was at once made to him to sing at the Antient and Philharmonic Concerts. At this time Drury-Lane was closed, the leading English vocalists being employed at the Lyceum Theatre, then under Mr. Arnold's direction, upon whom he called and offered his services. Mr. Arnold knew nothing about Balfe, but being referred to Malibran and Grisi, he very soon ascertained who he was, and arrangements were at once entered into for the production of an opera, which was to be completed in six weeks. The treasury of the theatre beginning to fail, and Mr. Arnold being unable to afford to bring out the work in the way which the composer considered it deserved to be, the opera was withdrawn, and the house soon after closed. It happened then that Mr. Bunn had just returned to town, and having sent for Mr. Mapleson, the librarian and copyist of the Lyceum, who had all the parts of the opera copied, asked him, "What's that rubbish they have been rehearsing at the English Opera; and who is this Signor Balfe?" Upon which Mapleson gave his opinion on the merits of the music which he had heard, and strongly advised Bunn to send for the new composer. He at once acted upon the advice, and speedily arranged terms with Balfe for the production of the Siege of Rochelle, which was first represented at Drurylane on the 29th October, 1835. But here is Mr. Bunn's account of it in his interesting book, "The Stage before and behind the Curtain": "I had this season the pleasure of introducing to the English public a young man of great musical attainments, which I conceived were not destined to blush unseen, and waste their sweets upon the desert air;' and I was determined, at all events, to test my own opinion by that of the public. Mr. Balfe, when I was stage manager of Drury Lane, in 1823, was an humble member of the orchestra-in coarse and homely phraseology,' a fiddler; and, when introduced to me in the summer of 1835, his name and his fame (then become entirely continental) were new to me. The beauties of the first work he was desirous of bringing out were admitted by many able judges of music, and strenuously impressed upon me by the recommendation of Mr. Cooke (Tom, for fear of mistake). The Siege of Rochelle was accordingly produced, and its success verified every judgment that had been delivered upon its merits. Though not calculated in itself to prove highly attractive, it had the good fortune to be linked in representation with the Jewess, and thus ran seventy nights the first season. It became the fashion, as it invariably does in this country, to abuse a man the moment his abilities begin to denote a mental superiority over those he is surrounded by. In France, Italy, and Germany, every species of encouragement is held out to a rising genius-in England, he is subject to every possible detraction; and the moment Balfe's talent burst out upon the town, it was assailed by the most unwarrantable attacks. Persons calling themselves musical judges were loud in their assertions that every note of the Siege of Rochelle was stolen from Ricci's opera of Chiara de Rosenberg; and it was not until this last-named composition was produced by the Italian Buffo Company, under the spirited direction of Mr. Mitchell, that these self-constituted judges tardily and reluctantly admitted, that there were not half-a-dozen bars in the two operas that bore the slightest resemblance to each other." Bearing out Mr. Bunn's observations as to the injustice of this species of criticism, we ourselves recollect how that charming chorus, Vive le Roi, which terminates the first act, was assailed as being a glaring copy of Weber's glee, Enjoy thyself where'er thou art. Our readers, however, shall judge how far this accusation was well founded But even supposing that there was similarity in the design, Mr. Balfe may console himself with the happy reflection, that he has many bright examples of plagiarism in the best works of some of the standard composers. stance, is an air every one knows: Here, for in And again in Mozart's chef d'œuvre, Don Giovanni :— band Almost note for note the same in Haydn's Creation, "Most beautiful appear :". But one by Mendelssohn, in his Christmas Present, and we have done : Why, here is our countryman, Sampson Carter's* song, Oh, Nanny, wilt thou gang with me?" which we would almost hazard asserting as a certainty Mendelssohn never heard; but still none can deny the unmistakeable likeness. But to return. Balfe's next opera was The Maid of Artois, in which poor Malibran took the town by storm with her matchless performance of Isoline. It produced to the management, by sixteen nights' representation, the sum of £5,690 11s., being a nightly average of £355. Mr. Bunn tells a very amusing anecdote of Malibran, the circumstance connected with which took place on the first night of the performance of the opera. "She had (as he writes) borne along the two first acts on the first night of performance in such a flood of triumph, that she was bent, by some almost superhuman effort, to continue its glory to the final fall of the curtain. I went into her dressing-room previous to the commencement of the third act, to ask how she felt, and she replied, Very Formerly organist to St. Werburgh's, Dublin. 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. 66 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 deserv edly 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'œuvres 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 portrait 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, because 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 views 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. |