THE return of Mademoiselle Sontag to the lyrical stage, through circumstances so peculiar and unforeseen, very naturally awakens a more than ordinary curiosity respecting her. Many years ago she was the pride of the operatic boards throughout Europe. Her voice was magnificent, her person and manners were fascinating, and she had formed for herself a style of singing altogether sui generis. It is, moreover, one of the great arts of dramatic policy to trumpet forth the merits of favorite singers, so as to excite, and sometimes to bewilder, the intellects of those whose habitual pleasure is music. We remember Mademoiselle Sontag's first appearance in London. She had previously, as is well known, gained a high reputation on the Continent, by singing at Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and other cities of Germany. But as London is the ultima Thule of musical ambition, her career would have been imperfect, her success almost trivial, had she not passed the Channel, and delighted the amateurs of the British capital, which, without a figure of speech, is the greatest centre of energy and intelligence in Christendom.

There is a melancholy interest attached to her late reappearance. Admired for her beauty and her talents, she was married early to a Sardinian gentleman, engaged in the business of diplomacy, who, as might have been expected, in a short time withdrew her from the excitements and pleasures of public life. She then formed one of a class constantly becoming more and more numerous in European society-we mean ladies who have been transferred from the stage to the drawing-room, which some regard as an extraordinary and fortunate achievement. We have our doubts on this point. It may not be desirable at the outset to be placed on the stage, and surrounded by all its temptations, all its gaieties, all its excitements, and all its dangers; but these once subdued by the force of habit, or neutralized by the pure love of art, there is, perhaps, no life so full

of charms, and, therefore, so difficult to be quitted, as that of the stage-we mean to those few who attain pre-eminence there, and exercise a sort of sovereign influence over public taste.

Fame of all kinds is intoxicating, but especially that of a great actor or singer, who looks renown face to face, as it were, and enjoys in person that which others only taste proleptically, by throwing themselves through the force of imagination into the bright circles of futurity. To a woman, above all things, young, beautiful, susceptible, celebrity is a Circean cup. She beholds, in some sort, thousands at her feet-she lives in an atmosphere perfumed with applause-the whole public is but as an echo to repeat her praises perpetually. All who feel, and many thousands who only affect to feel, the pleasures imparted by music-all who have a voice in society, or, still more bewitching, who can give performance to their eloquent admiration through the press, unite in accomplishing her apotheosis.

When, therefore, through love, or any other passion, she is snatched from this mimic world, this blaze of admiration, this inexpressibly sweet and soothing atmosphere, to be removed to the calm and quietude of domestic life, the change is too frequently followed by poignant disappointment and regret. The existence of a great actress or singer is external. All she does is to produce effect on others. Her talents may, in fact, be said to be latent or invisible, till they are called into activity, and rendered palpable by the presence of applauding multitudes. No painter would create a gallery of pictures if all the rest of the world were blind. No man would give up his nights and days to the study of eloquence, if the music of his periods were to be displayed before a deaf or unappreciating audience. Still less, therefore, would a singer cultivate assiduously all the resources of her voice, and almost convert herself into a mere well

It is commonly believed that Mademoiselle Sontag abandoned the stage without reluctance, and voluntarily gave herself up to the obscurity of ordinary life. She herself, however, is deeply conscious, we are sure, that this is a grievous error. In the glimpses we obtain of her subsequent career, we discover irrefragable proofs that she perpetually sighed for the enjoyment of publicity. Consequently, though the causes of her reappearance cannot but be painful to her, we make no doubt that, when the happy moment arrived, she again trod the stage with rapture, like one who escapes from long imprisonment to liberty, or ascends from the dim eclipse of defeat to victory and the exercise of power. This is the event of her life on which, were we her friend, we should be most inclined to congratulate her. Like a star long hidden by thick clouds, she has now emerged once more into the clear bright heaven, and sheds radiance far and wide around her. As the Countess de Rossi, she may have tasted all that equable pleasure and satisfaction which a retired and quiet life can bestow; but as Henrietta Sontag, the prima donna of the opera-house, she probably enjoys, at times at least, a rapturous delight, altogether unknown to other women. This would undoubtedly be her confession, could she be brought to disclose her secret thoughts; and, accordingly, she no doubt finds, as well as the public, that adversity "oft bears a precious jewel in its head."

A great deal has been written on the merits of this distinguished singer, who has been placed in parallel with Madame Pasta, Malibran, and Jenny Lind. These comparisons are generally ridiculous, because language supplies no medium for conveying correctly to others our impressions of singing. When we are speaking of a voice which those to whom we speak have not heard, the most elaborate and learned critic will fail in the attempt to impart a true idea of it. We may describe the amount of pleasure we have received; we may enter into details respecting it; we may be eloquent; we may exhaust the terms of admiration; but, when all this has been done, our hearers or readers will only be able to gather generally that we have been extremely delighted. Of Madame Pasta, for example, now that she has disappeared from the stage, it is impossible to give the opera-goers any concep

that it is a power to cause certain peculiar vibrations in the air, which, striking on our sensorium, give rise to sensations which are not afterward to be represented by ideas. Music is almost exclusively a matter of sensation, and has little or nothing to do with the intellect. It produces a peculiar condition of our nervous system; it occasions an agreeable motion in our animal spirits; it excites our feelings; it awakens our sympathies; it connects itself with innumerable associations, and stirs all the world of passion within us; but the means by which it exercises this power defy analysis, and even lie beyond the reach of conjecture. The most subtle metaphysics cannot descend into that abyss, so that we must be content to enjoy the pleasure, without knowing whence it cometh, or whither it goeth.

When persons in society talk of the opera, especially if they have the misfortune to possess a smattering of musical knowledge, you often seem ashamed to experience any pleasure in common with them, they are so intensely silly. Affecting to be pre-eminently familiar with all great singers, they talk of Pasta, Sontag, and Lind, just as, were they politicians, they would prate about Palmerston, Talleyrand, or Metternich. Often and often do they suggest a pungent quotation from Shakspeare

"The fool hath planted in his memory
An army of good words,"-

Made

for, with their " contralto," their "soprano," and their "mezzo-soprano," they bother you by the hour. They do not hear music to enjoy it, but to dissertate about it. moiselle Sontag is to them not a source of pleasure, but a topic. They carry their tablets to the opera-house, that they may set down those trite observations which they can afterward dole forth among persons of their own calibre in society. Nothing can exceed the airs of superiority which one of this class of persons feels, when he asks you if you have heard Lind or Sontag, and feels sure you will answer in the negative. He is then in a state of mental ecstasy; and if you care less for the truth than for a joke, you will humor him, that you may see his little mind overflowing with gratification. Yet these individuals help to make up the singers' world, which possibly, but for them, would be extremely limited; for the true lovers of music, like the true lovers of all other arts, are few indeed. We have been at the opera

house in company with persons of this stamp, who, instead of yielding themselves up for the time to the witchery of song, have been but laboriously exhibiting their musical learning; affecting to detect faults in the most exquisite passages, and worrying us to death with their own theories of what the thing ought to have been. This is particularly the case with Mademoiselle Sontag's countrymen, who, because they have the most unmusical language in Europe, think themselves entitled to pronounce judgment, ex cathedra, upon all others, as well as upon music itself.

But from these let us now turn to the professional career of Mademoiselle Sontag, who was born at Coblentz on the 3d of January, 1809. The date of her birth reminds us of a strange theory which was started some years ago by one of the public journals, which was, that all persons of superior genius had been born in winter, and particularly in the month of January. The writer looked carefully through biographical dictionaries, and found sufficient instances to satisfy his own mind; and many other writers in newspapers and magazines ingeniously supported his views. After a short time it was recollected that Shakspeare was born on the 23d of April; and, without any further ceremony, the notion was dismissed. The ancient Greeks had a different theory, which was, that the best time to be born was about September or October, as the best time to get married was in January. Fancy may amuse itself with such considerations, but experience shows that every month in the year has produced its great men and women also, though philosophy, if properly set upon the track, might possibly discover reasons why one month should produce more genius than another.

may be allowed to go a great way. Mademoiselle Sontag had something about her more fascinating than physical beauty. We mean the witchery of genius, which would have communicated to features much inferior to hers an irresistible charm.

We are told that at five years of age she already began to give proofs of her musical talents, while at seven she obtained a reputation for beauty. This is ridiculous. She was no doubt a pretty child; and as she had even then begun to be a public character, her prettiness was generally noticed in her neighborhood. The biographies we have seen are extremely mysterious in their revelations; relating, for example, that her mother used to place her on a table to sing to a circle of friendly neighbors, or the authorities of the city, or even to the nobility of the district. If her father was a poor artist, how came he to be acquainted with the authorities or the nobility; and where, how, and when, was she perched on the table to sing? Most people are aware of what mighty consequence nobility is thought to be of in Germany. There a nobleman is necessarily an adept in all kinds of knowledge. His acquaintance with music is innate, and the voices he admires immediately become superhumanly sweet. This, therefore, was the fire that ripened Henrietta Sontag. With her arms hanging beside her, her eye on a fly crawling across the window, or watching a butterfly flitting from flower to flower without, she was beheld by some illustrious unknown, executing the grand aria of "The Queen of Night," in "The Magic Flute." Would that some sensible person had witnessed and described these things! We should then have been able to appreciate the effect produced by the little girl's voice, the power and richness of which we do not comprehend a bit the better for comparing it to mountain rills.

Jenny Lind has enjoyed the advantage of possessing a more enlightened and observing circle of friends than Henrietta Sontag, whose life would be highly interesting if written by a man of sense, with the proper materials at his disposal. From the ordinary sketches put forward, we learn very little. They move through her biography by leaps and bounds, skipping four or five years at a time; and that, too, when it is most important to know what was the training of the voice, what the system, if any, of diet, what the collateral instruction she received from those around her. Her parents, we are told, were too judicious to think of deriving profit from exhibiting their child as

an infant wonder through the opera managers of Germany-a phrase of exquisite vagueness-who were eager to secure her services, each for his own theatre.

One thing we distinctly discover, namely, that she was brought up in a sort of musical hotbed, since already, at the age of eleven years, a part entitled "The Little Daughter of the Danube" was written expressly for her; and in this she performed at the theatre of Darmstadt, no doubt with unbounded applause, for the Germans are as liberal of praise to their own country women as they are sometimes grudging of it to strangers. There must, however, have been in this exhibition something upon the whole unsatisfactory; otherwise, we can scarcely believe that parents who are injudicious enough to permit so premature a display would, immediately afterward, have exhibited the prudence necessary to withdraw her from the "heat of theatres, and the warmth of admiration," and transport her to the conservatory of Prague. Prodigies are always great nuisances, especially to themselves. Nothing is beautiful but what is natural; and it is highly unnatural to force a child into the situation of a woman, and expect from her the impersonation and expression of passions which she has never felt, and therefore can neither understand nor realize to others. To a certain extent, Henrietta Sontag was preserved from this humiliation; though, in common with many other celebrated singers, she was several times brought forward too early, and owed her success more to the indulgence than to the judgment of her critics.

Much has, no doubt, been written on the musical education of Germany, which, until recently, had scarcely anything but music on which habitually to pride itself. But we are yet greatly in the dark respecting those methods of voice-training which succeed so well in that country. We are accordingly unable to appreciate, save by the result of the instructions received by Mademoiselle Sontag, whether at Darmstadt or Prague. We know not how to distinguish between what was contributed by nature and what was effected by art. We only know that in three years Henrietta had made great progress in her studies, and was led to aspire to make a figure on those boards where the "Marriage of Figaro" and the "Clemenze di Tito" were first produced by Mozart.

We now come to an epoch in Mademoiselle Sontag's life. Scarcely had she attained the age of fourteen when, through the ill

ness of the principal prima donna of the Prague opera, she was called upon to make her début in earnest as a public singer. Her parents, we are told, now no longer felt any objection to her appearing definitely on the stage-conceiving, apparently, that a girl of fourteen is fully capable of projecting herself into the passions of women, at least as they are represented in opera-houses, where the sorrows of the heart are set to music, and people laugh, cry, rave, make love, stab, and die, singing. Chantez toujours," as they say in France, n'importe ! allons, messieurs et mesdames, saisons l'amour."__ There is nothing like it. So thought the Prague managers; and little Henrietta, at once transformed into a heroine, was called upon to do her part in "Jean de Paris."

But on the lyric stage, as the knowingones express it, it is impossible to make love, or sing about it, until you are, or appear to be, of a certain height. Henrietta was too short by four inches for love; but this did not signify. There was a mighty Hellenist at Prague, who, in his profound researches into antiquity, had discovered that the Greek actors wore the Kothurnos when they desired to represent gods or goddesses; personages who, of course, were a little taller than we. This extraordinary genius suggested that Henrietta should wear cork heels; and eke soles, we presume, otherwise four inches of heel might have been inconvenient. By erudite investigations into the history of France, it was also found that the ladies of the court of Louis XV. wore high-heeled shoes, and dyed them red. Behold, then, the whole difficulty got over, and Henrietta mounted on the Kothurnos, before all the rank and fashion of Prague, who must of necessity have been extremely delighted. We should, certainly, have been much gratified to have seen her on that night as Princess of Navarre, with her high vermilion heels and short petticoats. But the Bohemians saw her, and were enchanted, as all German populations are bound to be with a musical prodigy. They would otherwise be no better than the rest of the world--their chief distinction consisting in that high degree of mock enthusiasm which they can, at any time, get up to order.

They who are profoundly versed in operatic history will, no doubt, know all about Gerstener, of whose merits, or performances, our knowledge is rather slight. He was, nevertheless, considered, in his day, a great man at Prague, where, like other great men, he would seem to have treated the public