Madame Pasta made her appearance at the King's Theatre on Thursday, the 12th of May, after an absence of three years. The reception which she experienced was most flattering to her and creditable to the audience. Averse as we are to exaggerated compliment, there are occasions, nevertheless, when metaphor and hyperbole are justifiable; and certainly, if praise be awarded in proportion to desert, the merits of Pasta will palliate much exuberance of fancy. She is, undoubtedly, the first tragic actress now alive, independently of her claims to be called one of the most accomplished and experienced singers. The combination of various talents talents too, which we perceive but very rarely united in one person—have given to Pasta that superiority over her contemporaries, which justifies her claims to the sceptre of the stage. Pasta owes little to nature, so far as regards her voice, which is rather obscure, husky, and limited in compass; but then she is deeply indebted for something eminently superior to a fine voice, a soul capable of strong feeling, and a mind competent to grapple with the most trying difficulties. Aban

doning the shackles of art, and despising stage trickery, of which even clever performers avail themselves to produce effect, Pasta trusts solely to truth for success, and her hopes are never disappointed. Instead of addressing herself to the imagination of her audience, and striving to dazzle and deceive them into an acquiescence in her excellence, she calmly, yet confidently, makes an appeal to their sensibilities and their judgments, and the triumph which she achieves is the more genuine and enduring, as it is founded on what is eternal-truth and nature. But it requires a great degree of courage, and capabilities of a very high order, in a performer, to depend entirely on such legitimate means of accomplishing success; besides, the temptation of ornament is so great to every thing human, that you might as well expect a handsome female to forswear her finery, as a public singer to resist the seductions of an interminable appogiattura.

Hence we find a Sontag, and even a Malibran, paying such devoted attention to what is merely ornamental in music, that sometimes (great as they are) they totally lose sight of the melody, and it would puzzle the composer himself to discover his own production under the redundancy of dress with which it is encumbered. We shall always speak reso

lutely and decidedly against a practice which we consider highly injurious to the development of sound taste in music; and, strange as the assertion may appear, we boldly maintain that some of the very first-rate artistes have often done as much harm to the science of melody, by injudicious ornament, as have the mere pretenders or second-rate performers.

We

shall declare ourselves fearlessly on the subject, without paying the least regard either to the degree of public favor which such and such singer may enjoy, or the length of time which an abuse may have been suffered to exist, not only without correction but with encouragement. Much as it has been the fashion to extol Mrs. Wood, we really doubt whether she has ever strongly touched the chords of the human heart. Her style of singing is essentially artificial, and it is absolutely painful to watch her countenance when she is executing a passage requiring the least degree of force and expression, The distortion, not only of her mouth, but of her whole physiognomy, is distressing to behold; and in mere self-defence, one is compelled to seal the sight. Now turn we to Pasta -examine her every movement-note carefully the varying expression of her eye-observe all her featuresand you will find that in the most agonizing scenes of tragedy, while she strongly excites your feelings of pity, tenderness, or terror, she never produces an inclination to withdraw your glance; but, on the contrary, to strain it until "the sense aches." Another delinquent is Rubini, certainly a tenor of no mean order a singer who ranks in the first line among Italian performers. He has received much applause in London, and bids fair to become an established favorite; and this being the case, the greater cause do we find to censure the meretricious ornament for which his style is so conspicuous. His roulades and flourishes are interminable; there is no possibility of escaping the infliction of his scales, which haunt you with a kind of varied monotony, if we may be allowed the paradoxical expression. He never misses an opportunity of inflicting a redundancy of unmeaning notes, and some good-natured people end by persuading themselves that he does well, because he does much. Such an idea we cannot allow to pass, and if we are zealously and sincerely to advocate the cause of good taste in music, we see no more effectual means of gaining our object, than by scouting excessive art, especially when it is in a manner sanc

tioned by the authority of a first-rate vocalist. No one will say, that a style overloaded with fine-sounding words, and bedaubed with metaphors, is the one which a writer ought to adopt, in order to establish his claims to the title of a classic author. The rule holds the same in music; and as in the first instance, such a writer can only find admirers among the shallow and the ignorant, so in the latter, those who are competent to give an opinion on the subject, will always discountenance a singer who would be accounted great, by the mere dint of decoration.

Pasta, with great judgment, made her appearance in the character of Medea, in which she so decidedly triumphs. This triumph is the more surprising and highly to be extolled, as the opera itself has no share in it, being altogether a very sad affair. Some critics, in speaking of Mayer's composition, have designated it by the epithets of " beautiful and fine;" but we confess our inability to discover this excellence, and we think it would puzzle the ingenuity of the most enthusiastic dilletanti, to point out the graces of this opera. The melody is deplorably deficient, and we would defy the most susceptible and educated ear to catch a cantabile in the whole progress of the performance; and be it understood, that those pieces which are especially relished and applauded by the audience, are interpolations from other compositions.

But Pasta's genius infuses life and vigour into the cold, cheerless skeleton of Mayer; and the sublimity of her acting makes us forgetful of the scanty instrumentality of the opera through which she works her miracles. Yet we can easily conceive, and experience confirms the opinion, that a great performer may excite wonder even in an indifferent dramatic production: if not, how could a Siddons, or an O'Neil, have drawn and delighted crowded audiences when performing in such pieces as the "Fair Penitent," "Jane Shore," the "Grecian Daughter," and other dramatic fooleries, which still keep possession of the stage. Pasta went through her arduous task with her accustomed self-possession, and in a masterly style; yet, contrary to the general opimion, we think that her voice, which was never of a high order, is somewhat impaired; and, indeed, in one or two instances, she failed in producing effect. It is in the recitative that the excellence of Pasta chiefly rests; nothing can be more impressive and majestic: there is a certain

melancholy in her tones, that admirably seconds the expression of her countenance, and the dignity of her elocution.

The opera was very strongly castIndependent of Rubini, we had Lablache, who certainly gave to the part of Creonte an importance which it by no means possesses in the opera. This singer is a special favourite of ours; he too, like Pasta, disdains quackery, and courts success upon fair and legitimate grounds. Rubini, of course, was as flourishing and ornamental as ever; and he contrived to lengthen the performance by his protracted embellishments. Some inveterate smokers will light a fresh cigar on the end of an expiring one such is exactly the case with Rubini; he has a knack of appending the commencement of a new roulade to the last note of its predecessor, which, doubtless, affords great delectation to a certain class of musical ears, for in the midst of our affiction we heard a gentleman exclaim, "What feeling the man has!"-But the best of the affair is, that Rubini has his string of ornaments always ready-prepared for use, and we cannot but imagine, that as some wits carry their good things and impromptus in their pockets when they go into society, in the same manner does Rubini carry his vocal quips and cranks to the King's Theatre. Like the wits in question, he is sometimes unfortunate in the application of his article-for he introduces his brilliancies, as honest Sancho lugged in his proverbs, by the head and shoulders-never troubling himself whether they are out of place or not. Be the music pathetic-gravelively-light or tragic, it is all one to Rubini; he must dispose of his commodity some way or another. We are the less lenient towards him, because he is a singer of unquestionable merit, and gifted with powers of no common order. His voice is certainly indifferent, when compared to that of Donzelli; yet it contains some sweet notes, which added to consummate skill, and great power of execution, have contributed to place him in the first rank of tenors. Curioni went through the part of Giasone as he does through every other part, that is, with a tranquil, comfortable coldness. Much as this may befit an abstracted philosopher, or a profound mathematician, it is rather out of keeping with the character of a lover, which Curioni is so often called upon to personate. Of Miss Fanny Ayton, having nothing pleasant to report, we shall, with an effort at gallantry, pass over her musical delinquencies; but

we humbly request the manager not to thrust her forward in parts to which she is totally incompetent; more specially when stubborn memory tells us that they have been filled by Caradori.

NEW MUSIC.

"Go Still Voice of Fond Affection."A Song, written by Thomas Atkinson, Esq. The Music composed and arranged by Thomas Macfarlane. Glasgow: Mac Fayden. The poetry of this song is graceful, and the music pleasing.

THE DRAMA.

DRURY LANE AND COVENT GARDEN

THEATRES.

THEATRICAL monopoly, notwithstanding the support derived from parchment and prescription, is decidedly tottering to its fall. In vain do the great lessees appeal to the protecting authority of law; no sooner is one contrabandist made to suffer the pains and penalties of his delinquency, than a host press forward to supply his place. Every leading section of London will shortly have its theatre. Kean has erected his standard at the " City Subscription;" Ward, Abbot, and Egerton, are about to migrate to Knightsbridge; the Queen's has attracted its dividend of talent; and others, of whose very site we are ignorant, have sprung up like mushrooms. We trust that, out of the multitude, one, at least, will arise worthy of the age-a dome, sacred to wit, poetry, and morality and free from the profanation of figurantes, and quadrupeds, and

A revolution in theatricals was unavoidable. The dramatic sovereignty had been so long vested in incompetent hands, that a dissolution of the empire of exclusive privilege, was a thing to be expected in the ordinary march of events. It has come, perhaps, earlier than was antici. pated; and the best thanks of the public are due to the heads of the rival coliseums, for having accelerated its course.

But for the constantly-recurring notice of the press, whose zeal, is, at least not abated by admissions and advertisements, the glories of Drury Lane and Covent Garden must, ere now, have "fallen into the sere the yellow leaf." They had ceased to be fashionable with the "thricerefined;" and the increasing lateness of the dinner-hour, made attendance upon them a sacrifice of convenience, even to personages less exalted. When they

ceased to be the accustomed resort of the patricians, their enormous bulk, which

overwhelms the capacities of ordinary ears and eyes, became a serious objection to them. The elegantes, who cared only for staring at each other, had disappeared, and the play-going citizens who succeeded them, could not get their pennyworth. The man of taste would not do frequent penance, even for the sake of a glimpse of Shakspeare. The intelligent father of a virtuous family, however ardent might be his admiration of the drama, could feel little disposition to introduce his home circle among maudlin, half-price lobbyloungers, swaggering pugilists, and the degraded creatures of the saloons.

The tendency that everything connected with the supply of the wants of the public has to degenerate into a job, is truly astonishing. From the meanest of our corporations, to the most gigantic of the fabrics devoted to amusement, the system of abuse is one and the same. In each case, ignorance or knavery wields the leaden sceptre of monopoly, and rules supreme.

Authors are beginning to act honestly by themselves, and to expose the malpractices of theatrical government. Kenney's preface to his play of "The Pledge," only echoes the voice of He has many. felt "the oppressor's wrong,' and, what aggravates the proud man's contumely," the wounds of his spirit have been irritated by pecuniary grievances. For his popular piece of "Masaniello," we have reason to believe, he never pocketted a farthing; and we understand that he has of late danced irksome attendance to obtain a recompense for his adaptation of "Hernani." 66 There be more men in like predicament." The manager parades the horrors of an empty treasury, when an unhappy scribe claims his due, and yet at the very moment that he is doomed to crave and suffer and depart unpaid, Mr. Wallack, Mr. Cooper, or Mr. Harley, walks coolly away with a weekly stipend of fifteen or twenty pounds. When excellent and educated actors were numerous, they had moderate salaries; and authors were remunerated and respected: now, when there are not more than half-a-dozen of good performers in London, any thing beyond a mere stick, will receive ten pounds a week, while an author is left to a midshipman's half pay, and the sympathy of the call-boy.

The men who ascend to the honours of management, are oddly qualified for "state and dignity." Superannuated actors, third-rate singers, dancing-masters. associations of usurers, half-pay officers,

et hoc genus omne, regulate the dramatic habits of the first nation on earth. Such an executive cannot fail to enforce the rigid laws of taste. The happy results are made manifest in translations from the French; and melodramas, mighty in their disregard of grammar, in thundering rant, and in jokes redolent of the pleasant pur. lieus of White-Hart-Yard. A scenepainter, in the managerial presence, takes precedence of all writers, comic, or tragic; and a gentleman-adapter is as much above the perpetrator of an original play, as is the premier duke above the junior baron. Misfortune has not emptied her last vial on the head of a hapless son of genius, until he has run the gauntlet of a first night at a metropolitan theatre. When shall we have men of honour and of letters, able and willing to do justice to the poetic spirit of the country?

us

The Drury Lane novelty of the month, has been an Opera called "The Emissary; or, the Revolt of Moscow." Onslow's Opera of "Le Colporteur," is said to have furnished the music which Mr. Barham Livius has docked, trimmed and decorated for the English stage. Mr. Livius is to "a marvel and a mystery." His name always reminds us of the SCRUTATORS and PHILOS, whose epistolary favours grace the prints of the day; it looks like an appellation free to any man, whose brain does duty on the boards of a play-house. We have been familiar with it from our boyhood-and we would willingly give a score of our Perryian pens, to know whether or not Mr. Barham Livius be a breathing subject of William the Fourth. He is neither composer-play-wrightnor cobbler of Vaudevilles. What is he then? Is he a relative of that respectable citizen of Padua, Titus Livius?-Barham, "We conjure you by that which you profess, (Howe'er you came to know it) answer us!" The words of the " Emissary" are, we believe, of Gallic origin, albeit, a London gentleman hath magnanimously father'd the trash. It is said that no less than half-a-dozen of wits were leagued in concocting the operatic olla-podrida. It was most wholesomely hissed on its first representation, and its subsequent effect has been to establish a cordon sanitaire between the public and Old Drury.

Mr. Knowles' " Alfred" continues to be represented, though with less frequency than it deserves. It has firmly established itself in the good opinion of the intellectua community-an author's greatest triump. The clever Comedy of The Exquisits," the production of Don T. de

Trueba, a Spaniard, recently brought out with success at Covent Garden, has been forced to sound a retreat by the advance of " Napoleon," backed by one of the veritable cocked chapeaux, transferred by the sub-valet of the Emperor to a virtuoso of the Rue Fripperie for the modest consideration of a demi-franc. Bonaparte's junction with the Covent Garden powers, frightened the Drury authorities into an alliance with" Timour the Tartar," who, by the display of his Calmuck cavalry, hath, in the opinion of sundry warlike tailors, and divers strategical milliners, thrown the Saxon monarch completely into the shade.

"Napoleon" was heralded by all "the pomp and circumstance" of playhouse puff. A regiment of infantry was raised for the occasion-Ducrow's free lances were hired, and a powder magazine erected to meet the expenditure of ammunition, essential to the grandeur of the campaign. Then came the crowning attraction-the identical chapeau!—the bona-fide culottes! -If Bonaparte himself could not appear

by particular desire, for one night only," the next best thing was accomplished in the debut of an ex-imperial hat and breeches. Small blame to the management, if exertions such as these could not satisfy the most unreasonable of all possible publics.

Feeling with Mr. Kemble that the beaver and the breeches (the word is coarse, but the alliteration is irresistible), form the feature, the nasal promontory, as it were, of the piece, we may be pardoned if we dismiss the acting with little cost of words. After the cover of his superior and nether man, Napoleon was the most important-indeed the only character in the drama. Warde enacted him, and by adopting the same attitudes and outward forms, with which prints and pictures have made us familiar, he at times created the requisite illusion-but starts-tricks-and absurdities of various kinds, soon imparted the sad conviction, that of the relentless conqueror and sagacious legislator, nothing was present save a weather-beaten cocked hat, and a pair of thread-bare unmentionables!-Sic transit gloria!

Shall Drury be outdone in the exalted competition? Forbid it-" guns, drums, trumpets, blunderbuss, and thunder!" A cabinet secret has just been whispered into our unworthy ear:-"We too shall have a Napoleon; one that will leave the hat sans crown and sans cockade!" Even, as our timid fingers falter over this page, "the armourers are closing rivets up;"

and hear it thou exulting rival, and wax pale as the most consumptive parsnip in thy renowned Garden-if " they of the

adverse faction" have divided the hero's life into seven divisions, Drury has done more, for she has divided the hero himself! Little Miss Poole will be the Napoleon of Brienne- Mrs. Waylett will personify his assumption of the toga virilis-and, at last, rising superior to the petticoat, the terror of legitimacy will come forth embodied in the might and majesty of Wallack!-Such are the two great national theatres in this present month of June, 1831!

SMALL TALK.

CHARLES KEMBIE'S VISIT TO PARIS.Much speculation has been excited in the theatrical world respecting the purport of this gentleman's recent departure for the French capital. His previous trip succeeded in procuring the spectacle of Napoleon. It is presumed that his present journey has for its object the engagement of some astonishing performers of the quadruped species. The drama of Les Lions de Mysore has been so successful at the Parisian Cirque-Olympique, that it is probable that the real lions, tigers, boars, &c. &c., which act in that piece, will be prevailed upon to make their appearance at Covent-garden. The supposition is strengthened by the rumour of Mr. Lacy having joined Mr. Kemble in France. Mr. Lacy is one of the principal supports of the drama-the head-carpenter at Covent-garden, or lieutenant to Mr. Farley.

A GOOD ACT. A play was performed at one of the French theatres for the benefit of some charitable institution. The piece was extremely dull, and tried exceedingly the patience of the audience. One of the spectators, at the conclusion, asked his friend-" Well, how do you like this wretched stuff?"-"I like one act of it very well." "Indeed! which is that?"-"Why, the act of charity."

LITERARY INTELLIGENCE. Major Ricketts is preparing for publication, to be embellished with a map, and several plates, a "Narrative of the Ashantee War, including the Particulars of the Capture and Massacre of Sir Charles M'Carthy, Governor of the Western Coast of Africa, and the Subsequent Military Operations of the British and Native AIlied Forces, from 1812 to 1828."

In a few days will be published, the "Route of Hannibal from the Rhone to the Alps." By Henry Lawes Long, Esq.

Nearly ready. The Second Volume of the "Life of Thomas Ken, deprived Bishop of Bath and Wells, viewed in connexion with the Spirit of the Times Political and Religious, particularly those great events, the Restoration and Revolution of 1688; including the period of fanatical Puritanism, from 1640, to the death of Cromwell." By the Rev. W. L. Bowles, Canon Residentiary of Canterbury.

In the Press. "Letters on Prophetic Subjects." Part I. By James H. Frere, Esq.

A New Work, of a Satirical description, entitled "Paris and London," is preparing for publication, by Don. T. de Trueba, Author of the "Castilian," the Exquisites," &c.

Miss Landon's Novel, entitled "Romance and Reality," is in a state of forwardness.

The Author of " Sydenham," has nearly completed the Second Series of that Work.

Mr. Cooper's new Tale entitled "The Bravo," is gone to press.

Preparing for immediate publicationa Second Edition, reduced in price, of "The Dangers and Duties of a Christian." By the Rev. Erskine Neale, B.A.

Just published." Memorials of the Stuart Dynasty, including the Constitutional and Ecclesiastical History of England, from the decease of Elizabeth, to the abdication of James II." By Robert Vaughan, Author of "The Life and Opinions of Wycliffe."

"The English and Jewish Tithe Systems Compared, in their Origin, their Principles, and their Moral and Social Tendencies." By Thomas Stratton.

Early in June will be published in 8vo. "An Account of the Life and Writings of Henry Pestalozzi, with Copious Extracts from his Works, selected chiefly with a view to Illustrate the Practical Parts of his Method of Instruction." By

Dr. Biber.

In the press." Elements of the Dif ferential and Integral Calculus, comprehending the Theory of Curve Surfaces, and of Curves of Double Curvature. Intended as a Sequel to the Analytical Geometry." By J. R. Young.

(List of New Books in the July Number.)