HER MAJESTY'S THEATRE.

WE seemed to be commencing our opera-season under a sort of gloom. "Mademoiselle Jenny Lind," said shrieking birds of ill-omen, "will retire from the stage for ever and a day." The respectabilities of Exeter Hall, who, for the sake of sweet sounds, can endure to be crammed, rammed, and jammed together in a big room, with entrances wondrously small and few, were indeed still to hear the notes of the nightingale ; her charming voice was still to warble for the edification of these grave connoisseurs; but the habitués of the opera, comprising the rank and fashion of England, were to be regarded by the inimitable Jenny as a sort of Parias. There they were to sit in their magnificent boxes, perched above pictured cupids and floral elegances, but all in a deep state of contrition at finding that they were unworthy of the Lind.

But this gloom, which bore down our spirits with so much moral weight that it approximated to a physical burden-this gloom soon began to disperse. Cracks of light found their way through the darkness, which then softened down into a mist of not ungenial hue, becoming more and more attenuated-like those theatrical fogs, which grow clearer and clearer as the media of gauze between the gas and the spectacle become less and less numerous.

The engagement of Alboni was a good glow in itself. Alboni is not equal, as an actress, to Jenny Lind-there is no mistake about that—but, as a singer, she is one of the most delightful creatures in the world. Her voice is of that wonderful compass that she is perfectly at ease in the contralto and soprano registers-nay, so much at ease, that her audience are scarcely aware of the difficulties she surmounts. There she stands, looking thoroughly comfortable with her embonpoint, fixed as firm as a pyramid, throwing off the most astounding roulades as if they were no more than a natural mode of utterance, and taking her intervals with a sort of heedless precision, as if it were impossible to go wrong. We are told that it is only by a constant effort of the will that we are able to keep our own bodies in a state of equilibrium, and that, if we suspended this voluntary operation, we should tumble down flat. Nevertheless, the upright position has become so habitual to us, that we are not aware of our own effort, and falling seems less natural than standing. Now,

appears to us exactly like the mastery which Alboni has acquired over her wonderful voice; what others do as an obvious display of high art, this admirable vocalist achieves as a matter of course.

This bright star has for a while set to our horizon; for the amateurs across the Manche cannot spare her, and she must abide with them till Easter.

In the meanwhile we fancy-we may be wrong-that there are symtoms of Mademoiselle Lind's return to the stage. From the first, there has been no official notification of her retirement, and while a blank is left us, we have as much right to fill it up with pleasing fancies as with gloomy visions. An announcement that she will sing at a series of concerts in the Opera Concert-room seems to us fraught with deep meaning. Is it to be supposed that she will remain in the porch of the

temple and never enter the sanctuary? The Opera Concert-room is not another Exeter Hall. The same artists will be gathered round her, the same audience will applaud her, as when she appears on the stage. An acceptance of a position in the concert-room, in lieu of a despotic sway in the theatre itself, is something past our comprehension. We could as soon understand a man choosing a small estate instead of a large one, on the same soil and under the same atmosphere. No, no— the applause of the concert-room is, after all, a poor equivalent for the thunders that welcome the proclamation of Amina's innocence, or hail the "Rataplan" of Maria. Depend upon it, oh, ye learned, that this series of concerts is but an inclined plane, by which the sweetest of vocalists will glide gently down to the stage, like some benevolent fairy in a theatrical

car.

Will it not be delightful if Lind and Alboni are brought together in one opera? During that first unpleasant season which called two Opera Houses into existence, and on which the habitués ought to reflect, as the Romans reflected on the defeat of the Fabii, the sweet names of Jenny Lind and Alboni were used as a kind of war-whoop by lips accustomed to drop nought but honied words. So it was in the days of York and Lancaster, when the sweetest flowers in the creation-the white and the red roses-were used as symbols of war and bloodshed. Let us hope that a white and red rose may be twined together into one bouquet, as a sign that the operatic war of the barons is at an end, and that this bouquet may be flung to Lind and Alboni, both standing on the boards of Her Majesty's Theatre.

The ballet at this house retains its primeval strength. Carlotta Grisi touches the heart by the native sentiment of her dancing; Marie Taglioni plucks up new strength, and performs exploits worthy of an infant Hercules; Caroline Rosati looks interesting, and lures-and fascinates-and -just like Alboni in this respect-surmounts difficulties with so much ease that no one suspects how great they were.

ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA-HOUSE.

WHILE Her Majesty's Theatre opens with "Cenerentola," a legitimate Italian opera, though not one of the most popular works in the repertoire, and follows it up with the ballet of "Le Diable à Quatre," the "Opera House" in Covent Garden, which calls itself "Italian" par excellence, has recourse to the French Académie for an opening piece. In fact, the management has always had a leaning towards French opera, and the most attractive piece last season was "Les Huguenots." This predilection is natural. The aim of the management is to produce a magnificent ensemble, and to avoid as much as possible the necessity for regular ballet. Now, the French school of music offers a series of works exactly suited to the purpose. Massive choruses, dramatic orchestration, a great variety of incident, a frequent change of tableaux, an introduction of dancing, which in some sort supplies the place of ballet,—all this belongs to those weighty productions which make the glory of the French Académie; and what with the mastery of M. Costa over his orchestra, the perfect discipline of the Covent Garden chorus, and the boundless libera

lity of the management in providing a superb mise en scène, these pieces can be admirably done at the "Royal Italian Opera." "Masaniello" has been magnificently brought out, and Mario has made a decided character of the Neapolitan fisherman.

By the way, could not this predilection of the more eastern theatre for the works of the French operatic stage form the basis of a treaty of peace between the two rival establishments? Could not Italian opera, properly so called, and regular ballet, remain the staple commodity at Her Majesty's Theatre, and French opera, with Italian words (for the sake of the vocalists), be the admitted standing-dish at the Covent Garden banquet. If it was once settled that each house should have its own line of business, and that what was seen at the one should not be seen at the other, amity might take the place of hostility, and those operatic squabbles, which find their way even to the drawing-room and the dinner-table, would die a natural death.

THE THEATRES.

THE English theatres have shown a great deal of activity during the past month,—indeed so much, that, with the pressure of other matter upon us, we cannot hope to keep pace with managerial exertions, and must content ourselves with the merest recapitulation.

At the Haymarket, the Keans retain their popularity, and "Othello" has been performed with two different casts of the same actors. Mr. Charles Kean started as Iago and has settled down as Othello, Mr. James Wallack performing the contrary movement. Mrs. C. Kean and Miss Laura Addison have in like manner alternated Emilie and Desdemona. At the Lyceum, Mr. Planché, who is always dreaming of something elegant and fanciful, has given us, under the title of " A Romantic Idea,' the dream of a German student, in the reduction of which to a visible form he is powerfully assisted by the pencil of Mr. Beverley. This has been followed up by an elegant little drawing-room piece called "Hold your Tongue," in which it is quite charming to see how well Madame Vestris and Mr. C. Mathews can play the fashionable lady and gentleman of the last century.

At the Adelphi, there is a new melodrama called "The Hop-Pickers," so completely of the same genre as "The Harvest-Home," that the admirers of the one must perforce admire the other.

Pretty Mrs. Mowatt goes on starring at the Marylebone, and has just received from the lessee, Mr. Watts, a handsome silver vase as a tribute to her authorial and histrionic talents. On the night of her benefit, when the presentation was formally made, the shower of bouquets was so large that the stage was converted into a parterre of flowers.

In a word, Christmas is fairly over; novelty has been found requisite, and managers have been bestirring themselves in every quarter.

LITERATURE.

MARDI; AND A VOYAGE THITHER.

THE author of "Mardi” intimates, in the course of his strange peregrinations, that his notorious predecessor, John de Maundeville, has been wronged by misinterpretation. We hope the same fate does not await Mr. Herman Melville. If we are to believe the medieval commentators, the pilgrim knight had a theological and moral purpose in his fabulous descriptions; so Mr. Melville has made the South Sea Islands (the land of Prester John being no longer adapted to that end) the seat of an enigmatical and metaphysical geography.

The very story of the old monkish author of the "Gesta Romanorum," of a garden of paradise which the magician Aloaddin made the means of destruction, by persuading his victims that death in his service was only a step to a more beautiful paradise, and which garden Purchas discovered to lie in the north-east parts of Persia, while Maundeville asserted it to be the island of Milstorak, a portion of the kingdom of Prester John, and a description of which, derived from the same sources, is the gem of the sixth book of Southey's "Thalaba,” has, with the modification that the traveller kills the magician and saves the victim, been made the basis of Mr. Melville's book; and he carries out in the same vein a long host of fabulous descriptions, out of the crudities and quiddities of which, as from the middle age allegories, some moral or social meaning may be extracted, but not always with either ease or facility.

Our modern Maundeville sails from Ravavai, an island somewhere near the tropic of Capricorn (!), (a common sailor, apparently, for he takes his turn at the helm,) in the Arcturion, a South-Sea whaler. The ship remains for weeks "chassezing across the line to and fro, in unavailing search for prey." Life on board the Arcturion grows dull, and our knight-errant determines upon an escape, in which intent he is joined by an old Skyeman, a descendant of the Norseman Vikings, or, as the knight has it, with a "king for a comrade." Quietly arranging their plans, they lower a boat one dark night, and push off into the open ocean, thousands of miles from any land, the watery world all before them. This singular voyage is the most interesting portion of the work, and we are told how the knight grew awearied and awe-struck; how the Viking's intellects stepped out and left the body to itself; how the uncouth hordes infesting the South Seas watched them and attended upon them as their certain prey; how they dipped their biscuits into the sea, and sucked the moisture from off a drowned daddylong-legs; and how the "Chamois" kept drifting on and on, till the knight and the Viking did not dare to look at one another, but turned their backs to one another, and were impatient of the slightest casual touch of their persons.

There were sixteen notches on the loom of the Viking's oar, when one evening, as the expanded sun touched the horizon's rim, they descried a ship. They made for it, and discovered it to be a brigantine, apparently deserted, but they afterwards discovered two strange characters in the main-top; the one a tall, dark, one-armed islander, Samoa by name; the other, his sable better-half, Annatoo. The rest of the crew had been destroyed by the savages at the Pearl-shell Islands. Unlovely Annatoo! unfortunate Samoa ! ever since they had been drifting about the South Seas in the Parki, as the brigantine was called, they had been quarreling and fighting, and then making it up again. The lady had so extraordinary a propensity for thieving, that even after the knight and the Viking took possession of the ship, she had to be locked down in the forecastle. A long and tedious calm, during which the ship lay fixed and frozen, like Parry at the Pole, was succeeded by a tremendous storm-poor Annatoo was washed overboard, and the brigantine gave up the ghost; the knight, the Viking, and Samoa saving themselves in the Chamois, in which they once more found themselves in

open sea.

"Once more afloat in our shell! But not with the intrepid spirit that shoved

Mardi; and a Voyage Thither. By Herman Melville. Author of "Typee" and "Omoo." 3 Vols. Richard Bentley.

off with us from the deck of the Arcturion. A bold deed done from impulse, for the time carries few or no misgivings along with it. But forced upon you, its terrors stare you in the face. So now. I had pushed from the Arcturion with a stout heart; but quitting the sinking Parki, my heart sunk with her."

At the ninth day, in the grey of the dawn, a noddy was seen fast asleep perched upon the peak of the sail, and soon afterwards immense low-sailing flights of other aquatic fowls announced proximity to land. The same day they discovered a large double canoe, towards which they made all sail. The canoe contained an aged priest or magician, Aleema, who was conveying a beautiful damsel as an offering from the island of Amma to the gods of Tedaidee. The maiden was fair -the child, indeed, of European parents-and she had been carefully educated by the priests as an intended victim to their hideous gods. When, after a fray, in which the knight slays the aged magician, Yillah is rescued from her bondage, she relates her history to her deliverer and lover.

The passionate exultation experienced by the knight at finding himself the deliverer of this beautiful maiden is a good deal damped by remorse for the murder of the old priest. But love was more powerful than conscience, the ghost of Aleema was sunk and sweet Yillah was his! The presence of the syren provoked an occasional phillipic from the Viking, but Samoa looked upon her as a deity. Five suns rose and set upon the four living things now in the Chamois, when they came in sight of innumerable islands, which, together, made up the group of Mardi. The islanders received the white man and woman as demi-gods, and henceforth the knight's designation is Taji. The Viking was too much sunburnt to pass for a demi-god. Fêted and entertained by Media, king of the island of Odo, in which they first landed, they lived some time in the enjoyment of peace and happiness. Media and his cook, it may be observed, were also demi-gods, for Odo was the stronghold of gourmandizing. "Drag away my queen from my arms," said old Tyty, when overcome of Adommo, "but leave me my cook."

The inhabitants of the neighbouring islands also flocked in fleets and flotillas to see the fair demi-gods, and among them came three black-eyed damsels, emissaries of Queen Hautia, a South Sea Calypso, and which emissaries are destined to attend ever and anon upon Taji, speaking the language of flowers and of evil portents.

Joys are proverbially fleeting. Days passed, and one morning Taji found his arbour vacant. In vain he called upon his beloved Yillah; she was gone for ever. Yillah was a phantom, and the knight never met her again. But his agony of mind was not so easily soothed. He must needs search for her in all the islands of Mardi, and Media determined to accompany him, and with them also went three remarkable personages-Mohi, a venerable teller of stories and legends; Babbalanja, a man learned in Mardian lore, and much given to quotations from ancient and obsolete authorities; and lastly, Yoomy, a youthful, long-haired, blue-eyed minstrel. Like the preface to a pantomime over, the serious business of the book commences at this point.

The first visit is made to Valapee, ruled over by Peepi-the symbol of hereditary royalty an infant monarch, who, according to the erudite Babbalanja, was supposed to have inherited the valiant spirits of some twenty heroes, sages, simpletons, and demi-gods, previously lodged in his sire. The next island, Pella, with its sepulchre of ten kings, affords Babbalanja a similar opportunity for a disquisition on the vanity of the world. The next island, Juam, is remarkable for a picturesque central bowl, which the king dare not remove from, under penalty of losing his crown. The descriptions of these imaginary islands, it must be remarked, are extremely highly-coloured and fanciful.

It is utterly impossible to follow the Taji and his companions, King Media, the philosopher, the story-teller, and the musician, in their delightful wanderings among the hundred islands of Mardi. The hit at the foolish importance attached in society to mere conventionalities, as shown in the Viking's mistake as to the use of an empty nut, and Babbalanja's illustration that conventionalities are but mimickings, at which monkeys succeed best, is capital. Babbalanja's philosophy becomes at times too mystical, as when, for example, he argues that truth is in thiags, and not in words, for what are vulgarly called fictions are as much realities as the gross mattock of Dididi, the digger of trenches; for things visible are but conceits of the eye; things imaginative, conceits of the fancy. If duped by one, we are equally duped by the other.

"Clear as this water," said Yoomy.