Part 16

Art! what were mankind destitute of thee? Religion’s handmaid oft do we thee find, As to thy polished car seek’st thou to bind True elegance with sweet utility— Long, wide, extensive is thy magic sway, O’er matter all inanimate and mind, E’en savage man thou teachest to be kind, And charmest his rude soul with thy harmony; Cross seas the ship by thy good guidance goes; Fields arable, rich gardens, sacred grove, Town, temple, feel the influence of thy love; Thy sacred power the mind immortal knows, Nor can thy empire, universal, end Till Nature’s forces all in sweet subjection bend.

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A REPLY TO DWIGHT’S ARTICLE ON MOZART’S DON GIOVANNI.

This is the title of a long and prominent article in Graham’s February number: the writer is but a wordy plagiarist. He has received many rebukes already for his cool appropriation of the ideas of others, but Aristabulus Bragg fashion, he still goes on, in the calmest, most approved style, perfectly unblushing. A year or eighteen months ago an article of his in Sartain’s Magazine was pointed out to us as containing some clever thoughts on a very original idea, “the Musical Trinity.” Oh, we exclaimed, this is not original, the whole idea is stolen from the German; then we turned to Goethe’s correspondence with a child, Bettina von Arnheim, and found several passages on the same subject in conversations with Beethoven and Schlosser. Some time after we read in Saroni’s Musical Times that the editor had also detected the plagiarism in this article, and pointed out another author, book and page; saying with great good-nature that he would not have noticed it, had Mr. Dwight only written his article as clearly and concisely as the original; “but to rob an author first and then murder him,” says the editor, “is more than we can bear.” The author alluded to by Mr. Saroni, is the German Marx, and he tells us that the fourth paragraph in Sartain’s article is an almost literal translation of a paragraph in Marx’s “_Komposition-shlere_,” second edition, p. 24.

We have waded through this last article of Mr. Dwight’s on Don Giovanni, partly from curiosity, partly for amusement. We wanted to see the extent to which he would go: and then it amused us to detect the little pilfered thoughts, trigged out in the Boston transcendental clothing until their parents would have scarcely recognized them.

It opens with quite a flourish, trying to decorate the story and hero as the German Hoffman did long ago, but though the whole of the first part is a spun-out translation of the German critic’s description, it is so mingled with his own crude, half-educated thoughts, as to require some little skill in separating Hoffman from Dwight. He has made an attempt to improve upon the German, and we can not say we admire the Boston imitation. Judge for yourself by the following comparison:

DWIGHT.

The true conception of Mozart’s Don Giovanni is that of a gentleman, to say the least, and more than that, a man of genius: a being naturally full of glorious passion, large sympathies and irrepressible energies, noble in mind, in person and in fortune; a large, imposing, generous, fascinating creature. He is such as we all are—“_only more so_,” to borrow an expressive vulgarism. He is a sort of ideal impersonation of two qualities or springs of character, raised as it were to the highest power projected into supernatural dimensions—which is only the poet’s and musician’s way of truly recognizing the element of infinity in every passion of the human soul, since not one ever finds its perfect satisfaction.

HOFFMAN.

Nature had provided for Don Giovanni, one of her dearest children, all that could elevate a man above the crowd which is condemned to be, to do, and to suffer: she had lavished on him the gifts which bid the human nature approximate to the divine. She had destined him to shine, to conquer and to rule. She had animated with a splendid organization that vigorous and accomplished frame: had inspired that breast with a celestial spark: had given to him a soul of deep feeling, quick and penetrating intelligence.

We think Hoffman’s description of Don Giovanni a little exaggerated, but the Boston imitation is what may be called a “free translation,” _very_ free. All that duality business—“_that ideal impersonation of two qualities or springs of character_,” is decidedly an attempt to amplify, if not to improve the German criticism, and is in the usual moral-defying style of the no-principle school of Harbinger and Phalanx writers. In olden times our grand-parents, when they saw any thing particularly broad or free in expression or action, were apt to say, with a proper shrug of the shoulders, that it was “_very French_.” At the present day, when we see any thing questionable in morals or opinions we exclaim, “_transcendental, mock German_, and, _very Boston;_” and thus we say of this attempt of Mr. Dwight’s to idealize the very sensual, commonplace libertine of the opera.

We will now give another comparison.

DWIGHT.

Excessive love of pleasure, helped by a rare magnetism of character, and provoked by the suppressive moralism of the times, have engendered in him a reckless, roving, unsatiable appetite, which intrigue excites and disappoints until _the very passion in which so many souls are first taught the feeling of the infinite_ becomes a fiend in his breast, and drives him to a devilish love of power that exults over woman’s ruin, or rather, that does not mind how many hearts and homes fall victims to his unqualified assertion of the every where rejected and snubbed faith in Passion.

HOFFMAN.

In truth, there is nothing on earth which more elevates a man in his own opinion than love, that love whose vast and conquering influence gives light to the heart, and gives it at once happiness and confusion. Can we be surprised if, when Don Juan hoped to appease by love the passions which rent his breast, that the devil spread a net for him? It was he who inspired Don Juan with the thought that by love and the society of woman we may accomplish on earth _those celestial promises which we bear written in the deepest recesses of our hearts, that intense desire which from our earliest days brings us most closely to heaven_.

The principal difference Mr. Dwight makes in his rendering of this passage of Hoffman’s is, that where the German, in a very old-fashioned manner, attributes Don Juan’s wickedness to the influence of the Spirit of Evil, Mr. Dwight, by some slight of hand, metamorphoses the Passion of Love into an evil demon, and then gives a _fling_, as he would express it, at the religious discipline of the times to which he applies the very lucid epithet, “_suppressive moralism_.” We wish we had some of that “_suppressive moralism_” at the present day to exercise a little wholesome discipline over the authors of this

_Phalanx Socialist Literature_.

After this piece of borrowing and altering from Hoffman, the writer talks a great deal about “_the old theme and under-current of Opera—the Body and the Soul—the liberty of Passion in conflict with the Law intensely narrowed down by social custom from God’s great law of universal harmony_,” and such like rubbish, and then informs us in a note, with his usual precision, by way of illustrating this “_under-current_” of “_Body and Soul_” in “_Old Opera theme_,” that, strange to say, the first Opera _he_ reads of, and which was produced at Rome in 1600, bore the name of “_Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo!_”

Now if this were so, it is puzzling to know what it would have to do with all his talk about “_the under-current of Body and Soul_” in Don Giovanni: but it is not true. The first Opera on record is _Euridice_, the libretto composed by the poet Rinuccini, the music by the composer Peri. It was presented, as he says, in 1600, but not at Rome—at Florence, on the occasion of the marriage of Mary di Medici with Henri Quatre of France.

In 1600, Emilio del Cavalieri, of Rome, brought out an _Oratorio_, which was sung in a church in that city, which bore the title “_Dell Anima e di Corpo_;” and the invention of _Recitative_ dates from these two compositions—the opera _Euridice_ of Peri, and the _Sacred Oratorio_ of Cavalieri. But it answered his purpose to imagine this the other way, and with his usual want of accuracy he applied it—or he was ignorant, and with true transcendental presumption, took it for granted no one knew any more than he did.

Such reviews as this we now write of would be scarcely worth noticing, if it were not for the fact, that they are accepted by the uninstructed, for real _bona fide_ musical criticisms, founded on actual knowledge. One might have expected that Mr. Saroni’s rebuking exposure of his Musical Trinity Article, would have startled the author into something like modesty; and when one sees how reckless he is, it makes one wish that Mr. Saroni would carry his threat into execution, and publish those “certain articles” on Mozart’s Don Giovanni, which bear such a remarkable similarity to Mr. Dwight’s lectures.

M. Bombert says, in his “Life of Mozart,” when speaking of this Opera of Don Giovanni—

“He (Mozart) shines in the awful accompaniment to the reply of the statue—a composition perfectly free from all inflation or bombast—it is _the style of Shakspeare in music_.”

Now for Mr. Dwight’s patch-work—straightway he snatches up this idea of M. Bombert, and makes use of it thus:

“The splendid sinner’s end is rather melo-dramatic in the Opera, and yet there is a poetic and moral truth in it—and _the spectre of the commendatore is a creation fully up to Shakspeare_.”

This is literary murder as well as literary theft. Now any one who knows any thing of this Opera will see that the “_creation of the commendatore_” has nothing remarkable in it, but the _Orchestral Accompaniment_ is one of the grandest things ever composed. Mozart cared very little for the stage part of the affair; and this is proved by the finest music in this Opera being given to the Orchestra. We have heard—we cannot give the authority—but we have read somewhere, that a contemporary critic said that Mozart had put his statue in the Orchestra, and left only the pedestal on the stage—and this is true.

Mr. Dwight gives such an exaggerated, spun-out account of this famous Opera, endeavoring at the same time to gloss over the gross, vulgar, immorality of the plot, with all that confused mysticism peculiar to this Harbinger and Phalanx style of composition, that we will sketch a short matter-of-fact outline of it. Mr. Dwight, with the usual insane transcendental desire to apply an epithet, and make a speech, says, in a short sentence, which he thinks very comprehensive, that it “_is an old middle age Catholic story_;” making a sort of defense for the shocking immoralities in it, by accusing, impliedly, the strict discipline of the church for the libertine hero’s licentiousness, to whom he applies another string of expletives. In the opening, Mr. Dwight calls him “_a large, imposing, generous, fascinating creature_.” Now he has him “_an elegant, full-blooded, rich, accomplished, and seductive gallant_.” A sort of “_a love of a man_” according to Mr. Dwight’s ideas.

The subject of the story of Don Giovanni was a favorite one in the 17th century—“_the middle age Catholic times!_” Mr. Dwight talks of, in his off-hand sentence characterizing the story, was a little earlier than that, we think, a trifle of two or three hundred years or so—but let that pass. French, Italian, and Spanish writers all used it. Moliere wrote a famous play on it, “_Festin de Pierre_,” and from Moliere’s play Da Ponte prepared his libretto.

The story is a decided failure; and a great deal of time, and paper, and manufactured sentiment have been wasted in endeavoring to excuse and even to discover hidden philosophy and a good moral in it. Mr. Dwight is not the first one at this piece of business. If the wish is to make operatic music elevate and refine the public taste, by contributing to the moral purity of our people, composers should not select immoral and wicked plots; and no matter how beautiful the music may be, no audience should tolerate such a degrading story as Don Giovanni. It is full of all sorts of unnatural and disgusting scenes. The opening is very fine, and leads one to expect something tragic and grand.

Don Giovanni, a wicked, reckless libertine, has entered at midnight the house of an old military officer, and is seen at the rising of the curtain rushing out of the door, followed by the beautiful daughter of the commander, who he had intended to add to the list of his victims. A beautiful, rapid duet ensues between this daughter, Donna Anna, and Don Giovanni, she endeavoring to discover the bold ravisher. During this, her old father comes out, sword in hand—a combat ensues—Don Giovanni kills the old officer, and escapes. Then follows a beautiful _scena_, one of the gems of the Opera, between Donna Anna and her lover, Ottavio. She expresses her grief in heart-rending notes, and with frantic earnestness calls on her lover to avenge the murder. All this promises well, and one would imagine from so grand a commencement, something magnificently tragic was surely to follow. But the whole of the middle part of the Opera is flat and insipid—we are speaking now only of the story—filled with disgusting scenes of Don Giovanni’s gallantries. With a hard and sensual heart, he betrays alike the high and the low—the lady and the maid; he stains the palace and pollutes the peasant’s cot with his wanton treachery and crimes. He goes to a village festival, and selects for another victim, a poor village girl, a bride—Zerlina. This character was one of Madam Malibran’s famous parts, as Donna Anna was of Sontag’s. Zerlina, though properly the second Donna’s character, occupies more room in the Opera than the first soprano, Donna Anna. The famous duet, “_La ci darem la mano_,” is sung by Don Giovanni and her; and her little _coquetries_ with the libertine lord, and seductive coaxing scenes with her peasant bridegroom, occupy a large portion of the middle part of the Opera.

A Donna Elvira, a discarded wife or mistress it seems to matter little which—of Don Giovanni comes in also. A trying scene ensues between her and Leperello—the impudent, buffoon valet of Don Giovanni—the _buffo_ character of the opera, during which, he tells her of his master’s conquests, while the poor Elvira has to stand mute, and listen to his long, comic piece; which—if she is not a better actress than is generally cast in a third-rate character—makes it very absurd in representation.

After the grand opening scene of the first Act, Donna Anna and her lover Ottavio dwindle down into insignificance. All their frantic declarations of revenge end in nothing, and they content themselves with following the licentious nobleman about in masquerade; once in a while picking him up in the streets, unmasking, and entertaining themselves in berating him. They sing a beautiful trio with Elvira, just before the banquet scene; which is about the only good and useful thing they do in the Opera. For it serves a double purpose—as an English critic suggests—besides pleasing the audience, it gives time to have the stage prepared for the banquet-scene.

Don Giovanni, after flirting with and seducing fine ladies and humble peasant maidens, at last meets with his punishment; but not at the hands of the injured fair ones, or at the more probable ones of the outraged lovers; that would be too reasonable for this most unnatural story, but the grave must yield up its dead, and the infernal regions disclose their horrible secrets. At midnight, again he enters upon the stage—the scene represents a square, containing a marble monument, erected by Donna Anna to the memory of her murdered father. Leporello is with him, frightened to death at the sight of the grave by moonlight, and he declares to his reckless master that the statue moves its head. The bold libertine scoffs at the valet’s cowardice, and by way of bravado, invites the marble statue to sup with him. To his amazement the Statue answers “Yes,” “_Si_,” and here is that beautiful passage in the _music_ which M. Bombert considers the Shakspearian style in music—it is the _Orchestral Accompaniment_ to the simple _reply_ of the Statue. A little startled, Don Giovanni leaves the stage. But in the next scene he appears as abandoned as ever. What a capital transcendental critic he would have made. He is supping alone, and seems to eat with great _goût_. During his solitary banquet the Statue enters, according to the engagement. Don Giovanni can scarcely credit his senses; but, bold to the last, receives his remarkable guest with great ceremony. The Statue tells him he has come on a mission of warning, and that he has yet a chance for repentance. Don Giovanni scoffs at the offer, and overcoming his awe, takes the extended hand of the Statue. In an instant, he is struck with the death-pangs—the Statue disappears—and he dies in a vision of endless torments, which is generally represented on the stage by a display of fireworks, giving the vulgar idea of the infernal regions; a place made for the devil and his angels.

Now it is this shameless, coarse libertine that Mr. Dwight in his article, following in the wake of others, strives not only to excuse, but to idealize and elevate.

We have done with the story: let us return for a few moments to Mozart’s part of this Opera—the music. Off of the stage, in a _salon_ or concert-room, the effect of this Opera is most beautiful; for on the stage the immoral, vulgar story, low buffoonery and farce-like appearance of many of the scenes, are sadly at variance with the elevated and almost religious tone of the music, and disgust even a hearty admirer, if he is candid enough to admit it.

Let us here take leave of this subject and of Mr. Dwight: begging of him in future, if he is not able to be original, to at least copy good models of style and morals, and not inflict upon the community his own exaggerated, loose-principled, Boston notions. Luckily, however, his style is so confused and mystified, that much of the injurious effect is lost. We have heard these Boston non-religionists talk, and we know with what _goût_ they “_defy the moral_” of any matter, to use Mr. Dwight’s own words; then, how can one expect better principles, where such laxity of morals are avowed. The closing sentence in this Don Giovanni article is a pretty fair specimen of this anti-religious, moral-defying kind of literature; indeed, the whole article is—for “_passion life_,” “_innate gospel of joy_,” and such English run-mad expressions dance through the whole article, enlivened and varied, once in a while, with some of the fire-engine vernacular.

Shame! shame upon such literature! Mr. Dwight talks of the “_divine good of the senses and the passions_,” and longs for that “_pure and perfect state_,” when these grosser parts of our nature “_shall be—not dreaded, not suppressed; but regulated, harmonized, made rythmical and safe, and more than ever lifesome and spontaneous, by Law as broad and as deep themselves_.” A pretty state of affairs we should have in such a hereafter as these people long for. All this is entirely foreign to our old-fashioned notions of Heaven and a hereafter. It may be the Heaven of an Agapedome, or a Woman’s Rights Convention, but it is not the Heaven of a Christian. And they will find out, sooner or later, that there is a real hereafter—a solemn, and stern judging hereafter; and though they may imagine that their transcendental “_Souls, with their capacity for joy and harmony, is of that godlike and asbestos quality_,” as to defy punishment, punishment will come, and pretty effectual it will be, and they will see all this “spiritual asbestos quality”—why not _gutta percha_, just as well—of little account, when they are found with lamps untrimmed, and talents buried in the earth.

Mount Edgecumb.

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THE AUTOGRAPH OF GOD.

BY GEORGE W. BUNGAY.

The thirsty earth, with lips apart, Looked up where rolled an orb of flame As though a prayer came from its heart For rain to come; and lo! it came. The Indian corn, with silken plume, And flowers with tiny pitchers filled, Send up their praise of sweet perfume, For silver drops the clouds distilled.

The modest grass is fresh and green— The fountain swells its song again; An angel’s radiant wing is seen In every cloud that brings us rain. There is a rainbow in the sky, It spans the arch where tempests trod; God wrote it ere the world was dry— It is the Autograph of God.

Up where the heavy thunders rolled, Where clouds on fire were swept along, The sun rides in a car of gold, And soaring larks dissolve in song. The rills that gush from mountains rude, Flow trickling to the verdant base— Just like the tears of gratitude That often steal adown the face.

Great King of peace, deign now to bless— The windows of the sky unbar; Shower down the rain of righteousness, And wash away the stain of war; Though we deserve the reeking rod, Smile from thy throne of light on high— That we may read the name of God, In lines of beauty on the sky.

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IF I WERE A SMILE.

BY RICHARD COE.

If I were a smile, a beautiful smile, I would play o’er the infant’s face, And stamp such an heavenly impress there That never a tinge of sorrow or care Should ever its beauty efface, To appear the while, If I were a smile, a beautiful smile.

If I were a sigh, a sorrowing sigh, In the breast of a maiden fair; I would speed me on angel wings above, And lie like a beautiful wounded dove At the feet of my Saviour there, Till he heard my cry, If I were a sigh, a sorrowing sigh.

If I were a tear, a bright, pearly tear, In the eye of a Christian mild; I would flow at the sight of keen distress, As the dew-drop falls on the earth to bless, To calm the heart from tumult wild Were my task so dear, If I were a tear, a bright, pearly tear.

But as I am neither a smile nor sigh, Nor even a tear pearly bright; But an humble poet singing the while, The world of its sorrows and to beguile, I’ll scatter my songs with delight To the passer-by, Till smiles take the place of the tear and sigh.

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A TRUE IRISH STORY.

BY REDWOOD FISHER.

“Erin-Go-Bragh,” the celebrated Irish song of an exiled patriot—Why it was written by a Scotchman, with an interesting account of Campbell the poet, and some account of Gen. A. McC——n, the Irish Patriot.

O, sad is my fate, said the heart-broken stranger: The wild deer and wolf to a covert can flee, But I have no refuge from famine and danger, A home and a country remain not for me.

Ah! never again in the green shady bowers, Where my forefathers lived, shall I spend the sweet hours, Or cover my harp with the wild woven flowers, And strike the sweet numbers of Erin-go-bragh. _See Campbell’s Poems._

In the year 1810, a native of Philadelphia resided in the city of Altona, and became intimately acquainted with Gen. McC——, who commanded the Irish patriots at the battle of Ballanahench.