CHAPTER II.

“But, Muse, return at last; attend the princely Trent, Who, straining on in state, the north’s imperious flood, The third of England called, with many a dainty wood Being crowned, to Burton comes, to Needwood, where she shows Herself in all her pomp, and as from thence she flows She takes into her train rich Dove and Darwin[4] clear— Darwin, whose font and fall are both in Derbyshire, And of whose thirty floods that wait the Trent upon, Doth stand without compare, the very paragon.”

So began England’s descriptive poet, Michael Drayton, to sing the praises of the glorious Trent in his “Polyolbion;” but Milton was more terse in his invocation—

“Rivers, arise! whether thou be the son Of utmost Tweed, or Ouse, or gulfy Don, Or Trent, who, like some earth-born giant, spreads His thirty arms along the indented meads.”

Thus much the poets; but in plain prose be it told that the Trent needed no invocation to “arise.” It had, and has, a tendency to arise and flood the meadows in its course most disastrously, as it did no later than last May. The many arches of its bridges tell the tale.

But long before bridges were built or were common, there was need to cross the river, either by ford or ferry, and its treachery must have been known in very ancient days, since Swark—whoever he might be, and whether he found a natural ford or made an artificial one—set up on end an unwrought monolith above the height of a man as a guide for wayfarers to find the crossing-place when the waters happened to be “out”; since there the waste and meadow-land lay low for many a broad mile.

There was scarcely a speck in the blue vault of heaven when Earl Bellamont and his friends, leaving a cloud of dust behind them, crossed the shrunken, snake-like river that mirrored their gleaming armour in its broken, scale-like wavelets, as if it held their images and would fain clasp them. And so the sun had shone for weeks,

“All in a hot and copper sky,”

until the earth cried out for rain from its parched and cracking lips. Only near the red, marly banks of the river did the grass and herbage retain its vivid tint of green. As the days went by the air seemed to grow hotter; the cooks in the kitchen, piling fresh logs upon the fire, wished the guests gone and the wedding over. The falconer out on the moor in the glare with William Harpur and other squires, or the anglers by the streams, had scarcely the best of it, though Lady Bellamont wearied of her many cares, and censured the languor of her daughters and her maids.

Preparations had not ceased, they had only renewed; and there had been unwonted doles to the villagers of good things that would have spoiled.

At length, when even the weaving of tapestry or the twanging of the lute was a toil, there rose a cloud in the north-western sky. The cattle lowed, the leaves turned themselves over to welcome it, the hawks screamed in the mews. That was the morning of the 14th, when the very hush in the air was significant. The cloud spread, darkened, blackened, but in the distance.

“There is a storm somewhere over our northern hills!” exclaimed the prior, who had been up on the battlements. “The clouds hang black and low over Dovedale.”

“It seemeth such a day as heralded the great storm three years ago,” cried Lady Bellamont, in alarm. “And, ah! what a flash was that!”

The younger ladies gathered together in shrinking groups, as if the fears of the matron were infectious. Only Idonea kept at her word, and scorned to show timidity, whatever she might feel, as the mutterings of thunder rumbled over the hall.

It was high noon, but the sky was darkening overhead. The horn at the great gates was blown. A messenger in hot haste had come spurring from the ford and up the hill, glad to save himself a drenching, for the great drops were pattering on the leaves and leads like hail.

He had come at full speed from Oxford. King Henry had ratified the great charter of English liberty. His master, the earl, and his friends would be home ere nightfall. The bridal must be upon the morrow. He had, moreover, private messages and tokens for the ladies, Idonea and Avice, from their coming bridegrooms.

The messages were not for general ears; the love-tokens were a couple of golden crosses richly wrought and set with gems. Five rubies clustered in the centre of Sir Ralph’s gift to Idonea, five pearls in Sir Gilbert’s to Avice.

They were dainty trinkets, but Avice took hers shrinkingly. “They seem like crosses set with tears and drops of blood,” she whispered, with white lips, to Idonea, who started, and, if she said “Tut, tut! they are precious tokens,” was not altogether unaffected by her sister’s superstitious dread.

In answer to inquiries, the messenger replied that he “thought the Trent was rising. It was higher than when his lord had left Swarkstone.”

It had been still lower at sunrise that day.

Two hours later Friar John blew the horn at the gate. He and his mule were pitiably drenched.

The Dove was swollen when he crossed the bridge near Egginton, he said, though the downpour did not come until he had left it five miles behind.

“Now, heaven forfend there be not such a flood as swept Swark’s Stone away three summers back. The passage of the ford would be perilous to my lord now that is gone,” cried Lady Bellamont, wringing her hands, and it might seem with reason, for now the floodgates of the skies were loosed, and heaven’s artillery waged war with earth.

“Storms and travellers are in Almighty hands, good dame,” said Prior John, soberly. “Tell your beads devoutly, and trust your all to Him.”

Avice and Idonea, with other damsels and dames, were already on their knees in prayer, their hearts beating wildly.

William Harpur, pacing up and down, glanced through the dim glass windows on the scene without, and then from one to other of the shuddering women within.

“I think, Prior John,” he observed, with a slight curl of lip, “it will be a sorry welcome for my noble kinsman and his friends when they come in, wet and weary, if no board be spread, no dry garments ready for their use.”

The taunt seemed to sting the good dame.

“Storm or no storm, Will, my lord shall not find us unprepared. Maidens, attend me.” And she swept from the tapestried reception-room, followed by her daughters and the noble maids who did probationary service under her, and soon her silver whistle might be heard, as one or other did her bidding, and all below-stairs was speed and bustle—and covert fear.

The hours sped. The storm seemed to abate. The board was spread. The time for the evening meal came and went.

There were no arrivals. There were whisperings among hungry guests, for time was flying.

Squire Harpur paced the rush-strewn floor impatiently, biting his nails and cogitating.

The dark came down—the double dark of storm and evening. The great time-candle in its sheltering lanthorn burnt the quarters down, and the hours.

Villagers came scurrying to the hall in dismay. The meads were under water. Their fresh-cut hay was floating down the stream, with many a tree and bush from parts beyond in the west.

The lovely sisters had busked themselves afresh to receive their lovers; dark tresses and fair were coiled in golden nets, and on each bosom shone her token cross of gold.

But as the hours and minutes flew, dress was disregarded, their lips quivered with anxiety.

At length Avice whispered to her mother, “Had we not best set a cresset burning on the watch-tower, and send torch-bearers to light the passage of the ford?”

“I have already given orders, child; I feared to speak my alarm to you.”

But even torches will not keep alight in rain and hurricane. The men, headed by Will Harpur, returned to the hall drenched and discomfited.

“The blazing sky will be their surest guide,” said he; “we cannot keep a torch alight. But do not give way to bootless terror, good aunt, the storm will have kept our friends at Ashby, or, at least, have driven them back. They would never be so mad as to attempt the passage of the ford.” Then, aside to the prior he added, “The land is covered for more than half a mile, and in mid-stream the marly water runs like a torrent, bearing bushes, beams, and haycocks swiftly out of sight. They must have gone back.”

Almost as he spoke there was a rapid thud of hoofs heard advancing up the hill.

There was the strong black charger of Earl Bellamont, and close behind came the bay mare of Sir Gilbert.

They were both riderless!

A moment of speechless horror, then shrieks and wailing filled the air.

Mid the sobbing and lamentations of women, and the clamour of men, fresh torches were kindled, horn lanthorns lighted and affixed to poles. Then, with the prior and Will Harpur at their head, all the men about the place rushed forthwith ropes and shepherds’ crooks, and aught that might save a drowning man.

Alas! it was all too late.

Their bravest and best beloved were gone for aye.

Too rashly impatient, and trusting the leadership of impetuous Earl Bellamont, Sir Ralph and Sir Gilbert had disregarded the remonstrances of more cautious companions, and dashed across the waste of waters, so low at first as barely to cover their horses’ fetlocks.

Alas! some floating bush may have misled the old man, for all at once they seemed to be carried down stream and disappear, as if they had missed the ford, or the current had been too strong for men weighted with armour.

Sir Ralph had mounted his foot page behind him, and the scion of another noble house was lost.

Their esquires, following behind, had been impotent to save, and only by turning sharply round and fighting with the rising waters did they manage to preserve their own lives.

Day by day as the thick waters subsided did the search continue along the devastated banks until the dark Derwent, rolling its great volume of water into the Trent, barred further passage, and made the quest hopeless.

A silken scarf caught in a bush, a broken lance and pennon, a battered casque, a saddle-bow, were all the relics found of father, bridegrooms, page.

Lady Bellamont was borne down by the shock. Avice drooped like a broken lily; only Idonea seemed capable of thought or action.

The subsidence of the flood brought spurring in the more prudent party to comfort their own wives and daughters, along with the downcast esquires to tell the needless tale.

There was no consoling Lady Bellamont. She seemed to take the triple loss to her own heart, and grieve for her daughters as much as for herself.

In vain the prior offered such consolation as his faith afforded. She sat like a stone, rigid and immovable; would take no sustenance whatever.

The tears shed over her by Idonea and Avice seemed to petrify as they fell rather than melt. Their affliction but intensified her own.

“If they had died in battle as brave men should, we might have borne it bravely,” she said, at last; “but to be slain by the cold, cruel, treacherous waters in the height of joy and hope, almost within hail of home, it is too terrible, too terrible, prior; I cannot be resigned. And for my crushed roses—orphaned, widowed, ere they became wives—it is too much; I cannot survive it.”

And before that month was out the twin-sisters were left to weep out their tears in each other’s arms, and bear the fresh blow as best they might, with only the good prior to watch and guard them in their orphanhood, and lead them to bow meekly to the inscrutable decrees of heaven.

There was William Harpur willing to do the co-heiresses suit and service, and leave his own estate, a mile or so away, to the care of his reeve, whilst he administered affairs at the hall, but neither the prior nor the sisters cared for his interference, and when the old retainers, with the seneschal at their head, came in a body at the prior’s summons to swear fealty to the ladies Bellamont, and Idonea accepted their homage for herself and her sweet sister, as one born to command, he turned away to bite his nails in displeasure, and quitted the hall before the sun went down.

But though Idonea could order the household, and the seneschal could keep the retainers in order, and the reeve overlook the villeins and lands, nothing seemed to rouse the drooping Avice, or remove the more rebellious sorrow that mutely burned on the cheeks and in the eyes of Idonea.

“My daughters,” said the prior, on the eve of his departure, “duty calls me away to my own flock. The bridge I built over the Dove three years agone, after the great hurricane, has, Friar Paul brings word, been shaken sorely. I must needs see to its repair. The safety of many lives depends on its stability. Yet I would fain see you more submissive to the divine will ere I depart. Think how many sufferers there have been by the same calamity—how many a hearth has been laid bare, how many cry aloud for sustenance the flood has swept away. Abandon not your hours to selfish lamentations, but go abroad, see how the poor hinds bear their sorrows, and endeavour, by good and charitable deeds, to win the favour of your offended Lord. Look on the crosses that ye wear, and think of His wounds and His tears, and remember that His blood and His tears were shed for others, not for self.”

Idonea’s eyes were fixed on him when he began; they drooped as low as those of Avice ere he ended.

“Father,” said she, “your rebuke is just. We have thought the world was our own—in joy and in sorrow. It shall not be so henceforth. We ask your blessing ere you go.”

The benediction was spoken, and on the morrow he was gone.

They, too, went forth in their mourning-weeds, and saw what sorrow meant for the very poor and for the class above them. Tottering huts, bare fields, where the only crop was dull red mud; mothers in rags weeping over naked and famishing babes; churls looking hopeless on desolation, or seeking wearily to repair a fence or clear a garden. And wherever they went they left hope behind, as well as coin, or food, or raiment from the hall. But some took their gifts and sympathy with sullen thanklessness. They were little better than serfs, and were more inclined to resent the ability to bestow than feel grateful to the willing bestowers.

Seneschal and reeve said they would spoil the peasantry with their frequent alms; and even the prior when he came suggested moderation in doles, which destroyed honest independence and fostered beggary.

But the sisters had found ease in helping others, and ere long sought the prior’s advice over a project to serve the people for generations yet unborn.

They had discovered that sorrow and calamity come to the poor as to the rich, and they proposed to preserve others from losses and heartaches such as theirs.

There was a general lamentation that Swark’s Stone was gone and the ford less readily found.

“Sister,” said Idonea, “had there been a bridge over the Trent like the Monks’ Bridge over the Dove, we had been happy wives, not mourning maidens. Let us up and build one. If we cannot restore our dead, we may preserve life for the living.”

“Right gladly,” assented Avice. “We may so make our sorrow a joy to thousands.”

The prior hailed their project as a divine inspiration, hardly conscious he had struck the keynote. They were rich. They would hear nought of suitors. What better could they do with their wealth?

He drew plans, he found them masons. Stone was not far to seek for quarrying; but, to be of service, the bridge must cover broad lands as well as common current.

“Twenty-nine arches!” cried William Harpur. “The cost will be enormous. It will swallow up your whole possessions! You must be mad; and the prior is worse to sanction such a sacrifice.”

“The sacrifice was made when the river robbed us of our dearest treasures. We must save others a like sacrifice at any cost,” said Avice, now as bold as her sister.

The work began and went on steadily. Honest labour was paid for, and churls, who had lived half on doles and housed like dogs, were paid a penny[5] a day or a peck of meal, and took heart to work with a will. There were always loose stones and wood about, and no one said nay when they began to repair and improve their own dwellings. And so industry came to Swarkstone with the building of the bridge. Heaven, too, seemed to smile upon the undertaking, for never a disaster occurred to mar it.

But, as Squire Harpur had prophesied, the cost was enormous. It was the work of years. Woods were cut down to supply timber for scaffolding; then lands were mortgaged or sold, and who but William Harpur was chief buyer? But still the work proceeded.

“Travellers who can cross the river dry-shod will gladly pay a small toll for the privilege,” said the sisters, as the last of their possessions, the old hall, passed into their cousin’s hands, and they took refuge in a small house in a bye-way, which goes by the name of “No Man’s-Lane” to this day.

It was a glad day for travellers on horse or foot when Swarkstone Bridge, of twenty-nine arches, was declared free for traffic, a bridge which spanned the Trent and its low meads for three-quarters of a mile, and the good Ladies Bellamont, who built it, had a right to expect those who could thus travel safely and dry-shod at all seasons to be grateful for the inestimable boon.

They had no charter to exact a toll to repay the moneys they had expended; but there was at the Swarkstone end a small chapel erected and dedicated to St. James, in which it was fondly hoped the users of the bridge would pause to thank God and drop their small thank-offerings in a box set there to receive them.

At first, when they began to build, people about called the sisters “the twin angels;” but by the time the bridge was built it had ceased to be a new thing. It was used as a matter of course; but the thank-offerings grew fewer and fewer as people ceased to remember the danger and discomfort of the passage by the ford.

They had impoverished themselves for the security of strangers. The offerings of gratitude would not keep life in the good sisters. They began to spin flax for a livelihood. Avice bore her lot meekly. Not so Idonea, into whose soul the sense of ingratitude was eating like a canker. But Avice said gently, “If we gave our wealth to build a bridge expecting a return, what answer can we make to our Lord when we go to Him? Let us be content that our individual losses will be the gain of thousands after us.” And that put an end to Idonea’s rebellion.

At length the aged prior, who had built Monks’ Bridge between the counties of Stafford and Derby for a people as ungrateful, stirred up William Harpur to remember the poor kinswomen on whose lands he was flourishing, and he offered them a home at Ticknall.

The offer came too late to save them. The Ladies Bellamont died as they had lived, together, and were buried with their two symbolic crosses on their breasts. And then, thanks chiefly to the prior, who reverenced them, a marble monument could be erected to their memories with their sleeping effigies upon it. It was inscribed “The Builders of the Bridge.” But the prior would fain have added, “They built unseen another bridge over the troubled waters of life—a bridge from earth to heaven.”

THE END.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] The Derwent.

[5] A penny a day was a good wage then. Money had a different value.

HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF MUSICAL FORMS.

SKETCH II.—OPERA (SECULAR MUSICAL DRAMA).

BY MYLES B. FOSTER, Organist of the Foundling Hospital.

Although it is stated that the ancient Greeks intoned their tragedies, and introduced, besides, some form of melody (μέλος), the whole question of the existence of opera at that period of artistic prosperity, when all forms of learning were so powerfully nourished, is a matter for speculation. Their authors certainly give us wonderful accounts of the great effects that this music had, and state that it formed an essential part of their drama, but beyond these records, in all probability much exaggerated, we have no data. Opera we must assume to be a comparatively recent invention. To the end of the sixteenth century, composers had written all their finest work for the Church, and had, very rightly, devoted their best efforts to the praise and worship of the Giver of all musical ideas and beauties.

Even that which was known as secular music, and was intended for social occasions, was written in ecclesiastical forms, and the very folksongs had their freshness rubbed off by contrapuntal developments to which they were not suited, and were dragged in their new and ill-fitting costume into the masses and motetts of the day. The Church possessed most of the art and learning of the age, and, with that, a corresponding power over the ignorant people. Thus music had been, so far, choral music; all the secular forms, villanellas, glees, madrigals, and lieder, being in from three to six parts and more. The expressive solo form (_monodia_), whether _recitativo_ or _arioso_, was as yet unknown. As the people attained more knowledge, and with it more freedom, secular music gradually separated itself from the restraints of the Church, and, as in other parallel cases, freedom at length degenerated into licence.

At the end of the great Renaissance period, when, after Suliman had taken Constantinople, the great scholars there fled before the conquering Turks into Italy and other new homes, an impetus was given to the study of Greek literature, and a desire to repossess the Greek drama in all its original beauty and perfection was the ambition of many an Italian student. In Florence the poet Rinuccini, the singer Caccini, Galilei, the father of the astronomer, and, at a rather later date, Jacopo Peri, used to hold meetings in which they not only agreed that the existing musical forms were inadequate for a true musical drama, but they proceeded forthwith to compose pieces for one voice on what they imagined to be the Greek model.

Emilio del Cavalieri is one of the first composers known to have tried to set music to the new form of drama. The poetess Guidiccioni (mentioned in the sketch “Oratorio”) supplied the words. His first efforts were “Il Satiro” and “La Disperazione di Fileno,” and they were performed in Florence in 1590, the poems being set to music throughout.

Peri followed with his “Daphne,” in which _aria parlante_, a kind of recitation in strict time, first appears. It is well described by Ritter, in his “History of Music,” as “something between well-formed melody and speech.” It appears to have pleased the Greek revivalists immensely, and they quite believed it to be the discovery of the lost art. Peri composed “Euridice” in the year 1600, on the occasion of the marriage of Henry IV. of France with Maria di Medicis, and in his work we have a primitive version of all our operatic forms.

Composers now occasionally used the _arioso_ style; but their Greek beliefs prevented them from introducing a good broad melody form. The principal numbers of “Euridice,” for example, were choruses and declamatory recitatives. The orchestra was hidden behind the scenes, the only purely orchestral piece being a little prelude (called “Zinfonia”) for three flutes.

With such material and upon so simple a basis was opera formed—an art construction which, in its more modern garb, has played a very important part in the history of European society.

Of really great composers who advanced this _drama per musica_, one of the earliest and most important was Claudio Monteverde. He imbued it with his musicianship and originality, employing particular effects for each scene and for each character, his object being to unite the varying sentiment of the poem with his music. In his operas, the first of which was “Orfeo,” new and less cramped forms of accompaniment, giving singers greater freedom in dramatic action, followed such reforms as a better use of rhythm and more truthful illustration of sentiments, whilst an increased orchestral force was added to other means of expression.

The Italian Church writers began to compose operas, and in the seventeenth century we find the recitation form receiving new vigour and truthfulness of detail at the hands of, amongst others, Cavalli (whose real name was Caletti-Bruni), Cesti, and Alessandro Scarlatti, Carissimi’s greatest pupil. Scarlatti did much for the opera. He is supposed to have invented the short interludes for instruments between the vocal phrases, and he certainly introduced the first complete form of aria, known as the “Scarlatti-form,” which, however, with its tiresomely exact repetitions, seems to us quite artificial, and anything but dramatic. About his time _recitativo_, as we know it, was separated from the _aria parlante_.

Succeeding Scarlatti, came the pupils of his Neapolitan school, amongst whom were Durante, Buononcini, Porpora, Jomelli, and others, and with them we reach a period during which the opera-form sadly deteriorated.

Composers had broken away from the ecclesiastical forms—nay, more, the chorus had become of no importance, but, instead, the new aria, which might have taken an advantageous position as a means for occasional soliloquy and meditation, without interference with the dramatic story, now usurped the place of the latter altogether, and an opera meant nothing more than a string of arias in set form, an excuse for showing off the best voices to the greatest advantage, the most successful work being that one which pandered most to the vanity of the singers, who altered and embellished the melodies of their mechanical slave, the composer.

Dramatic significance was fast disappearing, and a reformer was sadly needed, and that reformer appeared early in the eighteenth century in the person of Gluck, a Bohemian, who, after studying in Italy and writing several operas after the traditional Italian models, settled in Vienna, and there worked out his great ideas of regeneration and reform.

His “Orfeo,” produced in 1762, created a great sensation, and in Alceste (1766) we find him, to quote his own preface to it, “avoiding the abuses which have been introduced through the mistaken vanity of singers and the excessive complaisance of composers, and which, from the most splendid and beautiful of all public exhibitions, has reduced the opera to the most tiresome and ridiculous of spectacles.”

He considered that music should second poetry, by strengthening the expression of the sentiments and the interest of the situations, and adds, “I have therefore carefully avoided interrupting a singer in the warmth of dialogue, in order to wait for a tedious ritornel; or stopping him during one of his sentences to display the agility of his voice in a large vocal passage.” He greatly increases the importance of the introduction or overture, making it foreshadow the nature of the coming drama.

Composers were either too hardened or too cowardly to at once follow and imitate his excellent reforms, and great disputings and much rancour ensued, Gluck being opposed by the singers and the old school headed by Piccini.

We will leave this _opera seria_ for a moment, restored to its high position in art, and glance at a lighter form, the _opera buffa_, or comic opera, which may be traced to the little _entr’actes_, or _intermezzi_, given as a sort of relaxation between the acts of plays, as early as the sixteenth century. At first, madrigals, or favourite instrumental solos, were used for this purpose; later on, when operatic forms appeared, you find scenas or duets, in which the chief idea was to raise a laugh, very often at the expense of good taste. Scarlatti’s pupils developed these _intermezzi_, and gave them such artistic importance that they grew to be rivals to the grand opera, and eventually held their own position as _opera buffa_. Pergolesi was most successful in this style, and his “La Serva Padrona” (1746), one of the earliest specimens, was a great favourite. The accompaniment was for string quartett only, and there were but two _dramatis personæ_. His fellow student, Leonardo Vinci, wrote several comic operas, and further on, Nicolo Piccini, whom we have just left opposing Gluck in Paris, made many advances in _opera buffa_, giving greater contrasts and more elaborate and effective _finales_ than his forerunners. In fact, he was stronger in this sort of composition than in _opera seria_, to which latter we now return.

We find at the end of the eighteenth century the brilliant and successful works of Paisiello, a rival, at that time, of Mozart. At the same period Sarti, Salieri, Cimarosa, Paër, Righini, and others wrote operas.

The spirit of revolution, which was uprooting all old traditions, good and bad, at the end of the eighteenth century, forced even the Italian composers to see that more was required than they had ever given, to make opera what it should be, and they were compelled to acknowledge that, after Gluck’s reforms and their still lasting effects, and after Mozart’s influence and his noble examples, they must take up higher ground if they would succeed in other than the Italian cities.

They composed, therefore, in a more serious manner for Paris or Vienna, and the Italian opera gained a fresh importance by the slight reforms thus adopted, and through the successful power of Rossini it again held sway in the principal European courts.

Rossini made a great many melodies and much pecuniary profit, and finding the singers ready to return to those abuses against which Gluck had protested so strongly, rather than permit them to play tricks with his music and embellish his melodies, he made the trills and embroideries so fulsome himself that there was nothing left which they could add!

In the present century Mercadante, Bellini, and Donizetti followed in his train; following them comes Verdi, who is still living, and whose later works are very fine, being a happy combination of immense dramatic insight with effective situations and great melodic charm. We find in Boito the most decided attempt to unite Italian traditions and the latest German development. Thus much for the land in which opera was born.

Opera soon spread, and travelled to the various European courts, and became there the amusement of noble and wealthy patrons. Such prestige did it carry with it, that to be successful in England or Germany, a composer had to write in the Italian style.

France, whilst building upon the Italian foundation, created an opera in many ways differing from that form. Real French opera was first written by Lulli at the end of the seventeenth century. He will be ever remembered as the inventor of the overture, which replaced the small introduction of the Italians. Another thing he did which was new: he brought into his scheme the dance or ballet; and a third point was, that in his operas the chorus played a most important part.

Following Lulli, we see Rameau greatly developing all these resources.

When Gluck migrated to Paris he found the supporters of Italian opera backed by such essayists as Rousseau and Baron von Grimm, and named the “Bouffonists,” opposing the “Anti-Bouffonists,” who adhered to Lulli and Rameau. Also there were Philidor, Gretry, and others trying to combine the new and old styles. Gluck cut down the superabundance of melody, adapted his own reforms already referred to, gave the overture its true connection with the poem, and, as it were, out-Rameaued Rameau. With all his works produced in Paris he made great successes, notwithstanding his rival Piccini’s powerful opposition.

We will again leave Gluck elevating, for this time, the French stage also, and glance at _opera comique_, a term used in France as early as 1712.

I suppose that the equivalent of the Italian _intermezzo_ was the _vaudeville_. Claude Gilliers appears to have written many about this period.

In the latter half of the century Dauvergne composed “Les Troqueurs,” in imitation of the Italian _intermezzi_, and in this work the dialogue, which in _opera buffa_ would have been sung, was spoken, a custom still adopted in France. Duni, Philidor (a wonderful chess-player), and Monsigny wrote many _operas comiques_. Gretry also appeared at this time as one of the superior composers—also Gaveaux, Gossec, and J. J. Rousseau, followed by D’Allayrac.

To return to grand opera, the man most influenced by Gluck and his advances was Mehul, whose “Joseph” and “Le Jeune Henri” are well known, and who possessed undoubted talent. In the present century I may mention Catel, Isouard, Berton, and Boildieu, the latter’s “Calife de Bagdad” and “La Dame Blanche,” and other works having been received at the time with enormous enthusiasm.

Two composers, Italian by birth, Cherubini and Spontini, wrote much in the style and under the influence of the French opera. We all know and like Cherubini’s “Les Deux Journées,” “Medea,” and “Anacreon.”

Spontini is spoken of as “the composer who embodied in his operas the life and spirit of the Empire under the First Napoleon.”

Coming into this century, we notice, as important French opera composers, Hérold, of “Zampa” celebrity, Adolphe Adam, and Auber, who studied under Cherubini, and composed more comic operas than anything else, and whose work always contains light elegant melody and brilliant orchestration. Halévy has earned a good name by such operas as “La Juive” and “La Reine de Chypre.”

An exceptionally great man was Hector Berlioz, who strove in new paths, and in the face of great opposition, to base his efforts upon the study of Gluck, Weber, and Beethoven.

Meyerbeer, though born in Germany, wrote as much for French opera as for any other. He seems to have been a sort of musical turncoat, and every turn brought golden success. He became the greatest of French opera writers; but, in addition, he wrote German opera for Germans, Italian for Italians, and ensured by this system of “all things to all men” the applause which he so highly coveted.

To conclude our French list, there is a composer, whose “Faust” will live long; I allude to Charles Gounod, who has written many other operas containing great dramatic beauty, richness of orchestration, and grace of melody. Following him are Bizet, whose “Carmen” has been so popular, Massenet, and Ambroise Thomas.

In England there is but little history to give you.

English music and drama were first connected in a primitive way in the early miracle-plays and mysteries performed at Chester and Coventry and in other towns.

Shakespeare, in his plays, gives several directions for musical interludes, and introduces songs and choruses, more particularly in “As You Like It,” “Twelfth Night,” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” In the first half of the seventeenth century William Lawes, and Henry, his brother, wrote music to the masques, in which poetry, music, scenery, and mechanical accessories were combined, producing a decided advance in the direction of real opera; but, notwithstanding the patriotic championship of budding English opera by these gentlemen of the Chapel Royal, and notwithstanding the existence of the great school of madrigal writers, they were never encouraged to attempt dramatic work, as the nobility already demanded Italian opera and Italian composers and singers. During the civil war, and until Charles II.’s restoration, the theatres were closed by the Puritans, and even from 1660 they were only opened for five years with an occasional performance of a masque by Sir William Davenant, the then poet laureate, set to music by Locke, in one of which, “The Siege of Rhodes,” we find the recitative style used, and spoken of as new to England, although well known on the Continent.

After those five years came the Plague, and following it the Great Fire, so that it was not until nearer the end of the century that a fair start was made in opera, and that the powerful and masterly works of Henry Purcell saw the light. His genius was undoubtedly superior to that of Lulli in France or Scarlatti in Italy, and he became a power, not in England only, but throughout Europe. Alas, that he should have died so young! The form of opera settled by him and his followers was similar to the French and German, in that whilst the important parts would be sung, the subordinate dialogue was spoken, and there was no accompanied recitative, excepting in some of Dr. Boyce’s and Dr. Arne’s operas. Arne’s “Artaxerxes” has the dialogue, _à l’Italienne_, set entirely in recitative form.

But these were exceptions. Dibdin, Dr. Arnold, William Jackson (of Exeter), Shield, Storace, Attwood, Sir Henry Bishop, and many others adhered to the spoken dialogue. It should be quite understood that their music, when it occurred, formed an integral portion of the whole work, and, therefore, differed from interpolated pieces, which could be withdrawn without breaking a sequence.

In 1834 John Barnett produced his “Mountain Sylph,” the first important English opera in the strictly modern style of that age, and one which introduced the school typified by Balfe, Wallace, and Macfarren. Italian influence was evident, and has only lately been supplanted by the power of Germany, and, in one or two noteworthy instances, by the graceful delicacy of the French school. But the time for English opera is ripe; we have watched the dangers into which other schools have fallen; we have seen their heroes extricate them from those dangers; we have learnt what reforms are needful; the generous support and encouragement which has assisted the Italian, French, and German schools should now place all mercenary consideration on one side, and extend itself freely to those native artists who, in a spirit of true patriotism, are striving for the reputation and artistic honour of our country.

To Handel we owe the final settlement of Italian opera in London, for which end he composed over forty operas, none of which are remembered, but from whose pages the good numbers were extracted and transferred to his oratorios!

Comic opera, originating in Italy and developing in France, had, and still has, some footing in England. A very successful specimen was “The Beggar’s Opera,” performed in 1728 at Rich’s Theatre, in Lincoln’s Inn, with a libretto by Gay. So enormous was its success, that people said, “It made Gay rich, and Rich gay!” From this and following successes arose the ballad opera, a form of comic opera taken up by the best composers. “The Duenna,” music by Linley, words by Sheridan (Linley’s son-in-law), may be quoted as an excellent specimen. Finally the wealth of England has been able to procure and import the finest foreign works and artists, and its riches have assisted in impoverishing what little native art we possessed.

For the last part of my sketch I have reserved German opera.

Although Italian opera soon worked its way into Germany, in fact, as early as the year 1627, when we reach the end of our story, we shall find the Germans in possession of the most advanced form of modern drama.

Heinrich Schütz set the first opera to music. It was Rinuccini’s “Daphne,” already set by Peri in Florence.

Italian style and Italian vocalists reigned supreme until the time of Gluck, with such exceptions as the Hamburg operas of Keiser and Handel, which contained German characteristics, and also the attempts on the part of Hasse, Graun, and Naumann to combine Italian and German qualities.

With Gluck came the great reforms in Vienna, as elsewhere, and there, too, party feeling ran high, Gluck being warmly opposed by Hasse and his party. In Ritter’s admirable “History of Music,” already largely quoted from, whilst blaming the German princes for obtaining Italian operas at extravagant cost, he asks us to remember that these same princes “prepared the road, however unconsciously, for a Gluck, a Haydn, and a Mozart; for all these masters’ early efforts were rooted in the Italian school of music.”

Germany all this time had no national opera, the Hamburg attempt failing for want of encouragement.

As we have previously done in dealing with the other countries, so now we will glance at the lighter form of opera for a moment.

The German _operette_, or _singspiel_, was brought into notice by Johann Adam Hiller about the middle of the eighteenth century. He produced numbers of these, full of charming original melodies, and with spoken dialogue, as in _opera comique_.

Amongst several writers of these light works we may number Schweitzer, André, and Benda, who introduced the melodrama, in which dialogue is spoken during an undercurrent of expressive and illustrative music. There is also Johann Friedrich Reichardt, composing, at the end of the seventeenth century, a sort of _vaudeville_ known as the “Liederspiel.”

Contemporary with these stand Dittersdorf and Haydn, and, in Southern Germany, Klauer, Schenk, and Müller.

These small operas at first rather imitated the French school; but at the time of the above composers the national life and sentiment, in however insignificant a manner, had crept in, and the germ of a national type existed.

At such a critical moment came the great genius who was to develop the elements of both serious and comic opera, and raise them to a lofty pedestal, and that genius was Mozart.

Whilst accepting the forms of his day, he gave to them new life and meaning, and his illustration of each character, together with his masterly _ensembles_ and _finales_, in which, whilst each singer maintains his individuality, clearness is still pre-eminent, will ever abide as marvellous examples of dramatic scholarship and musical beauty. Besides understanding exactly what the human voice was capable of doing, he raised the orchestral accompaniment to a very high position.

Whilst Gluck _attacked_ Italian opera, Mozart _moulded_ it in such a fashion that the old stiff traditions were no longer possible in Germany.

At the commencement of this century, I must add to the list such names as Winter, Hummel the pianist, Weigl, Himmel, and, last and greatest, Beethoven, whose one opera, “Fidelio,” will endure in its pure nobility as long as music endures.

The romantic school of poetry now finding its way into Germany, was soon aided by appropriate musical settings by Spohr, Marschner, and Weber—the greatest of them all. Of his operas, “Der Freischütz” is the finest, the most popular, and the most thoroughly German.

Schumann wrote one opera, “Genoveva,” and Mendelssohn, ever searching for a libretto, commenced setting Geibel’s “Loreley,” but death came before he could finish it.

Meyerbeer, a Berliner by birth, and sometimes German in work, we have already noticed in connection with his French operas.

Richard Wagner, by his theories and his great compositions, has caused opera once more to become the field for dispute, research, and speculative thought.

He maintains, to put it briefly, that the real character and meaning of opera has been all this time misunderstood. He carries into practice what Gluck preached, viz., that music should second poetry, in order to be in its proper place. He says, “The error of the operatic art-form consists in the fact that music, which is really only a means of expression, is turned into an aim; while the real aim of expression, viz., the drama, is made a mere means.”

It seemed to him that the chief hindrance to the free action of drama was the concert aria, so he drops it altogether, using a melodious recitation in lieu of it, and calls his works dramas, not operas. His orchestra illustrates the emotions and thoughts of each character, and the peculiar timbre of each instrument supplies the individuality of the person represented—a practice suggested first by Monteverde; and he further binds together the various episodes and scenes in the story, by using short _motovos_ or phrases which shall recall to the audience previous situations and events—a device used by Gluck, amongst others. Wagner very happily combines in himself the poet and musician. He rightly claims that his music should not be heard apart from its companions of equal value—the poem, the scenery, and the action. He has met with as much opposition as did Gluck, but the time has come when his works receive due recognition, and an appreciation increasing yearly in proportion to our unbiassed study of them.

However excessive we may feel the reformer’s zeal to have been, these masterly art-forms supply wholesome food for meditation, and numberless suggestions for action, to every earnest and unbigoted student of this and coming generations.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

MISCELLANEOUS.

JOSEPHINE.—Your symptoms point to tight-lacing—red nose, spots, bad digestion, bad breath, etc. A fine woman with a handsome figure (say five feet five inches in height) should measure twenty-six inches round the waist, and in later life twenty-eight. Of course, a very small or very thin girl would naturally measure less. You know which description applies to yourself. The modern girl, with a waist like a tobacco-pipe, and bulging out above and below like a bloated-looking spider, may solace herself with the assurance that her liver is cut in half, and that she would make an admirable specimen for a lecturer to descant upon. We advise her to bequeath her remains to some hospital for the benefit of science and the warning of others.

SEAGULL.—Beechy Head is not the highest cliff on our coast-line; that at Holyhead is higher, and measures 719 feet, while the former is only 564 above the sealine. The Great Orme’s Head, in Wales, is 678 feet, and Braich-y-Pwll 584 in height; but St. Catherine’s Cliff, on the south coast of the Isle of Wight, is higher than all those before-named, and rises to 830 feet.

PRUDENCE PRIM.—Do you know a small illustrated book called “The Flowers of the Field”? Perhaps that would suit you; published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. After a certain time, letters waiting till called for at a foreign post-office are opened and directed back to the respective writers. Your writing is too careless; some letters well formed, others very nondescript.

PAT OGAL.—Send the nun’s veiling dress and white kid gloves to a cleaner’s, and if you can make a bargain about the dress, do. For gloves you pay 2d. a pair.

S. L. W. W.—1. There is a little book called “Line upon Line,” and another called “The Peep of Day,” which are very suitable for children of such tender years. 2. You should try to spell better. The word “instruction” is not spelt “inscurction.”

BERTHA.—Have you never heard of a little appliance called a needle-threader? You would find it most useful, and could procure one at a fancy-work shop.

JOAN R.—Try to forget yourself, and to help and be polite to everyone else—busy for them even in the smallest attentions. You will have no time for brooding over your nervousness when you are married, so there is probably “a good time coming” for you. Try to prepare for it by studying nursing, cookery, patching and darning, etc.

AN ANXIOUS ONE will find her question many times answered if she takes the trouble to look through our correspondence columns under “Miscellaneous.”

E. K.—If you cut off the worn finger ends and sew them neatly at the seams, they would be of use in a hospital for female patients in winter. We may suggest the New Hospital for Women, 222, Marylebone-road, N.W., of which we have given an illustrated account. Any contributions in half-worn clothing (or new articles) of use for wear would be gratefully received there, books included.

LOVER OF THE SEA.—1. The hair darkens as years roll on, and the change begins to take place at three years old, if not before. In middle life it is very many shades darker than in youth. 2. The Bible does not say that “it is never too late to repent.” We are always told “to-day is the accepted time; to-day is the day of salvation ... now, while it is called to-day,” etc. No promise is made for to-morrow. If you put off making your peace with God, He may not bestow on you the grace of repentance and the desire to turn to Him.

JERRY.—Your verses are very freely written, and give a good deal of promise, though some little errors need correction. Part of the small illustration with pen and ink gives hope of better things to come, and both do you credit; but it must be a matter of consideration whether the verses can be inserted in the G. O. P. You did not have them certified, which is a strict rule of ours when selecting amateur contributions.

A COUNTRY MEMBER OF THE G. F. S.—You appear to be in a very sad state of health, and to need change of air, good diet, and perhaps, when suffering from an attack of neuralgia, a tonic; but the latter should be prescribed by a doctor.

ALBERTA ROXLEY.—1. You do not give a sufficiently explicit description of the “Hymn to Music” for us to divine which you mean. 2. The “Wide, Wide World” has no sequel. Why are all our girls so crazy about sequels? There are very few written, and a good thing too; a new story is better than an old dish warmed up.

LITTLE PUSS should ask her mother or governess for suitable books to read. Some on natural history would be interesting, as well as necessary for her to study.

ONE ANXIOUS TO KNOW.—Should a husband die intestate, but leave a wife and a sister, half goes to the wife and the other half to his sister, or his brother, as the case may be. If the man had had children, the wife would only have had a third instead of half.

WEE WILLY WANKIE.—1. It depends on the age and size of your boy companion. The less little girls of fifteen walk in the London streets (the squares and certain residential quarters excepted) the better, if without a lady companion much older than themselves, or a maid. 2. What a ridiculous question your second is! “At what age should a girl become engaged?” There is no “should” about the matter, and there is no special age either. Any age after twenty-one, up to seventy, provided the right man proposed and no family duties stood in the way. All depends on God’s good Providence. He may see fit that you should never marry.

SCOTCH LASSIE.—We do not see that you were rendered more liable to the complaint you name on account of having a bad digestion.

TOPSY TURVEY.—Yes, there are luminous plants, which give a phosphorescent light. The root-stock of a jungle orchid becomes luminous when wetted; wrapped in a piece of damp cloth, in an hour’s time it becomes very bright. A certain member of the fungi family, which, if you have a damp cellar, may be found growing on the walls, is known to emit so much light as to enable you to read without other means. The nasturtium, double marigold, and hairy red poppy and potatoes, when in process of decomposition, are all phosphorescent, more especially the latter.

MISLETOE.—If you wished to paint portraits or landscapes, your first step would be to learn to draw and study perspective; then the colours, and how to produce others by blending them. So, if you have any original thoughts, and beautiful similes occur to you by which you could illustrate those thoughts, you should study the art of metrical composition in all its varieties, so that corresponding lines should always correspond and the emphasis fall on the right syllable. What you send us is not even good prose, the mere construction is all wrong, and there is no new idea in it; but the religious feelings expressed are very good.

JACK.—If such an unfeminine name be selected by a girl, we certainly advise her to wear gloves when rowing. Perhaps thick washed-leather ones would be the most suitable. We suppose you mean a sign denoting a pause, only you make a straight line over a dot instead of a curved one with the points downwards. A pause leaves the duration of the note, or the rest over which it is placed, to the performer’s taste and musical feeling. Were there no dot beneath the short curved line, it would be a “bind” or “tie” connecting two notes, the first of which alone is to be struck.

_“FEATHERY FLAKES,”_

OUR NEW CHRISTMAS PART,

IS NOW PUBLISHED.

FEATHERY FLAKES.

What time we for a while have bidden Farewell to summer’s bright array, And azure skies again are hidden By grim December’s garb of grey;

When the pale sun, his warmth withholding, Too often shows a cheerless face, And falling snow is fast enfolding Earth’s treasure in its soft embrace;

We give these pure white showers a rival And namesake in our Christmas page, Whose charm shall have less brief survival, And banish not with winter’s rage.

Go, Feathery Flakes! Go forth, nor tarry At limits of our colder zone; And may you, for the trust you carry, Be warmly met and widely known.

* * * * *

[Transcriber’s note—the following changes have been made to this text.

Page 132: swalowed to swallowed—“swallowed with perfect ease.”]