same neatness and precision that was observable in the former season was certainly wanting. We attribute this in a measure to the facility of MR. WEISCHELL'S disposition, but more to the absence of MR. AYRTON. That gentleman's direction had both from novelty and ability imparted much vigour to the management of the preceding season; nevertheless the comparative merits of the Opera musical establishment, under all the adjunct circumstances we have brought together, could not be so lowered by the removal of Mr. A. (and his removal appears to us confessedly to be a great error,) as to render the one the most fortunate season upon record, and the next, "unworthy the patronage it had received." We have confined our attention to the department of the music. The ballet lies beyond our province. The first of our propositions is thus disposed of, and with it, perhaps, the necessity of further argument on these heads. It remains for us therefore to say a few words in the general.

The immense sums annually paid in support of the Opera, entitle the public not only to a fine establishment, but to the very finest in Europe. It is perfectly clear that a far better performance might be given for the sum, or that the price of admission might be greatly reduced, because the enormous expenditure entailed upon the concern by former pecuniary mismanagement, and by the present eternal litigations in the courts of law and equity, consume an uncommonly large proportion of the funds. Such a state of things is equally hard upon the proprietor and the public; he is fettered, and they are injured in several ways. He is amenable to obligations which he could not foresee, while either their amusements are curtailed, or they are made to pay for debts not contracted for their benefit, and for suits in which they are no parties. Competition is forbidden, and thus the question is reduced to the ruin of an individual, or to a continual contribution from the public. This is the grand' outline; the minor causes of vexation are endless. We shall conclude our article by a few facts, in support of the opinions we have advanced.

In 1817, the French great opera or the academy of music, as it is called, entertained ten male and eight female singers, with fifty chorus singers, eleven principal male and fifteen female dancers, with fifty-eight figurants. The orchestra was composed of twentyfour violins, ten violoncellos, and forty other different instruments,

making with their chefs du chant, maitre de ballef, mechanists, &c. about two hundred and fifty persons.

Premiers, M. M. LAYS, DER VIVIS, NOURRIT, LAVIGNE.MESDAMES ARNAUD, BRANCHA, ALBERT HIMM.

Remplacemens, M. M. BOUEL LEVASSEUR, ELOI.-MESDAMES GRANIER, PAULIN.

Doubles, M. M. ALEXANDRE, HENRARD, PREVOST.-MESDAMES GRASSARI, ALAN, PARADOL FEtis.

The Theatre Royal Italien, at Paris, under the direction of MADAME CATALANI, in the same year, maintained the following establishment::

Directrice, MADAME CATALANÍ.

Directeur de la musique, M. PAER.

Artistes, GARCIA, PORTO, BAULLI, CHIODI, ANGRISANI, CUSOLI, RUBBI, LUPPI.

MESDAMES DICKONS, MORANDI, BARTOLOZZI, VESTRIS, GASIA, CHAMEL, LINTI.

Vingt six choristes.

The orchestra consisted of Grasset, chef, thirteen violins, four tenors, four violoncellos, five double basses, two of each of the wind instruments, making together thirty-eight instrumental performers.

Of the strength of this company, there are public means of form.. ing a tolerable judgment. MADAME CATALANI stands alone. Her powers* are known and acknowledged, but her powers were not to be

* Our readers, perhaps, may be amused with the opinion of the Roman critics upon this celebrated lady, and we are not a little proud of finding that they so nearly resemble our own, which we have given in our detailed memoir at page 181. We pledge ourselves that we did not see the number of the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, from which the following extract is given till our sheet was printed. Rome, 1817.

"On the 20th April, Madame Catalani gave her third and last concert here. By the very few who were present at the second, she was given to understand, that the third would be almost unattended, if the admission were not reduced. She took the hint, and the theatre Argentina was tolerably filled. I need not particularize what she sang, as it was the same as in Italy, France, and Germany—neither how she sang, as that has been already described in your papers, as well as it can be in words. I have, therefore, only to say, how she was received. The Roman public shewed, that seldom in these latter times as it has had opportunities of hearing the very superior, it has not lost the love of it, nor the discriminating spirit. It was soon admitted, that Madame Catalani was a bewitching singer in her manner and class; but if she think, and her admirers proclaim she is so generally, or that her manner or class is preferable to any other, they are much mistaken. A voice in compass

purchased during the term of her engagement at the Theatre Italien. MRS. DICKONS is at this moment in our own metropolis, and without any disparagement of her talents, would certainly not have satisfied the opera resolutionists. MADAME VESTRIS is also in the recent remembrance of the frequenters of the King's Theatre. GARCIA and ANGRISANI have been heard only last season, and without making any very durable impression. For the rest we may quote the remarks of the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung. "BARILLI is a comedian full of merit, to whom nothing is wanting but a stronger organ to be a singer of equal estimation." Speaking of Ponтo, the critic says "his voice is powerful, but it is rough and inflexible; nevertheless PORTO must be accounted as a singer and comedian, a very valuable member of the theatre, although the title of a true artist must be denied him." Of MORANDI and GORIA he gives no very favourable account. It should seem then that the Italian Opera, at Paris, is able to stand no sort of comparison with that of London. MADAME CATALANI has seceded from the management under a heavy pecuniary loss, as it is understood.

Such are the two great establishments of Paris. We are now to compare, as far as we are able, the different cost to the public. It appears probable from the documents we have before given, that an annual sum of near seventy thousand pounds is contributed to the support of the King's Theatre. The French Great Opera is a

rather confined yet wonderfully sweet, but that in expression, accommodation, and ornament, it stands unrivalled; uniting the greatest precision and sweetness, and in the application of both producing the most striking effect, was granted to her in the fullest extent, but with the same unanimity it was agreed, her attempt at the great was little, at feeling cold-her management of the noble and soul-full exalted, and in mechanism is without fault, but otherwise unsatisfactory and often false. Respecting the choice of composition, people are less nice here than in Germany-they wish to enjoy the singer, and allow her the choice how to shew herself to the greatest advantage. Madame Catalani gave by far the greatest satisfaction in her own variations on Nel cor più non mi sento," and "Sul margine d'un rio," and such like; connoisseurs and non-connoisseurs were equally charmed, and, in truth, nothing superior can be heard. A friend who remembered Mr. Spohr, described Madame Catalani and Spohr very neatly in these words: Spohr is the greatest singer on the violin, Catalani the greatest instrumental performer with her voice. is wise in Madame Catalani that she travels, and always travels; for much as her real superiority charms and delights, when heard again and again, it is of a description which becomes familiar; and although it may be always heard with pleasure, yet cannot continue to raise that enthusiasm which it at first created, and which she always expected and is accustomed to receive."

It

government concern, and the receipts have never been equal to the expenditure. We do not know the actual amount either of the one or the other, but no such sum as that which the London Opera obtains can be received or expended. We find that the tax of one decime in a franc of all the receipts at all the theatres in Paris, which they pay as an oblation to the poor, amounted in 1816, (the highest year of seven) to no more than 452,635 francs, which makes the total and entire receipt of the eleven theatres of Paris, eight of which are open every night, Sundays not excepted, no more than about eighteen thousand eight hundred pounds. The difference between this and the sums paid by subscriptions and at the door of our houses, is not less extraordinary than important.

The facts we have enumerated are sufficient to prove that the expenses attendant on the payment of charges properly belonging to the capital necessary to be employed in the theatre, in the engagement of the finest possible company, and in the charges incident to the conduct of the house, ought not, by any mode of fair computation, to reach any thing like the amount of the annual receipts at the King's Theatre; nor do we mean to reduce the cost price to the Parisian estimate. The necessaries of life in this country, imposing a greater expenditure upon individuals, will enforce a considerable advance upon the several heads of disbursement, but even with this admission the sum is extravagantly too large. The inference in favour of the public is obvious; at the same time we can but repeat that the proprietor is rather an object of pity than of censure.— There is, it should seem, an abyss still open from the effects of former pecuniary mismanagement and from present legal litigation, which is neither to be fathomed nor filled. The proprietor may toil and the subscribers may assemble, but neither the labours of the one nor the resolutions of the other can reconcile contraries or make extremes meet. We are inclined to give the proprietor the fullest credit for intention and ability, not technical (for to knowledge of such a kind he disclaims all pretensions), but for general business-talent. Taking, however, the fairest view of the complexcombination of conflicting rights, in which lies the solution of the main difficulty independently of the details respecting foreign engagements, it is to be feared that it may not be very easy for any personal exertions on his part to bring the arrangements of the opera to such a scale as will satisfy the equity of the case, in so far as the

public is concerned. Perhaps it may be in the power of the proprietors of boxes, &c. to render the service required by a different direction of the controul they are desirous of exercising. It strikes us, as not impossible, that High Personages, (a sort of armed neutrality,) arbitrators on the part of the public, might succeed where even the decrees of a court haye fallen short of the objects. The public have their claims as well as MR. TAYLOR and MR. WATERS, and their claims, like those of the contending suitors, are bottomed upon the quid pro quo, upon the value they give and receive.

It is essential not only to the amusement of the subscribers and of the public at large, but to the interests of science in this country, that the opera establishment should be of the very first kind. The introduction of foreign music (for we may not now confine the term to Italian) and with it our knowledge of the advances made by other. countries in composition, but more particularly in practice, both vocal and instrumental, rests upon the engagements of the King's Theatre. The Opera House is the grand reservoir where the waters of science are gathered together, and whence the thousand rills which nourish our English soil, are poured forth. It not only affords the example of its own particular excellence, but it excites that laudable eraulation that sends our native artists to foreign academies for -improvement, and that stimulates the managers of other musical entertainments to a competition beneficial to public taste and general knowledge For these reasons it is most important, that persons of judgment should pay a stern regard to the arrangements, and it is not less consequential, that the price of the entertainment should be so regulated, that the public purse is not vexatiously drained, but that the advantages may be as extensively enjoyed as is consistently pos sible. Such a surveillance is doubly necessary since competition is shut out. There cannot rest a doubt on the mind of any one that. the real impediments reside in the disputes to which the concern is and has been exposed. Let the noble persons then, who have property in the house, and who entertain so just ą view of the rights of the public, turn their attention for a moment to this the previous question, and it may not be perhaps less within their competency to compel a due respect to that public in the matter of law, than in the matter of management. Interposition with respect to the latter appears hopeless indeed, unless it can be accompanied with the redress of the grievances which have sprung, and are still freshly springing out of the never-dying roots of the former.