RETIREMENT OF JENNY LIND.

Travel through France, through Germany, through Switzerland, Italy, or Spain, and you will meet with infinitely less entertainment for the ear than

will turn up their noses at the bare idea; but a nation's real taste for music may always be measured by the number of barrel organs put in requisition. All the grinders of tunes, all the retailers of stereotyped airs, all the small artists who vend harmony, as it were, by the ell, flock to this country as to the best market in the world. In street music, in street singing, we accordingly outdo all other nations, so that these islands may be compared to one vast cage out of which torrents of melody are perpetually gushing.

IN the character of the English people there are general features scarcely recognised by foreign nations, or at times even by ourselves. Among these is our love of music. Until lately the opinion ap-in England. We dare say there are those who pears to have been generally prevalent that whatever leaning we might have towards poetry and romance, however we might shine in wild adventure, or display that irresistible energy which leads to conquest and dominion, we were little susceptible of the pleasure which springs from listening to the concord of sweet sounds. And this idea, it must be owned, arose and spread naturally enough. We are a reserved people, fond of conventionalities and appearances, very much addicted to keep our thoughts to ourselves, and above all things ashamed to betray emotions before strangers. Elsewhere in the world the exhibition of passion and sentiment is supposed to be a merit, and therefore people covet the reputation of being impressionable. There are advantages and disadvantages in this. It produces a willingness to recognise openly and frankly the claims of art, but leads, at the same time, in those who are really ignorant and unsusceptible, to a gross affectation of superior taste to a ridiculously false enthusiasm, and to those extravagancies of manner and language which distinguish the shallow pretender from the man of real judgment and sensibility.

Most of the continental nations had, until lately, little else to think of but amusement. Politics were interdicted to them by their governments, and, where political investigations are forbidden, literature itself becomes worthless. Pleasure, therefore, || of all kinds, became the sole object of life, and mu. sie and the drama were called in to fill up the intervals of intrigue. If they produced no great statesmen, they could boast of the composers of successful operas; the place of politicians was supplied by singers; and if the most execrable discord prevailed in the state, they were certain to find a full blaze of harmony in the theatre. All their talk, consequently, turned upon what to them were the great events of the day-the achievements of a favourite cantatrice, the squabbles of managers, the loves and friendships, the hatred and jealousies, or occasionally, perhaps, the virtues and moral qualities of performers and singers.

In topics like these it is impossible for a free people to take an equal degree of interest. It is no doubt perfectly true that art of all kinds has flourished most in democracies, a truth which may appear to be inconsistent with what we have just been stating. There is, however, no inconsistency in the matter. In a well organised state there is a time and a place for everything; for severe study and serious business as well as for the arts; and those elegant amusements and enjoyments which contribute to fit men for the sterner duties and more laborious pursuits of life. Without, therefore, meriting the name of a musical people, which, it is to be hoped, will never be justly applied to us, we are perhaps more fully alive to the true delights of music than any other nation in Christendom.

The same remark precisely will apply to the higher efforts of musical talents, so that, though great singers may commence their career in other countries, they inevitably verge ultimately towards England, where they are supposed to reach the summit of fame. The continent is only a sort of preliminary school. There the first crude efforts of the singer are made, and the separation takes place between mediocrity and genius. But when all that art, and study, and experience can effect has been accomplished, the artist turns towards England, where the brightest laurels are to be gathered; after which there is nothing to be aspired to but repose, retirement, and the enjoyments of private life.

This, we are well aware, is not a popular opinion, but, if our readers will be at the pains to examine and think for themselves, they will find it is a true one. Where was the scene of the greatest triumphs of Catalani, Pasta, Sontag, Malibran, Grisi, Alboni, or Jenny Lind? Not in Paris, Berlin, or Vienna, but London. No one can doubt this, because the facts of the case are on record. But if we wish to know the feeling which pervades Italy, for example, we have only to mix there with the young aspirants for fame, when we shall find that every heart beats to be distinguished in Inghilterra, to which they invariably look as the goal of all their efforts. We once remember conversing in Tuscany with a beautiful singer who had never travelled further than Naples, and knew little or nothing of the general character of the European nations. But in her comparative obscurity all the great traditions of the musical world had reached her, and she would dwell for hours on the brilliant visions which floated before her when she thought of England. The fascination may reside, no doubt, partly in our wealth, yet only partly, since it is far less the fortunes they make here than the admiration and the glory which attend the making of them, that constitute the attraction.

It will, from what has been said, be evident that we are not disposed to assign a low place to music in the list of national amusements. We regard it as a highly pure source of pleasure; and as they who administer delight to us deserve to be rewarded to a certain extent, perhaps even with affection, we cannot otherwise than approve of the enthusiasm

excited among the true lovers of music by Jenny || cognise her talent. They voluntarily proclaim the

Lind. Music, however, addresses itself more to the
imagination than the intellect, and more to the
senses than to either; and it is only the sensorous
sphere of our nature that it can be said to refine
and purify.
The intellect lies beyond its reach, but
as it moves among our passions, and fans them with
its breath, it appears to melt and bear away all the
grosser elements, while it excites and invigorates
whatever is healthful in them. Nearly all persons
know some voice with which they associate whatever
is most pleasing and rapturous in life. They have
heard it perhaps in their happiest hours, when the
whole instrument of their mind was attuned to har-
mony, when their passions had been lulled by enjoy-
ment into luxurious repose, and when the various
softer sentiments, melting imperceptibly into each
other, appeared to have lifted up the soul to the
very summit of happiness.

wonderful resources of her art. They dwell with
critical earnestness on her numerous and varied
merits, moral and technical. She does not, how.
ever, possess a thorough command of their sympa-
thies, to stir the whole depths of which requires the
presence of an element seldom found in the northern
division of the temperate zone. To them, an Italian
woman of equal genius would possess infinitely
greater charms. Take an illustration from the
sister art of sculpture. Two artists, the one from
Scandinavia, the other from Rome, may divide be-
tween them a block of Carrara marble, and each
sculpture therefrom a Venus.
These artists will
each impress upon the goddess the characteristics
of their country and their race, and their respective
peculiarities will recommend their workmanship to
those influenced by analogous sympathies. But the
admirers of each will scarcely comprehend the others,
or be able to enter into the admiration they respec-
tively excite. The voice is the Carrara marble to
a singer, and is moulded, and fashioned, and
adapted to produce particular effects by the same
principle which presides over the tastes and habits

of races.

It is from this portion of our life's experience that we derive the power to sympathise heartily with a public singer. The spell she exercises does not reside entirely in her. We contribute much towards the completion of the process, and her voice, as it diffuses itself over the theatre, becomes as it were ten thousand voices, modified by partiality and fond- These remarks are made to account for what ness, which speak in different tones to every heart. might otherwise seem unaccountable-the superior In this consists entirely the triumph of music. It influence exercised by Jenny Lind over society in is as the handmaid to something else that it con- England. Scarcely has any public singer been quers. The taste goes for much, but the heart goes before received so freely into the homes and hearths for infinitely more; and as we listen we gather up, of English families, though it cannot be doubted as it were, and bind together all the delicious threads that many persons, equally estimable, have been of our former existence, and bind them secretly among us. But all the analogies of their nature around the one we love. No one can have ever constituted an almost insuperable bar to familiar penetrated into the metaphysics of music without intercourse, while by blood and race Jenny Lind becoming conscious of this. We are very far, how-|| appears to be one of ourselves. Her very name is ever, from insinuating anything to the disparage- as purely English as that of Margaret Smith. ment of the public singer, and only endeavour to There are, besides, other causes which have conaccount for what must be otherwise inexplicable. tributed towards producing the same result. She is said, soon after her arrival, to have formed an attachment in this country, and to have meditated

with any Italian singer of the first eminence. In the eyes of the latter, we may be correct judges, and liberal patrons of merit; our taste may be sound and our generosity unequalled; but we are not generally calculated to become their companions for life, to excite or repay their volcanic affeetions. Jenny Lind is an Englishwoman at the first remove, while Pasta or Catalani would not have been rendered such by a century's residence.

There is another observation which we may as well throw out, now that we have got upon this part of our subject-it is this, that Jenny Lind, belong-settling here, which has scarcely ever been the case ing to a northern race, speaks more directly to the sympathies of a northern nation than a woman cast in the fiery mould of the south. There is far more in what may be termed the idiosyncracies of race than our philosophy has yet led us to acknowledge. For example, no art purely Hellenic has hitherto been thoroughly naturalised in the north. Even religion itself has acquired, in passing the Alps, a new character, and been invested with different attributes, and learned to speak to the heart in a language unknown in other latitudes. The causes of these phenomena may lie too deep for scrutiny, but they are not on that account the less real or influential.

These considerations will, we think, sufficiently explain the regret which has accompanied the announcement of Jenny Lind's retirement from the stage; but this feeling will be greatly enhanced if there be any truth in the report just put in cirenlaAt the same time, there exists among us a small tion, that the step has been rendered necessary by number of individuals bearing within them the germs the alarming state of her health. She is said to of southern affinities, introduced by the mixture of be subject to nervous attacks, which affect the head, blood, or some of those other subtle and unknown and increase in an extraordinary degree the action processes which produce the modifications of indi- of the heart. It is added, that a sudden access of vidual temperament, whose whole system of sensi- this complaint on Tuesday, the 3d of May, deter bility is more alive, and vibrates more fiercely to the mined her to quit the stage immediately; and on touch of fiercer natures. These form the compara- the 10th she suddenly and unexpectedly took her tively small minority who experience inferior delight|| leave of the public. It is perfectly true, in this case, from the performances of Jenny Lind. They re- that a sort of friendly and familiar intercourse had

sess; though, if it had been otherwise, the partiality
and weakness of biographers would probably have
induced them to invent the circumstance. It is not
our intention to describe minutely all the events
and incidents of Jenny Lind's life, for which we
refer our readers to the ordinary biographies.
object rather is to explain under what influences
she made her appearance, and by what fortunate
chain of accidents she was led to make the stage
her profession.

Our

come to exist between the favourite singer and the [[ by a sort of instinct to exercise the talents we pos-
habitual frequenters of the opera. Pleasure of all
kinds is sure to beget in finer natures gratitude to-
wards the bestowers of it; and it was impossible to
have listened whole seasons to Jenny Lind without
having experienced extraordinary delight, and some
degree of attachment, at least, to her who had so
profusely scattered it. When brought face to face,
therefore, for the last time, the great singer and
the public could not but experience extraordinary
sensations. Partings are proverbially painful; but
when they are supposed to be for ever-when you
think you are listening to the tones of a beloved
voice which you shall never more listen to again-the scenes and adventures through which she passed

all the best feelings of your nature come actively
into play, and aid in swelling the sympathy of the
moment. Many of those present remembered-||
indeed, it was but two years before-when, after
long expectation, they had first heard Jenny Lind
in the very part which, with greatly more developed
powers, she was then playing before them-that,
we mean, of “ Lucia di Lammermoor." The brief
interval of time was forgotten, and though the
stranger from Stockholm had been almost by inter-
course converted into a friend, they looked upon her
as an unexpected visitant to our shores, and greeted
her with repeated and rapturous bursts of ap-
plause, which altogether overcame her sensibility,
and melted her into tears.

No incidents of this kind are wanting to establish the philosophic truth that pleasure is a great refiner and purifier of our nature. The difference, indeed, between the savage and the civilised man consists chiefly in their different appreciations of pleasure. Much has been written respecting the ultimate designs of art-particularly of the highest form of it, poetry-and it has been not unfrequently pretended that, in order to justify its claims, it must be shown to have an ethical purpose. In a certain sense, this, no doubt, is true. Whatever imparts dignity or beauty to our nature, whatever softens the heart, whatever gives a wider range to our nobler and more beautiful sympathies, is ethical. Pedants in philosophy, however, too often deny this epithet to pleasure, which, whether ethical or not, is the end and aim of our being. For pleasure is brief happiness, and happiness is protracted pleasure. The wisest speculators, therefore, on human nature, though they may have differed about the term, have all agreed about the truth, that pleasure is the supreme good of humanity, which it refines, purifies, and elevates, so as to confer upon it ultimately something of a divine character.

To administer this kind of pleasure Jenny Lind has devoted her whole life. Looking back to her early and obscure career in Sweden, we find that she was the daughter of poor but respectable parents, who earned their livelihood by keeping a school. Whether or not singing was taught by them is not said. Jenny, however, from the first years after emerging from infancy, began to put forth the treasures of her voice, with which she consoled herself for the drudgery which must everywhere be the lot of the children of the poor. It is very natural to suppose that this must have been the case, because we are all, more or less, impelled

It is impossible to glance over her biography without discovering a striking resemblance between

and those related by Madame Sand of her heroine Consuelo. Jenny Lind, indeed, had not to start from so depressed a point in the social scale. Her parents, as we have said, were respectable, while Consuelo emerged from rags and infamy to struggle with difficulties, to put her virtues and patient gentleness to the test, and overcoming all, achieved for herself ultimately a lofty and envied place in society. Jenny Lind's biography has, properly speaking, not yet been written; but we know that it was to an actress who accidentally heard her sing that she owed her introduction to the world. This actress was Madame Lundberg, who urged upon her parents the propriety of having her instructed in music, and devoting her ultimately to the stage. But how came Madame Lundberg acquainted with the schoolmaster and his wife, who, it is said, entertained a peculiar aversion for theatres? Was it only to the houses themselves that they objected, while they delighted to live on terms of intimacy with those who acted in them and lived by them? Some day, perhaps, these points may be cleared up. At present the whole of this part of Jenny Lind's life lies enveloped in the thick mist of accident. Everything in this world is accidental, but we should be glad to be informed what was the nature of the accident which brought Lind and his wife acquainted with Madame Lundberg, and how it came to pass that she took so deep an interest in the fate of the little school girl.

It commonly happens that the life of persons of genius passes at first under a thick cloud, which appears to be dispersed, and is met by the retroactive inquiries of future years. Parents and friends, unobservant at the time, get up a sort of artificial recollection of what they suppose themselves to have noticed, when their child emerges into celebrity. This has rendered many sceptical respecting the infantine exhibition of genius which many remarkable persons, and Jenny Lind among the number, are said to have made. At three years of age, we are told, she already began to display her fondness for singing, and gradually learned to execute some of the old airs of her country; but what we should like to know is this, were her father or her mother musical? Was the music of those airs breathed about her cradle? Was it from the gentle maternal lips that she heard the old Swedish melodies ringing and humming round her before she could speak? or was it some neighbours, some aunt, some distant relative, who, living in the house, and associating familiarly with the family, first shed into Jenny's

mind the seeds of music, and thus laid the founda- || tax beyond means the powers of the voice or mind

tion of that wonderful celebrity which she has now acquired?

is to make imminent risk of destroying them, which the wise men of Stockholm very nearly aeHitherto there may be said to be no anecdotes complished for Jenny Lind. They placed her in in circulation respecting the early period of Jenny a hot-bed of adulation and excitement. They Lind's life, though many, doubtless, will be recol- amused themselves by those displays which were lected or invented. It is said that she softened the rapidly undermining her constitution, mental and hours of sickness or toil by singing. But what was physical; and it seems to us extremely probable her sicknesses and what was her toil? When the that it was the consciousness of this that made old illness of a child is severe, it seldom takes refuge Croelius relinquish the instruction of his youthful in music, and, least of all, in singing; whereas, if|| pupil, being, probably, determined that if she was its labours be not altogether disproportioned to its to be ruined it should at least be by others. The strength, nothing is more common than to hear it post relinquished by this Porpora of the North was accompany them with a song. So far, therefore, accepted by Herr Berg, who is said to have been there is nothing at all remarkable in what is related deeply versed in the science of music, and to him, of Jenny Lind's childhood. But the fault, we fully we are told, Jenny Lind is chiefly indebted for her believe, is in the biographers, and not in the sub- || profound acquaintance with the principles of this ject, for though it sometimes happens that remark- science. It may be so, but in our opinion a girl of able persons have not made an early display of ten years old is little qualified to penetrate into the their faculties, the rule is that they should be un- principles of any science whatsoever. The probability common from the beginning, and evident to all who is, that he carried on with more severity the system have the quickness to observe indications of their of discipline commenced by Croelius, and so far coming powers. proved his inferiority to that master. At any rate, Jenny Lind was expected to produce more material results than her constitution would permit, and by the assistance of Herr Berg and Count Puche she was forced into a premature development which nearly deprived the world for ever of one of its greatest singers.

It would be extremely valuable to possess Jenny Lind's own account of this period of her life, and if she possess that devotion to her art, for which we are inclined to give her credit, it may be hoped that she will, ere long, in the interest of music and for the encouragement and guidance of others, describe those varied processes by which her own vocal powers were ripened at the risk of being utterly annihilated. Throughout Europe at the present moment no idea is more prevalent than that of converting children into wonders. It pervades our schools, it regulates the proceedings of our colleges and universities. Nor is it of recent date. The schools, says Helvetius, are filled with clever boys, and the world with very foolish men. Milton also, in his day, complained that the pedantic teachers of youth were in the habit, as he forcibly

In one of Jenny Lind's biographies it is prettily said that the spell of song was upon her from her birth, and then the writer goes on to relate that by the advice of Mrs. Lundberg, the actress already mentioned, Jenny was placed under the care of Croelius, a well-known teacher of music at Stockholm. But to whom is he well known? Not to the English public certainly, though, in relation to Jenny Lind, he may hold the same place that Porpora, in Madame Sand's novel, holds towards Consuelo. But in this case we should like to know something of his previous career; who were his other pupils, and what contributions he has made, if any, to the stock of the world's music. It may be that this ignorance is peculiar to ourselves, but in no account that we have seen of Jenny Lind have we met with any explanation of Croelius's position. That he was acquainted with conventionally great people appears from the narrative, since he is said to have made known his young prodigy to Count Puche, the manager of the Court theatre in the Swedish capital. Nobility is a cheap thing in those countries, and accepts menial and trivial offices about the person of the prince, for which rea-expresses it, of wringing blood from the noses of son we cannot be at all surprised at finding a count a stage manager. It is one of the most respectable situations a nobleman can fill at court, and may possibly emancipate him from the necessity of undertaking others infinitely less honourable.

Already, at the early age of nine years, did Jenny's voice possess the power of exciting emotion, which is the most distinguishing quality of it now. Count Puche, with that exaggerated enthusiasm which belongs to nearly all foreigners, especially in what relates to music, professed to be transported by it; and with that wrong judgment, which is the habitual accompaniment of false enthusiasm, precipitated Jenny Lind into the acting of parts well enough calculated, indeed, to display her youthful powers, but still better calculated to blast them. In all kinds of study the aiming at premature distinction is almost always fatal to lasting fame, and music forms no exception to the general rule. To

their pupils, or, in other words, of torturing them into displays, which at best were mere delusions, which frequently proved fatal to those who made them. Jenny Lind was on the point of adding to the list of those victims. It was not to be expected that she, herself, should be aware of the fearful process going on within her, which, had not nature fortu nately interposed, might have consigned her to a premature grave. For three years Herr Berg, with an ignorance of human nature, fully equal, at least, to his knowledge of music, incited his youthful pupil to unremitting exertion, at the end of which period, suddenly, without any visible cause, Jenny Lind became voiceless altogether. She was then twelve years old, and her form unfitted her to shine in those children's parts, in which she had hitherto distinguished herself, while she was, of course, altogether unfit for those representations of womanhood which required fully developed form

and mind.

But the connoisseurs of Stockholm ||studies. Habitually gentle and reserved, she dewere blind to the indications of nature, and applied voted ten hours every day to music, besides three every kind of excitement to re-invigorate the flagginghours, during which she performed in the evening, powers of her mind. To no purpose. Jenny, as and with this laborious life she was as happy and far as concerned singing, was dumb. light-hearted as a bird. Under the influence of the sombre skies of the north, Jenny Lind may have been equally cheerful, though her gaiety must have had less of sunshine in it, for the mind, after all, is more or less a mirror which reflects faithfully the accidents and circumstances surrounding it.

To be a prima donna at sixteen is to occupy one of the most dangerous positions in which a woman can be placed. Dangerous we mean in every sense of the word, for if she escaped that moral contagion which is too frequently found diffused through the theatrical world, she may yet be attracted and overcome by that other contagion which, without injuring the character in a conventional point of view, subverts, nevertheless, all its better qualities, and deprives it of all grace and loveliness.

Jenny

If it be true that the distinguished singer is now the victim of nervous sensibility, we may fearlessly trace it to the influence of those injudicious friends who had charge of her youthful years. Not content to keep pace with nature, they sought to engraft a woman's powers on the physical constitution of a girl, to awaken emotions the organic power to express which nature had not yet given, and altogether to invert, as it were, the chronology of life, by opening the floodgates of passions before nature had provided channels for carrying off the torrent. Nothing could be more interesting or more valuable, in a philosphical point of view, than a full and frank revelation of the feelings of a child of genius under such circumstances. But we have no example of such a relation on record. The nearest ap- | Lind triumphed over all these temptations, and reproach to it is that of Madame Roland, who, how-||mained-and remains, we believe, to this hour-a ever, trusted to the inspiration of memory, and gentle, modest, unassuming person, full of genius may, nay, must, have attributed to herself in her and tenderness, and equally full of that grace and early years ideas which never could have been humility which confer on genius its greatest charms. awakened in her till a much later period. Properly speaking, her education as an actress had At twelve years old Jenny Lind may be said to now to commence. She had never bestowed the have touched upon the critical period of her life. usual attention on the performance of tragic parts, She had to pass through the interval which sepa- and, when that of Agatha was entrusted to her, is rates the child from the woman. Should she be said to have remained during the rehearsal so imsuffered to traverse it wisely, that is, silently, with-moveable, that the actors all trembled for the reout making any more foolish effort to antedate the sult. But nothing is more certain than that differgift of time? Or should she be made the victiment persons have very different modes of acquaintof the vanity of those around her, who, to display ing themselves with the duties demanded of them. the effects of their own system of teaching, were Some require to go through a sort of dull discipline obviously ready to offer her up on the altar of their and reach the goal by incessant repetitions, while self-love? Fortunately, it was found that she could others spend their time in measuring the distance not, at that time, sing at all, and so they left her between them and the object to be attained, and to herself, and suffered her physical system to ac- then reach it by a single bound. Jenny Lind is quire strength, and her mind, in comparative soli- one of these. When the moment of performance tude, to generate those habits which, under the arrived she proved herself altogether equal to her name of virtues and talents, have since charmed part, and excited public admiration and enthusiasın the world. At this period of her life it seems to to the highest pitch. have been Jenny Lind's greatest ambition to perform the part of Agatha in Weber's opera of "Der Freischutz." Upon this part, therefore, it is probable she bestowed much silent study and meditation, in the hope of being one day enabled to command that applause which is the very breath of life to

the lovers of fame.

When four years had elapsed in this comparative eclipse, it happened that a young person was wanting to sing the solo in Meyerbeer's opera of "Roberto il Diavolo," and the good-natured, though injudicious, Herr Berg bethought him of his neglected papil. The thing in itself was of little importance; but Jenny Lind acquitted herself so well in it, that the entire part of Agatha, in "Der Freischutz," was shortly afterwards assigned to her, and she enjoyed an engagement as prima donna in the opera of Stockholm. This was at the age of sixteen. We have known in Italy a prima donna of eighteen, who, whatever may have been her subsequent fate, was no less devoted to her profession than Jenny Lind herself, except when some gust of wild and stormy passion came to disturb the tenor of her

And here again we feel painfully the extreme meagreness of details in the published biographies of Jenny Lind. This absolute barrenness some attempted to conceal by swelling and extravagant phrases, which, however, it must be obvious, cannot mend the matter. What we want are details, and these have not yet been given. We know that the girl of sixteen got by degrees to be eighteen, but there is very little other important information to be acquired on the subject, with the exception of one fact which, for good reasons, we shall notice briefly:-The celebrated Garcia was at that time esteemed the best musical teacher in Europe, and Jenny Lind, whose voice had not yet acquired or regained all its sweetness and flexibility, earnestly desired to study for a short time under him. But he was unfortunately in Paris, and funds were wanting for the journey. Under these circumstances, Jenny applied to no patron, not even to the Government, which is the usual resource, in semidespotic states. Her independent spirit urged her to rely on her own exertions. In company with her father she made the tour of Sweden and Nor