tired; but' (and here her eye of fire suddenly lighted up), 'you angry devil, if you will contrive to get me a pint of porter in the desert scene, you shall have an encore to your finale.' Had I been dealing with any other performer, I should, perhaps, have hesitated in complying with a request that might have been dangerous in its application at the moment, but to check her powers was to annihilate them. I therefore arranged that, behind the pillar of drifted sand, on which she falls in a state of exhaustion towards the close of the desert scene, a small aperture should be made in the stage; and it is a fact that, from underneath the stage, through that aperture, a pewter pint of porter was conveyed to the parched lips of this rare child of song, which so revived her after the terrible exertion the scene led to, that she electrified the audience, and had strength to repeat the charm with the finale to The Maid of Artois. The novelty of the circumstance so tickled her fancy, and the draught itself was so extremely refreshing, that it was arranged, during the subsequent run of the opera, for the negro slave at the head of the governor's procession to have in the gourd suspended to his neck, the same quantity of the same beverage, to be applied to her lips on his first beholding the apparently dying Isoline." The next opera written by Balfe was Catherine Grey, which was followed by Falstaff, Joan of Arc, Keolanthe, Puits d'Amour, Quatre Fils Aymon, which all enjoyed various degrees of success. In 1839 he became lessee of the English Opera House, but the speculation was by no means profitable. The Bohemian Girl, which was his next opera in order of writing, was performed at Drurylane, and has proved one of the most successful operas ever produced on the English stage. The Daughter of St. Mark was his next composition, which, in our judgment, is equal, if not superior, to The Bohemian Girl. The latter however, had a much longer run, and to celebrate its hundredth representation, a magnificent breakfast service of plate was presented to him on the stage of Drury-lane, on the occasion of his taking his benefit. The inscription on the salver denoted that the plate had been subscribed for by a few friends, as a small testimony of their admiration of the talents of the composer of eleven successful operas, and to commemorate the hundredth performance of The Bohemian Girl. The Enchantress, The Bondman, L'Etoile de Seville, The Maid of Honour, Elfrida (not yet produced), will, we believe, complete our list of his leading compositions. In Vienna, Frankfort, and Berlin, several of his works have been done into German, and thus he has the notoriety of having had his operas pass the test of some of the most critical continental audiences. "During his stay in Berlin," writes the correspondent of the Musical World, "it has been one unceasing fête; received in the first society, courted by every body, he has not had an instant's repose. The King and the Royal Family have been untiring in their attention to Mr. Balfe; and besides a present from his Majesty of a magnificent emerald brooch set in diamonds of great value, the Queen and Princes are most liberal in kindness and presents to the family of the popular composer.' In Dublin his operas have been performed with great success; and on one of his professional visits to his native city he was presented with a valuable gold snuff-box, on the cover of which there is a raised harp, in which the letter "B." is entwined-a graceful indication of his connexion with the country that gave him birth. His sister, Miss Balfe, who possesses talent of no mean order, has long resided in Dublin. Her name is almost always to be found in the programmes of the concerts of some of our leading musical societies; while, as a teacher, she enjoys considerable reputation for imparting purity of style. Balfe's subsequent career is familiar to most of our readers. He now deservedly occupies the high position of Conductor of Music to Her Majesty's Theatre; but whether his orchestra, or that conducted at the rival establishment, is the more perfect, we shall leave to the opinions of those who are better enabled to discuss the point. For ourselves we shall only say, that we hear both with intense gratification. Of his compositions a great deal might be critically said, and if we thought our readers at all disposed, we might enter into a learned disquisition as to their merits and demerits. We shall content ourselves, however, by expressing an opinion, that what he has written is more or less open to the charge of having been too rapidly done; and that the general design, as well as the details of his works, have suffered, not from want of knowledge of his art, but from the necessity of his completing his operas within a given time. The million, however, he has pleased beyond all question, and we doubt very much, nay, we almost say with certainty, that there is no English composer who can write so good melody as this Irishman Balfe. In a very well-written sketch of him which we find in Ellis's Record of the Musical Union (a publication, by the way, containing most valuable essays on musical subjects), the writer says, "We recollect hearing Balfe reply to a friend who had quoted him an ill-natured criticism, Let others try to write better than I.' There are hundreds in Paris capable of making a good scene, and if they could produce effective melodies, they would not permit an Irishman to compose for their National Theatres." This is all true, but we cannot help agreeing with the passage which follows. "He has yet to produce a work that shall occupy a worthy place in the archives of the French National Theatre, by the sides of the chef d'aurres of Mehul, Gluck, Spontini, Rossini, Meyerber, and Auber." It has been proposed by the writer of an admirable article which recently appeared in Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, that one Italian opera is quite sufficient in London, "and that both companies might join in one effective and lucrative establishment, leaving the other open for English operas, that is to say, for not only classical foreign operas translated into English, but as an arena for the employment of English singers, and of the rapidly rising school of English composers. An essential feature of the plan should be a scale of prices for the English opera, such as would render good music more acceptable to the middle classes. For the direction of such a theatre Mr. Balfe has been unanimously designated by the whole musical public as, beyond all comparison, the most fitting individual." And so he is; but we fear that before he resigns his baton at her Majesty's, and undertakes the responsibility of management, he must have very clear and satisfactory evidence that the public will support an English in preference to an Italian opera. It has been stated that he has written a work to an English libretto, which is to be performed in London during the present season. We hope so; for while we are taking our stand along side of foreigners in that wondrous display which is at present occupying the attention of the world, we should endeavour to show them, ere they return to their own countries, that we can compete in music as successfully as we have been enabled to do in other departments of arts and industry. There are other excellent musicians beside Mr. Balfe who could bear their part in showing that England and Ireland are making advances in a knowledge of the science of music; and we repeat, that the opportunity should not be lost to prove the fact. In Ireland we have already the nucleus of a musical school, which, if liberally supported, and steadily conducted may yet be an academy, and, we hope with a royal charter, sending forth well-educated musicians to earn fame and honour by the instruction which they shall receive in their native country. It has been placed under the able guidance of Mr. Levey, the eminent violinist; and we have every confidence that much good can be done, if those who have founded the institution will only persevere. Balfe, having heard of its establishment, has most generously contributed to its support, by presenting the directors with a song of his own composition, the profits of the sale of which will be applied to the purposes for which the academy was founded. When we say that Jonathan Freke Slingsby has written the poetry, may we not hope that, united to such a flowing melody as the composer of the "Light of other Days" can write, we shall, ere long, see the song on the piano-fortes of all our musical friends. We have now told you all we know, dear reader, about Michael Balfe. Fortune has followed and favoured him. We think he deserves her gifts; and feeling that, as a distinguished composer and accomplished musician, he has done credit to Ireland, we have given him a niche in our gallery. Do, then, look at his por trait once more, and say whether you ever saw a better likeness. WORDSWORTH'S LIFE. Ir was our pleasant task, some fifteen or sixteen years ago, in an early number of this journal, to give an account of Wordsworth's "Yarrow Revisited," and his poem then published. The reverential feeling which we then had an opportunity of expressing, was one that had grown up with us from what we may call our childhood, for accidental circumstances of early life had made us familiar with the " Lyrical Ballads" long before the name of Wordsworth was everywhere held in honour. His poems, and the poems of Coleridge, in that collection, we were as perfectly acquainted with as it was possible for us to be with works which it requires thoughtful manhood perfectly to appreciate. Coleridge's poems we had known long before we knew his name, which was not communicated in the edition of the "Lyrical Ballads," in which we first read his "ANCIENT MARINER," and "LovE;" and we think we cannot err in saying, that at that very early period, whether it is that the wonderful has for childhood charms that nothing else possesses, and that we are then living in a state that is for ever engaged in anticipation, and therefore will not be satisfied with anything that does not speak of more than earth, these poems of Coleridge's were to us what gave the great interest to the book. Of Wordsworth's part of it the portion which now gives us most delight was then held by us as of lower account. They were the days, in which, of the Bible, the Apocalypse was our favourite book, and this for its wonders, which were realities to our imagination; and the Song of Solomon, than which language has nothing more beautiful. The time of life had not arrived in which men find more pleasure in "Proverbs," and in "Ecclesiastes." Our first knowledge of the name of Coleridge was some years after, when the first verses which we saw, knowing them to be his, were passages which he had contributed to Southey's Joan of Arc." These, though, we believe, written at an ear lier period than the poems published by Wordsworth, did not fall into our hands till somewhat a later date. Why do we mention all this?-partly, be cause it is pleasanter to write without any reserve-partly, because it may be worth while to state that, in our estimate of Wordsworth, we are not in the circumstances of those with whom it is likely to be varied, either for praise or blame, by ever having had prejudices to overcome. If he has triumphed over the vices of style which rendered it almost impossible to express any sentiment in verse, without disfiguring it by artificial diction, we can scarcely be perfect judges of what he has done in this way, as we happen to have been acquainted with his works before we met any of those written in the style of which he complains, and of which we learn more from his own prefaces than from any other source of information. In judging of his own style, we compare him with the living, and not with the dead-with Spenser, with Cowley, with Milton, not with the Rosa Matildas, and Merricks, of whom really nothing whatever would be known by any one, but for Gifford's verse and Wordsworth's prose; and of whom, in their days of the flesh, a good deal less was thought than the satirist and the poet persuaded themselves. That Wordsworth, however, has exercised greater influence on English poetical literature than any man of our days, may be safely affirmed. Without seeking to determine the place which he shall ultimately be regarded as holding, when considered relatively to Byron and to Scott, we cannot but assign to him greater influence on the writers, if not on the readers, of poetry, than either of those great masters possessed; and in the case of Byron, if we were to divide his poems, as the German critics do those of their Schiller, into periods corresponding with his progress in the art, the poems of some three or four years commencing with "Manfred," and the third canto of * See Dublin University Magazine (for June, 1835), Vol. V., p. 680, 66 "Childe Harold" speak in every line of his successful study of Wordsworth. It was we think, however, but a stage in his progress; for with what are, properly speaking, his dramatic works, "Manfred" cannot be classed. In 'Sardanapalus," and the "Two Foscari," for instance, he has passed into a wholly new style; and in the passages of "Don Juan," in which he is true to himself and his better genius-for in truth, some of the latter cantos are not merely unworthy of him, but absolutely worthless, and little better than mere gin-and-water-the style is absolutely his own, never suggesting any other writer. Of Wordsworth, however, it is our business now to speak. His works cannot but be for many years a study with all persons who cultivate poetry as an art; and the formation and education of a mind producing such ef fects on so many, is a subject of interest to all men. The volumes before us can scarcely be called his biography. Of incident in a life so uneventful as his, there was little to relate. The circumstances in which his poems were created, and the history, which it may be possible now to recover, and only now, that accompanied each, and that cannot but be, if recovered, useful for the purpose of perfectly understanding it, it would be desirable for us to have recorded. This could only be done by a person possessing such opportunities as his nephew, who has drawn up this memoir, appears to have possessed; and even, with such opportunities, in order that the work should be at all satisfactorily accomplished, it would be absolutely necessary that the biographer should have some knowledge of the art which was Wordsworth's great distinction. No biographer could have been selected, in this particular case, combining almost all the qualifications desirable, in so high a degree, as Hartley Coleridge; but death removed him a few months before Wordsworth. The volumes before us are valuable-not as valuable as they might have been-but are certainly valuable, as often giving us passages from the journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, the poet's sister, and some dictated to the author by the poet himself, who was aware of his intention of publishing this memoir, and approved of the design. The book may be regarded rather as a comment on the poems, than a formal biography. Wordsworth's grandfather was the first of the name of Wordsworth who settled in the border country. The name, however, existed in Yorkshire, and from the Yorkshire family that of the poet traces its descent. An almery, or oakpress, of the date of 1525, was given to Wordsworth by Colonel Beaumont, an inscription on which describes it as made for a William Wordsworth of that time. Wordsworth's mother died in the year 1778, and his father when the poet was in his fourteenth year, and just returned from school at Hawkeshead, where he had been from his ninth year. Wordsworth's schooldays were happy ones, for he could read whatever books he liked; and he read all Fielding's works, "Don Quixote," "Gil Blas," "Gulliver's Travels," and the "Tale of a Tub." His first verses, which are given here, were what we may describe as a finished poem, in which the more familiar cadences of Pope's versification are skilfully imitated; a poem in which there is nothing to remember, and nothing likely to offend the ear, and which we do not feel surprised at hearing was regarded as something wonderful by his schoolmaster and schoolfellows. These verses were followed by other school exercises, and their success led him to write a long poem, running over his own adventures, and the scenery of the country in which he had been brought up. In 1787, he was sent to St. John's College, Cambridge, of which College his maternal uncle, Dr. Cookson, had been a Fellow. The master, Dr. Chevallier, died soon after; but we must give this part of his life from the poet's own account: "In the month of October, 1787, I was sent to St. John's College, Cambridge, of which my uncle, Dr. Cookson, had been a Fellow. The Master, Dr. Chevallier, died very soon after; and, according to the custom of that time, his body, after being placed in the coffin, was removed to the ball of the college, and the pall, "Memoirs of William Wordsworth, Poet Laureate, D.C.L." By Christopher Wordsworth, D.D., Canon of Westminster. 2 vols. 8vo. London: Moxon, 1851. spread over the coffin, was stuck over by copies of verses, English or Latin, the composition of the students of St. John's. My uncle seemed mortified when upon inquiry he learnt that none of those verses were from my pen, because,' said he, it would have been a fair opportunity for distinguishing yourself.' I did not, however, regret that I had been silent on this occasion, as I felt no interest in the deceased person, with whom I had had no intercourse, and whom I had never seen but during his walks in the college grounds. "When at school, I, with the other boys of the same standing, was put upon reading the first six books of Euclid, with the exception of the fifth; and also in algebra I learnt simple and quadratic equations; and this was for me unlucky, because I had a full twelvemonth's start of the freshmen of my year, and accordingly got into rather an idle way; reading nothing but classic authors according to my fancy, and Italian poetry. My Italian master was named Isola, and had been well acquainted with Gray the poet. As I took to these studies with much interest, he was proud of the progress I made. Under his correction I translated the Vision of Mirza, and two or three other papers of the Spectator' into Italian. In the month of August, 1790, I set off for the Continent, in companionship with Robert Jones, a Welshman, a fellow-collegian. We went staff in hand, without knapsacks, and carrying each his needments tied up in a pockethandkerchief, with about £20 a-piece in our pockets. We crossed from Dover and landed at Calais on the eve of the day when the king was to swear fidelity to the new constitution: an event which was solemnised with due pomp at Calais. On the afternoon of that day we started and slept at Ardres. For what seemed best to me worth recording in this tour, see the Poem of my own Life.' "After taking my degree in January, 1791, I went to London, stayed there some time; and then visited my friend Jones, who resided in the Vale of Clwydd, North Wales. Along with him I made a pedestrian tour through North Wales, for which also see the Poem. "In the autumn of 1791 I went to Paris, where I stayed some little time, and then went to Orleans, with a view of being out of the way of my own countrymen, that I might learn to speak the language fluently. At Orleans, and Blois, and Paris, on my return, I passed fifteen or sixteen months. It was a stirring time. The king was dethroned when I was at Blois, and the massacres of September took place when I was at Orleans. But for these matters see also the poem. I came home before the exeVOL. XXXVIII.-NO. CCXXIII. cution of the king, and passed the subsequent time among friends in London and elsewhere, till I settled with my only sister at Racedown in Dorsetshire, in the year 1796. "Here we were visited by Mr. Coleridge, then residing at Bristol; and for the sake of being near him when he had removed to Nether-Stowey, in Somersetshire, we removed to Alfoxden, three miles from that place. This was a very pleasant and productive time of my life. Coleridge, my sister, and I, set off on a tour to Linton and other places in Devonshire; and in order to defray his part of the expense, Coleridge on the same afternoon commenced his poem of the Ancient Mariner,' in which I was to have borne my part, and a few verses were written by me, and some assistance given in planning the poem; but our styles agreed so little, that I withdrew from the concern, and he finished it himself. "In the course of that spring I composed many poems, most of which were printed at Bristol, in one volume, by my friend, Joseph Cottle, along with Coleridge's Ancient Mariner,' and two or three other of his pieces. 6 "In the autumn of 1798, Mr. Coleridge, a friend of his, Mr. Chester, my sister, and I, crossed from Yarmouth to Hamburgh, where we remained a few days, and saw, several times, Klopstock the poet. Mr. Coleridge and his friend went to Ratzburg, in the north of Germany, and my sister and I preferred going southward; and for the sake of cheapness, and the neighbourhood of the Hartz Mountains, we spent the winter at the old imperial city of Goslar. The winter was perishing cold-the coldest of this century; and the good people with whom we lodged told me one morning that they expected to find me frozen to death, my little sleeping room being immediately over an archway. However, neither my sister nor I took any harm. "We returned to England in the following spring, and went to visit our friends the Hutchinsons, at Sockburnon-Tees, in the county of Durham, with whom we remained till the 19th of December. We then came, on St. Thomas's Day, the 21st, to a small cottage at Town-end, Grasmere, which, in the course of a tour some months previously with Mr. Coleridge, I had been pleased with, and had hired. This we furnished for about a hundred pounds, which sum had come to my sister by a legacy from her uncle Crackanthorp. "I fell to composition immediately, and published, in 1800, the second volume of the Lyrical Ballads.' "In the year 1802, I married Mary G |