Mr. Liston's countenance in better preservation; that is, it seems tumbling all in pieces with indescribable emotions, and a thousand odd twitches, and unaccountable absurdities, oozing out at every pore. His jaws seem to ache with laughter: his eyes look out of his head with wonder: his face is unctuous all over and bathed with jests; the tip of his nose is tickled with conceit of himself, and his teeth chatter in his head in the eager insinuation of a plot: his forehead speaks, and his wig (not every particular hair, but the whole bewildered bushy mass) "stands on end as life were in it." In the scene with his dulcinea (Miss Leigh) his approaches are the height of self-complacent, cockney courtship; his rhymes on his own projected marriage,

though excellent in themselves, were not so good: for Liston does not play so well to any one else, as he does to himself. The rest of the characters were well supported. Jones, as the younger Pigwiggin, alias Captain Neville, the lover of Liston's fair inamorata," does a little bit of fidgets" very well. He is sprightly, voluble, knowing, and pleasant; and is the life of a small theatre, only that he is now and then a little too obstreperous; but he keeps up the interest of his part, and that is every thing. The audience delight to hear his " View Halloa" before he comes on the stage (which is a sure sign of their opinion), and expect to be amused for the next ten minutes. If an actor can excite hope, and not disappoint it, what can he do more? Mr. Russell, as the little French showman, Mr. Farley as Mr. Wadd, and Mr. Connor as a blundering Irish servant, all sustained their parts with great eclat: and so did the ladies. The scene where Jones deceives two of his creditors, Russell and Farley, by appointing each to pay the other, had a very laughable effect; but the stratagem is borrowed from Congreve, who indeed was not the very worst source to borrow from.

The house was crowded to excess to see the new appearances in the Beggar's Opera; Madame Vestris's Captain Macheath, Miss R. Corri's Polly, and Mrs. Charles Kemble's Lucy, which last, indeed, is an old friend with a new face. Mrs. Kemble was the best Lucy we ever saw (not excepting Miss Kelly, who is also much at home in this part), and she retains all the spirit of her original performance. Miss Kelly plays Lucy

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as naturally, perhaps more so; but Mrs. Kemble does it more characteristically. She has no compunctious visitings" of delicacy, but her mind seems hardened against the walls that inclose it. She is Lockitt's daughter, the child of a prison; the true virago, that is to be the foil to the gentle spirit of Polly. The air with which she throws the rat to the cat in the song has a gusto worthy of one of Michael Angelo's Sybils; a box on the ear from her right hand is no jesting matter. Her rage and sullenness are of the true unmitigated stamp, and her affected civilities to her fair rival are a parody (as the author intended) on the friendships of courts.-Madame Vestris, as the Captain, almost shrunk before her, like Viola before her enraged enemies. Indeed, she played the part very prettily, with great vivacity and an agreeable swagger, cocking her hat, throwing back her shoulders, and making a free use of a rattan-cane, like Little Pickle, but she did not look like the hero, or the highwayman, if this was desirable in her case. If, however, she turned Macheath into a petit-maitre, she did not play it like Mr. Incledon or Mr. Cooke, or Mr. Braham, or Mr. Young, or any one else we have seen in it, which is no small commendation. Miss Corri sang Cease your funning, and one or two other songs, with sweetness and effect; but, in general, she was more like a modern made-up boarding-school girl, than the artless and elegant Polly. She lisps and looks pretty. The other parts were very respectably filled, but some of the best scenes (we are sorry to say it) were left out. T.

At the Opera on the 22d of June, appeared, in the part of Zerlina, in Il Don Giovanni, Miss Rosalie Corri, a younger sister of Miss Corri the joint Prima Donna. Towards the end of last year, a large number of the Corps de l'Opera embarked for Ireland, and treated the good people of Dublin with an Opera-a real Italian Opera! Il Don Giovanni was acted; Miss R.

Corri made her debut with her sister and Ambrogetti, cum multis aliis. Her success was such as to warrant her introduction to the higher tribunal of the English public, and at the benefit of Miss Corri she appeared. This young actress is petite, but neat, light, and shapely, in her figure-full of liveliness, gifted with a sweetly toned voice of sufficient power and

compass, and with great natural facility of execution. All her talents are but nascent at present for she is not seventeen, and we question whether she has been as industrious as it is to be hoped the encouragement she has received will make her in the study of her art; but there are few debutantes who have exhibited more promise either in the orchestra or upon the stage.

Since the appearance of this young lady the manager himself has really introduced a new female singer!! In the beginning of the season it will be remembered, a correspondence with Madame Catalani was announced. Almost at the end Madame Lachoque Montano actually arrives. A heavy declension certainly.

For this singer Agnese has been revived. This Opera was first introduced here for Ambrogetti, whose performance of the principal character is almost too closely allied to nature, under the distressful malady it represents, for human feelings to bear. A female of our own country has the honour of furnishing the story upon which this beautiful composition is founded. Mrs. Opie's Novel of "the Father and Daughter," is known to every body. Two Italian dramas have been made from it; the one in prose by Philippo Cæsari, the other that we are speaking of by Luige Bonavoglia. The poet has taken the incidents, and even the sentiments, from the original with considerable fidelity, and with a degree of simplicity suited to the Italian stage, and to the singleness of thought and imagery music requires. The moral justice, however, and the pathos, are both diminished by his having given the play a happy termination in the marriage of the daughter to her repentant lover, and the restoration of the father to reason. Signor Paer, the composer, was lately, and we believe is now, director of the music at the Theatre Italien of Paris. He is about fifty-four years old, having been born at Parma, in 1774. In 1806, he was invited to Dresden, and he removed from thence at the command of Buonaparte, in whose service he was fixed with the title of director and composer of the private music of his Majesty the Emperor. He has written more than forty Operas, besides various lighter works. His style resembles that of

Paesiello, and he is remarkable for the beauty of his melodies and the sensibility with which he expresses all the finer passions of the soul. Sweetness and elegance pervade the entire work, and he has enriched the manner of his predecessor by a little

more ornament.

The characters of Uberto and his daughter are finely supported. The song "Tutto e silenzio," by Aquesa ; the recitative and air, "O come e barono," by the father; and the scena, between both "O cielo che suono e questo," are not surpassed in forcible representation of the transition from horror to tenderness, and the various passions that flit across the disturbed imagination of unsettled intellect. The melodies are exquisite, and M. Paer has availed himself of all the legitimate resources of his art. He is not, however, of the latest school of instrumental effects.

His accompaniments are subordinate to the voice, though the former are not wanting in any of the aids which harmony affords. His Opera is strictly vocal, yet he employs the orchestra with great and adequate effect. He apparently has unlimited command of beautiful strains of melody,--short, but never to be forgotten; and he employs them with singular effect to reduce the horror which the portraiture of the dreadful visitation and infirmity upon which his piece turns is calculated to occasion; at the same time, with inimitable art in picturing the general hallucination and the partial glimpses of reason in his principal character. The leading train of thought in the father's mind is the idea that his fugitive daughter died in his arms, and this thought, which often recurs, is blended with the imperfect recollection of an air Agnese was accustomed to sing. These brief strains M. Paer has set to passages which seem more beautiful and pathetic, at every repetition, and frequently as "La figlia mia spiro," and

Come la nebbia al vento," are heard, it is always with renewed impressions of mingled pain and pleasure. It is impossible not to feel the grace, the pathos, and the fine expression that pervade the whole of this masterly and tasteful composition. Madness has repeatedly afforded a theme for the cantata and the drama, but we doubt whether, in the ancient or the mo

dern school or theatre, so touching a delineation as this has been drawn, and for the simple reason, that both the cause and the effect are so near to common life, and the manner of treating the incidents so little removed from domestic situations and affections.*

Madame Lachoque Montano has received no very striking marks of public favour; her voice is confined in its compass above, but the lower notes are good. She laboured under great apprehension at her first appearance, which has perhaps hitherto weakened the impression of her talents: these are not however first rate.

Covent-Garden has brought out a musical romance (Bothwell Brigg.) It is a slight performance, and the songs and chorusses are principally adaptations of well-known Scotch airs, some of which, if we remember rightly, have seen the same sort of service before. Paer's Duet, "vederlo sol bramo," is consorted with these veterans. It is remarkable, that our native composers, or perhaps we ought to say-the managers of our great theatres, should be content with so little novelty-or rather with the crambe recocta of dishes thrice served. The English theatre seems to us to be receding daily further and further from the chance of having an Opera in the legitimate

sense.

The subscription concerts at the Argyle rooms by the harmonic institution, have just closed. At the fourth, Miss Symonds, formerly a pupil of Mr. and Mrs. Lacy, sung a Duet with Mrs. Salmon, and Dove sono, from Figaro, a song taught her by her original instructress. Miss Symonds has an extraordinary voice. She has a clear compass from A to F in alt-twenty notes. The quality is brilliant and fine, though the upper exceed the lower in volume. Her intonation is correct, and the foundation of her execution was laid in the very best manner, as her singing evinces. Her first, and we believe her only previous appearance in London, was at Mr. and Mrs. Lacy's last public concert but one. Since that time, we believe, she has not

been heard in the metropolis, though she has sung at several provincial meetings, and in Scotland while on a tour with Mr. and Mrs. L. Her singing is of great promise, but whether that promise will ripen into a full and rich maturity depends upon intellectual qualities, rarely developed till a far later period of life than this young lady has yet reached; for it is MIND that leads to distinction in this, as in every other art.

Benefit Concerts are still going on. The first of this month was Spagnoletti's: the next a charitable exertion of talent for the widow of a deceased professor, Mr. Cobham; who announced her late husband as particularly entitled to notice, in consequence of being the "tutor to the celebrated English Catalani.". This celebrated person was a Miss Fearon; at any time but little known, and now almost forgotten. She had great compass and facility, but a vulgar manner of singing: she is said, however, to have been recently much improved, and she has attracted a good deal of attention in France. Since Mrs. Cobham's night, Mr. and Mrs. Nicholson, Mr. T. Cooke, and Mr. and Mrs. Ashe (of Bath), have given concerts at the Argyle rooms. Mr. T. Cooke is a man of very universal talent. He plays well on a great number of instruments, as witness his late pantomimic exertions. He is a composer, a singer, a teacher of music on the Logierian plan, and of public singers. On his benefit night he took a part in glees of his own composition, played a concerto on the violin, accompanied his pupil, Miss Tree, and sung an Italian scena.

The first and chiefest object that claims our attention, on opening our monthly collection of New Music, is the first part of an Oratorio, adapted for Haydon Mozart and Bethoven, called Judah, by Mr. Gardener, well known as the compiler of the Sacred Melodies, a work highly estimable, and as the editor (we believe) of the Lives of Haydon and Mozart. As Mr. G.'s plan is novel, we give his own explanation, though we have some doubts as to the propriety of the title he gives his work.

The Oratorio, from its elevated style

and close alliance with this species of music, naturally suggested itself as the most eligible form; but, in adopting it, the author has found it necessary to deviate in some degree from the usual plan of these compositions. Music of this description is considered as a sort of Sacred Drama, and a cer

tain limitation, as to subject at least, has in consequence been observed by composers. The slightest consideration will, however, be sufficient to show, that this dramatic character of the Oratorio is altogether ideal; or that its interest depends in no degree on the progress of the action, but on the expressive or imitative power of the music, and that the subject is of no other importance than as an index of the sentiment in

tended to be expressed. Instead, therefore, of confining himself to any single event of Sacred History, which the variety of his materials rendered nearly impossible, the author has selected at pleasure, from all parts of the canon of the Old Testament, such passages as appeared to him most analogous in sublimity, pathos, or beauty, to the character of the music to which they were to be applied. He has thus embraced most of the principal events recorded in the Jewish Scriptures, commencing with the history of Abraham, and terminating in a prophetic view of the millennium, and has designated his work by the comprehensive though indefinite title of Judah.

Mr. Gardiner has availed himself very judiciously of the vast bulk of materials to which he has had recourse, and has again manifested the good taste in selection he showed in his Sacred Melodies. The first chorus is a Kyrie of Haydn. Now elevate the sign of Judah, is to be found in the same mass. The words are so well chosen, and so considerately adapted, that they appear as if the combination with the notes was original. The work is finely printed, not only with the full parts, but with an arranged part for the organ or pianoforte, which levels it to the capacity of the general player, as well as fits it for those who are able to read and to comprehend all the lines of a score. Kiallmark's air, with variationsLes petites delassemens, appears to be the first number of an intended series. The structure is according to the good old fashion, but it is well done. Mr. K. begins at a very low point of execution, and the six variations gradually rise above each other in the scale of difficulty. Facility, attraction, melody, and progression, the grand desiderata in a lesson of this sort, are thus preserved.

VOL. II.

There is a new number of the Operatic Airs (the fourth) by Mr. Ries. This also is in the set form of variations. There are, however, originality, force, and taste; and less of what is either recherchée or common place,

less of manner too than is in general

to be found in the works of this composer. We must prefer it to the greater portion of Mr. Ries's writings for the piano-forte-for there is also plan, connection, and melody.

Mr. Burrowes has proceeded to No. VII. of his Caledonian airs. The last three themes of the series are, the White Cockade, Charlie is my darling, and the Highland Laddie. There is scarcely any writer of variations who displays more resource than this professor, and we offer Charlie is my darling as the proof. He has not only broken from the set forms, but has assigned to the several variations a determinate style, and contrasted sentiment. The idea, if not absolutely novel, is happily extended. Mr. B. also continues his select airs from Mozart's operas for the pianoforte with flute accompaniments. Mr. Latour and Mr Fiorillo have both published similar arrangements; and there is, besides, a publication going on by Dr. Crotch, Messrs. Cramer, Calkin, and others, at the Harmonic Institution, of a similar kind. Of these Mr. Burrowes's are the most simply constructed, the rest have the advantage of greater complication and fulness. By such means, as well as by the adoption of these melodies as themes for variations, and of his operas to the English stage, Mozart's music will be rendered more popular here, perhaps, than that of any other composer, ancient or modern.

In the last number of the Quarterly Musical Review, Mr. J. B. Cramer has been subjected to the suspicion of a direct and wilful plagiarism from Mr. Clementi's octave sonata, published forty-seven years ago (perhaps the most celebrated of all modern compositions for the piano-forte) and the reviewer has traced, with minute accuracy, the train of ideas from the first note to the last. This is a question which not only affects the individual character of the author, but musical property, and therefore is of considerable import to the world of composers and publishers. The fact is not less curious than the process, and they

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