him health and much prosperity in the bookbinding line, to which he had been apprenticed when they first had had the honor of his acquaintance. He got the letter, and lay staring at it for some time; and then he heard the sound of carriages, and looked out in the street. The corps opératique were departing for Bologna, and with it light, love, life, and hope, and all the ambitious aspirations of genius. There is no such thing as genius without ambition; there is no such object in creation as genius without a polestar for its thoughts, hopes, and aims. That aim may be fame, or love, or power; generally it is all three at once. In the case of Stefano it was so. Those strolling players, with their bales of trumpery and tinsel, were all the world to him: most contemptible, or most tremendous engine, the drama-the stage the play; that subtle theatrical influence, that throws its baleful rose-pink hue over the very face of heaven, and the fresh green glories of Nature-who can trace its many-shaped disguises, its pernicious and transfiguring might? Seducing beyond all other enchantments, it colors the face of reality only to corrupt and destroy all Nature and Truth. Miserable delusion! Let the lives and sins of the denizens of the greenroom declare loudly the downward tendency of that idolatry of representation which fills the theatres of my native land. I belong to no opera, mark, O reader! I stand alone; a private history is written in my pages. I wish to keep my incog., so shall say no more; but I have been introduced into many operas, and have made my appearance at the Philharmonic, and the Hanover Square Rooms have rung with my fame. Ah, it is a fine thing, I assure you, to be a popular song! The worst of it is, that popularity puts one into the vile interior of a hurdy-gurdy; and we all know how unrevenged have been the most cool-blooded murders of our ill-used class. Di Piacer once said to me at a concert, that he had overheard Lady — call him "a tiresome old thing," and wonder how any one could like him. Poor, dear old bravura, I was sorry for him! Ah, I was in the heydey of my youth then! Well, Stefano-master, father, creatorlet me return to thy parting hour with me. I was thy favorite child, for I was with thee in thy agonies. Tell me, dost thou, from beyond the stars, still listen to the melody thy heart sent forth like the dying swan? Dost thou remember me, the Ariel and familiar of thy spirit? Didst thou hope that night we parted that I should float upwards to thy soul's home, on the tones of that harmonious voice to whom thou didst dedicate my existence? It was, I suppose, about half-past ten at night, when I felt myself rudely laid hold of, and crushed in a trembling and burning hand. A pen and wild blotches of ink soon made me what I am now; a stern and awful despair reigned throughout me. I felt myself growing rapidly as my creator wrote; an electrifying chord stunned me. I was almost shivered by a sudden plunge into the key of D five flats. I melted into the minor; I wailed, I lamented awhile there; then sharp throes shot through me in chromatic runs. I quavered beneath a shake on G, again I relapsed into a regretful minor, then I gasped in broken snatches of recitative, and then I hurried on to my termination. It warms my old tones to think of myself as I have been sung. Mine was a glorious ending in a full storm of musical passion: runs that swept through the whole range of the voice; shakes that tore the air; notes up! up! like a daring rocket to the skies; and tones sinking low, as if overwhelmed with the weight of sorrow and despair. It has been well remarked of me, that I am of no age, country, or school. I might have been the wrathful farewell of an ancient Greek; Medea might have sent me to the false Jason; Sappho might have united me to her own words. I have always thought my style was more antique than modern; and every wretch that sings imagines that he can interpret me! I should take a lifetime to study! One woman only" has ever entered completely into my meaning, and she was not the person for whom I was written. I I did not hear myself speak the first night of my creation. I only knew that I existed. The tears of my creator fell over my facesuch tears as only the children of music and poetry can shed. I lay before him like his own heart, torn asunder, and exposed to view; there lay imprinted the terrible earnestness of his sufferings-a Song! No was a death-cry, a dirge, written in blood and gall. Since that night I have appeared in the dress of fifty different editions, none of which to my heart can ever be so dear as that first garment which I wore in my master's presence-a dirty, begrimed, blotted, and blurred sheet of flimsy paper, dearer far than the gilded books in which I have since revelled as an honored guest. Stefano finished: the pen was still in his hand. He wrote on my brow, Addio, Giulia! and pressed the name to his white lips; then he laid me down, and looked on me as one to whom he would consign his dying wishes. He laid his faint head on my breast, and tears and sobs passed through me, and filled my spirit with a stormy sorrow. I earnestly trusted that I might stick in the throat of the wretched woman who had caused all this miserv. Oh! ye men and women who have written on the sufferings of the ill-conditioned children of genius, with the kind intention of proving that it is all their own fault, had you been in the way of my experience you would be more merciful in your judgment. I know, allow me to say, better than any one, the secrets of passionate suffering; and had you ever lived as I have done, for several months, in the fitful cells of an excited brain, you would bless your good fortune for your stupidity. Extreme nervous susceptibility is the price paid for being a poet; and if you are a musician into the bargain, I assure you the thoughts, and airs, and rhymes in your head, have very indifferent treatment, inflammatory food, and frequently an unexpected and lamentable conclusion. The last time I saw poor Stefano's face, he was sealing me up in a blank cover. Next morning there was a crimson pool at the door, when a servant passed early in the morning, and it was found that the maestro had cut his throat! the opera, and I still lay unnoticed on the spot where she had thrown me down in despair in the morning. I listened with some anxiety to the conversation of those around me. My ambitious hopes urged me to wish for a successful début. I trembled lest I should be misrepresented on my entrance into life, and I feared, above all things, being first interpreted by Giulia. I knew that she would drag me down to her own level; and thus, defenseless, passive, and hopeless I lay, my leaves trembling in the soft wind that floated through the open window overlooking the Lung Arno of Florence. They were very merry, those actors and actresses. The glitter of their professional life follows them every where. Once on the high road to fame-a way strewn with gold and flowers-how light and intoxicating becomes the atmosphere that surrounds the successful singer! They have all the love— the composer all the labor. Poor Stefano, how have thy blood and thy tears rested heavy on my spirit, when I have sailed forth triumphant on the air that beat and fluttered with the raving applauses of hundreds and hundreds! At such times I feel that I am the proud offspring of an inspired father; and I glory in the tears that I have wrung from radiant eyes, believing such to be the best peace-offering to an unavenged and complaining shade. In the mean time Giulia sang, and laughed, and coquetted; and at last she spoke of my arrival and previous melancholy history. She put on a pretty air of sentiment, and even wiped her eyes when she mentioned Stefano's name. She laid me in the hands of the buffo singer; and he, putting on his most admired Leporello grimace, chanted forth my first bar in a style that almost made me laugh at myself, "Brutta assai! questaromanza mi pare," said the tenor, still engaged with the eatables. This added a tragical interest to my début. I was sent to Giulia. When she took me out of the cover, I looked up into her face; she was looking very handsome; her hands were cold as they clasped me; she laid me on the music-desk and turned me over; she hummed a bar or two, invoked the aid of the Virgin, and attempted my allegro. How I gloried in my own difficulties-she could hardly read me properly, for Giulia was only gifted with a glorious organ and a subtle ear. She had not the pure ore of genius, which combines science and poetry; her physical splendor was unequalled in Europe, but she had not one spark of devotional feeling in her whole being. She turned me over and over, but into my heart she could not make How I was banged about that night! No her way. At last she tossed me aside and song of my rank ever suffered so much from carolled away at Rode's air-a trumpery the calumny of human beings; yet I felt twaddle, in my opinion. A foolish fellow he proudly conscious that I was misunderstood is, too. He is so vain of having been Son--that was a stranger of an illustrious tag's pet; but he is as noisy and as empty as a drum, and I wonder how he has made his way so well in the world. The evening after my arrival Giulia invited some friends to supper. It was after sang a "Senti un po!" said Giulia; and she most indecent caricature of my finale, bearing false witness to every cadence and every measure. birth, thrown by an evil charm amid a class incapable of comprehending my elevation and dignity; and, like an unrecognized prince, I resolved to bide my time, and trust to the allpervading power of truth to place me in my right position in the world. The gay Guilia finished me with an exaggerated flourish, then rolled me up and tossed me up to the ceiling, from whence I fell at the foot of a silent and thoughtful-looking young man. He picked me up, looked me through, and put me in his pocket. Soon after he took me home. I found myself in a small lodging in a street of Florence. The mean room contained only a bed, a chair, and a table; a violin-case lay on the latter, some rosin and music paper beside it. The young fellow, Spiridion Balbi, I found was of Greek and Venetian combination, by means of an Ionian mother and an Italian father. He had left the island where he was born at an early age, and had become a violinist of some note in Italy. He was playing in the orchestra of the Pergola at the time that I first saw him. He took out his violin, and swept over some chords in a masterly manner. Ah! what a flood of rich and exquisite sounds! He opened me up, and, for the first time, I felt my every fibre vibrate and live in his hands. I felt my latent powers distend and swell into majesty, and my might extend through the airy empire of sound. Joy! glory and honor to thee, Spiro mio! for that first interpretation of me to myself. I felt then that I stood alone, the loveliest harmony ever created! I only wanted my words; but who could have missed them, really, amid the passionate weeping and wailing of that marvellous catgut? The violin had all the ecstasy of the human voice in Spiro's hands. He sang, he spoke, he cried, he shrieked, he laughed by turns, on the strings of that magical instrument. He played me through three times that night. I admired myself more and more. I became insatiable as a young beauty for many mirrors to reflect my charms. At last the violin was laid down, and a female step was heard at the door. "Posso entrare," said the voice of a girl. And Spiro replied by opening the door; and I saw a young, slight figure enter. I had never, I thought, seen beauty before. Giulia appeared coarse beside the heavenly outline of Xanthi. Her hair was bound round her head like a golden glory; her eyes were blue; her face and brow white, as if her life had been passed in seclusion even from the warm glances of the sun; and there was a languid and careless grace about every movement, that might have suited a sultana in the prime of her days. "Signor," she said, respectfully, "la cena è preparata." "Bellissima verrò ! ma pria, ascolti un po!" The girl seated herself and listened. She hid her face in her hands, and my voice rose up. Tears forced themselves into the great eyes of Xanthi, so touching was the tale that I told of injured love and dying reproach. That room for me was transformed into an enchanted palace. I glorified the air with my breath, and sighed out my soul in a wordless song of rapturous perfection. "Oh!" cried Xanthi, "to sing that and die, signor!" "Live to sing it, rather," said Spiro. "I shall never sing it," said the girl, sadly. 'If you could! When you can, you will be the greatest singer in Europe," said Spiro. "Ah!" sighed Xanthi, "how does the Signora Giulia sing it, pray?” "Very like the cat," replied Spiro. "Ah, me ne godo!" cried Xanthi, suddenly. And she took me up to muse over me for a few moments, while Spiro played a strain of enchanting beauty; and I began to feel myself in the good society of such airs as Adelaide, Non più di fior, Perfida Clori. It was with the first of these that I have always maintained the strictest friendship. Long may that dear and esteemed harmony hold her place and rank in Pischek's throat; and may not upstart standard-bearers supersede her claims to notice and respect. We old songs have a great deal to put up with from the rising generation of songlets, ariettas, and above all, that impertinent sutler's girl, the Figlia, as she is familiarly called. On this subject I cannot contain my indignation. That snob, Ciascun lo dici, holds his head very high; but let him tremble. I heard him on the Pan's pipe last Thursday morning; and our butcher's boy thinks nothing of whistling him on the area steps! I have not always dwelt in marble halls.' I have followed on the steps of adversity and ruin. I would not wish only to tickle the ears of rich fools and the outer skin of gay hearts. My desire for public life remained for many months ungratified. My first professor revealed me to no one. He was a strange, vain, idle, fantastic wretch, that Spiro Balbi. I am sure the ancient secret of the Greek fire lay in his veins. He lived in a world of wonderful fancies; his plans were to regenerate the world by means of music-to organize a Greek republic with a senate of fine tenors, and a choir of good basses for church matters. In the mean time he entered into an Italian conspiracy, pour passer le temps. It was in the Austrian States that he made his debut as an agitator. | century, in the very teeth of such fops as He, and two dozen other poor boys, after "Voi che sapete, Quel bricconcel Amore," and exciting their patriotic feelings to madness so on. It was a night of triumph such as by noisy singing and rapid speeches, com- seldom falls to the lot of any song! mitted some excess at the Opera House, and they were lodged in gaol that night. The only things that Spiro contrived to take with him were a flute and myself! And he played in his dungeon. I floated through the dark, dank air, and I was happy in my own existence-as happy that night, and happier, than the brilliant evening that I revelled beneath the gilded ceilings of the Tuileries, and Belgiojozo pronounced me worthy of my fame. Spiro was sent to a fortress! Bah! the emperor could not put me under lock and key. I am like the air, a "chartered libertine;" and a glorious life of ubiquity has mine been since then. I am here! I am there! I am everywhere! My being extends from Calcutta to Paris. At the same instant of time I live fifty times. Swifter than the Tempest's Ariel I fly round the earth more nimbly than thought. Once created, my existence is of indefinite length. Forgetfulness is my only dread. I tremble lest I should go out of print-then, I imagine, the sufferings of a song must be indeed dreadful. A silent shade longing in vain to unburden its sorrows, and hovering round the spot of its past pleasures, is the only thing to which I can compare the state of a musical phantom. I shall never forget what I felt at hearing an interesting little old Scotch ballad tell the story of its restoration from a long trance-a crotchety little old thing it was, too, but an air full of character and feeling. He had been born before the battle of Bannockburn, and had felt himself dying by degrees, until he only lay asleep in the mind and half effaced from the memory of an old nurse. Mercifully she hummed him to a sick child one day; the lady of the house overheard her, rescued my poor friend from oblivion, and, with the cordial of a good accompaniment, he is now going about the world as active as ever he was. I remember, too, I was at the Ancient Concerts the night that Prince Albert caused the unlooked-for resurrection of that glorious old warrior, Chanson de Roland. He had been almost in a dying state for several hundred years. He who had been borne on the breath of Taille-fer, he who had been chanted by the Normans of the Conqueror, lay silent and neglected in some dark hole for centuries of suffering! Imagine, I beseech you, what his feelings must have been to find himself in Mario's throat, flung out into the nineteenth I remained in perfect seclusion with my master. It was only at night that I came forth, to wander awhile about his dungeon, and hover round the bars of his prison window, yet there I felt the mission of music was indeed gloriously fulfilled. I was the spirit of love and hope, that fluttered above a worn and weary head, to anoint it with the dews of fresh enjoyment, and strengthen it to bear the wrongs and cruelty of man. But Spiro sickened; the hand grew faint, and the voice low; the days grew short and dim, and in the long nights, who crept to the prison window still to listen and cry, as if her heart would break? Löttchen was an officer's daughter, a girl of fifteen, with no great looks, and a tough voice; as unruly as a wild horse on the prairie; but the heart! there lay her matchless power. One evening she came with her father into the prisoner's cell, and, with a red face and stammering tongue, begged to know the name of the air. "Cos'è? Cos'è?" muttered poor Spiro. The girl, with difficulty, replied in my first bar. "Ah, ma brava!" said the dying musician. He took me out and once more he played me through, but cried out, "Nothing for this but the violin or the voice;" and a violin reached him next day, and Lisa came once more and sat down to listen to such a lesson as she never received before or since. It was a revelation, more than a lesson. I remember that night I felt much solemnized; I was the last gasp of the dying Spiro; all the glory of his race and his lost land seemed to lighten up his brow before we parted. It may be hard for flesh and blood to part, but the spirits of the living and the dead shall meet again. But for me, what remains hereafter? To wander hither and thither, and find no place in the choirs of heaven, for I have not a tinge of sacredness in my being. I am all earthly fire, and must perish with the things of earth; unlike the holy songs, the spiritual strains which have breathed above the fires of martyrdom, I may not hope to unite myself to the eternal melodies of heaven. Oh, that I were Mozart's Agnus Dei! oh, that I breathed the words of ineffable sweetness and the harmony that is a foretaste of the peace beyond all understanding! I remained at my master's pillow till he died. It was a sad and fearful separation— the thoughts of the mind and the departing soul. My image became overclouded, my voice rung faint in his ears, and at last I lay again alone and cold on my crumpled sheet of paper. Lisa took me to herself. I was put into a drawer, and time passed on. I became impatient of my long seclusion, and was truly glad to find myself packed up to go to Vienna. Lisa was to study as a music teacher, not for the stage, she said; but there is no believing the sincerity of a woman's intentions when under orchestral influence. It was strange that Lisa never took me to her class; she kept me under lock and key, and I only had exercise at night, when other things were done: then Lisa took me from my cell to sing me and cry over me, and despair over my difficulties. No one knows what a life I led thenbanged about, transposed into a key below my taste, maimed, murdered, suffocated, brought to life again: no one can tell what racking tortures I suffered. Oh, Stefano! Spiro! did you hear my cries in the invisible world where ye dwelt?-I, your child, your beloved, thus ill-used and deprived of the glory that was my due from my birth! Lisa was a very persevering girl; she had a heart, but it was a German heart, and that did not quite suit me as an Italian born and bred. She ploughed me up fearfully, and there was none of the vindictive grace of an ancient Fury in the turn she gave to my final measures. I remained only a halfdisclosed mystery to her. What was to become of me? I should, perhaps, be brought out at the Manheim Opera House, and find myself degraded and lost forever to all hope of success. In the mean time, Lisa labored ten hours a-day, with a voice as tough as shoe-leather, and hoarse and uncertain; but on she went, as dogged in her obstinate industry as if she were doing something wrong in which case people always are obstinate, I have observed, especially the women. Well, time and practice do wonders, and Lisa determined to go to England and try her fortune; and I was to go to England-to London-the promised land of needy genius, where princely pay is offered for what most of them, honest people, don't understand. But no, let me be fair; I am now indulging in the clap-trap of Italians and such "Children of the Sun" and the stage! I will tell the truth. Of all poetry, give me the poetry of an English heart. Poetry, not selfish passion usurping the name. Give me the refined, intellectual love of idealized Nature, which has dictated the chaste gaiety of Milton's Allegro, and the healthy, wholesome loveliness that shines on the face of the poethood of Britain. Honor to thee, little, chill, northwestern isle! Set in the grey waters of a disagreeable channel, thou art the home of holy and homely affections. I have felt humbled to the dust before an English ballad, ridiculous enough, too; but it was so good a creature, breathing of simple, pure affections, and all that language of the heart which touches in prose or poetry. The poetry of common life; there the British bards and singers reign, indeed, alone! We came to England; it was the beginning of the season; May was showing her dear, smiling face over the very chimneypots of the great city. And that great city! the annual fever was beginning to throb in her veins, and the Opera House was open, and concerts were ringing through the Hanover Square Rooms, morning, noon, and night; and my poor Lisa wanted to sing at "the Ancients." Alas! I feared that Madame Vestris would have been as likely to perform some Olympic espieglerie on that platform, as my poor Lisa to bring me before an admiring public. She had a letter of introduction to the elite of the musical world of London; and to the tender mercies of Lord Gorehampton she was expressly commended by her ci-devant master at Vienna. The nobleman asked a few select friends to dinner, and Lisa was to be trotted out in the evening, and her merits to be decided on. Poor girl! she took me from my portfolio, and sang me through six times before breakfast. It was a fearful ordeal that she had to go through. She went at ten, as she was ordered to do, and found Lady Gorehampton, who was slightly deaf, asleep on a sofa. A page wakened her, and she begged Lisa to take a seat, and then looked through her portfolio. I was looked at, and passed over, and at last the gentlemen entered. The party consisted of Lord Gorehampton, a nobleman of well-known musical enthusiasm. He had written sixteen MS. operas, and several things which he called airs of his own. giving himself very great airs to call them so. It was He had kindly patronized Pasta, and had done a great deal for Catalani; the Philharmonic would have been at zero without him, and the Ancients looked to him as a tower of strength. He sat in an arm-chair, with his eyes on the ceiling, looking fiddles and kettle-drums at everybody, beating time |