been more an object of pleasure than profit to him. In 1819 he produced, at the Opera Comique, "Le Testament et les billets doux," an operetta in one act. This was destined to be infinitely less fortunate than the first public attempt of our composer; so that the honours and eulogiums that had been lavished on him were now considered as the opinion of a coterie, or the partiality of friends; but Auber soon recovered his vantage by producing “Le Bergére Chatelaine," an opera in three acts, at the same theatre, in the beginning of the year 1820. He stepped now, without opposition, on the pedestal of Fame; the original ideas, the novel phrases in melody, the elegant instrumentation, and dramatic effect which distinguished this work rendered it entirely successful, and to this opera Auber may be considered to owe much of the reputation he has gained. The favourable opinion which the " Bergére" had commenced, was completed and firmly established on the appearance, in 1921, of "Emma ou la Promesse imprudente," and from that period the fame of Monsieur Auber has never known a cloud. His operas, "La Muette de Portici" (his finest, beyond all dispute, and better known in England as Masaniello"), "Lestocq," "Le Domino Noir," "Fra Diavolo," "La Fiancée," L'Ambassadricè," Gustave," "La Part du Diable," "La Bayadere," "La Sirene,' "Les Diamans de la Couronne," are all too well and favourably known to need particular mention. His orchestral writing is perhaps the most refined and elegant of any composer's of the present day; the beauty of the colouring, the variety and grace of his ideas, the tone and elegance of his style, render his scores perfect pictures. All are so beautifully and artistically blended-every instrument brought in with the tact and experience of a master-that the combination of them all forms a delightful whole; as comprehensible and appealing to the general ear, as is a well-executed picture to the general eye. 66 In May, 1825, M. Auber was created a Knight of the Legion of Honour, has obtained many other distinctions, and is a Member of the French Institute. Thus is Genius rewarded in France! RECORD V.-GIUSEPPE Verdi. I would rather be a sorry prophet than an unkindly one; but I have always observed that those reputations which resemble the ascent of a meteor a sudden flash, and then, with a terrific rushing, upmounting to the highest heaven-are like to that meteor in its shortlived and unenduring brilliance. I do not say that this will be the case with Signor Verdi; I only hope it may not be. From one of the "unknown crowd," from a nameless obscurity, Verdi suddenly started into note, and gained a name and reputation celebrated throughout the whole of Italy. How this was, it would be impertinent and absurd to question or examine; we have only to deal with facts-immutable and incontrovertible. I do not mean to affirm that Signor Verdi is not a man of genius; but I do say, that, notwithstanding he has been bepuffed and bepraised by the press-which led us to expect something like a modern “rara avis in terris"-there is nothing in his scores that I have seen which justifies so much adulation. However, as I said before, I would rather be a sorry prophet than an unkindly one; the real stability of his fame rests in futurity. And yet his career has been pre-eminently illustrative of that of a child of genius. He was born about the year 1816, at Bussetto, a poor and insignificant village in Lombardy. His parents were far too straitened in their means to give him a musical education; but, as the boy gave evidences of rare promise in the art, the village organist undertook to promote his wishes; and it happened, fortunately, that he was somewhat of a theoretician: so that the advantages Verdi possessed were great, considering the obstacle of Poverty-and oh, how great!-how invincible is it at times! But as Verdi grew in years, he began to create attention, and gained many friends who determined to assist him on his way. This they did by obtaining for him an admission to the Conservatorio at Milan. Here he struggled till 1839, when he produced his first opera at the Scala, called " Oberto Conte di San Bonifazio." It was an unfortunate season at the Scala: almost every opera had failed, or been coldly received, and this met the same fate. The work was well nigh forgotten, when, by the intervention of his friend Marini the celebrated basso, Verdi, after making great and judicious alterations in it, reproduced it; and, this time, it created a perfect furore. Salvi, the tenor, Marini, and our own countrywoman, Mrs. Alfred Shaw (the famous L'Inglese of the Italian stage), filling the principal parts. This raised Verdi's reputation a little; but ONE opera rarely achieves much. He then set to work on an opera buffa, but owing to the loss of his much-loved wife, who died before it was finished, it was not brought out till lately at Venice; and if it has not been successful, we must attribute it to the melancholy state of mind of the poor composer during the time he wrote it. His next appearance in public after this mournful event was in producing his Nabucodonosor," better known in England as Nino;" and this single opera has made Verdi the favourite he now is. After that followed "I Lombardi," a still greater triumph; "Ernani,”, "Giovanni D'Arco,” “ Alzira," "I due Foscari," and "Attila;" the last of which Fame speaks of as his greatest work, and as an opera of transcendent beauty. Though he is only thirty years of age, he looks considerably older; the traces of deep thought, united to care and illness, have made fearful havoc on his otherwise handsome features. His hair is of a chesnut hue, and, strange for an Italian, his eyes are "deeply, darkly, beautifully blue," and their expression is at once soft and vivacious. Though he has amassed already a handsome fortune, he lives in retirement and seclusion. THE VILLAGE BRIDE. (A Ballad.) BY MRS, VALENTINE BARTHOLOMEW. She was a fair and gentle child, My playmate on the green; And when on me her blue eyes smiled, How gaily pass'd the summer hours I crown'd with wreaths of blushing flowers Her beauty was my boyish theme: But when in after-years I floated down Life's troubled stream, But when my hour of trial came, And wealth and friends were gone, The heart I sought remain'd the same, With hope it still loved on. My faults I own'd on bended kneeShe scorn'd the past to chide, And promis'd, with a blush, to be My faithful Village Bride! VOICES FROM THE SEA-SIDE AND THE FIELDS. BY CALDER CAMPBELL. No. I.-"LIVE FOR ME." Live for me! No common sorrow Live for me! Yon tranquil ocean, Shimmering in the sun of June, With no visible emotion, Sings its ever-sounding tune: So, in hearts that love, still singeth Deep, not loud, a descant free; And each cadence sweetly bringeth Words of hope: then live for me! Birds are all abroad, bestowing But a happy future see; And though trivial cares may wound thee, Swansea, June, 1846. THE DEATH OF THE AFFIANCED. BY MRS. ABDY. Bright was her lot, and happy was her home, She loved, and was beloved; no saddening fear When she should welcome dearer, holier ties How changed the prospect! Sickness, dire and brief, Vain human aid; she felt that she must go And one loved friend watch'd fondly by her bed With the soft tenderness of woman's care; Hoped on, till Hope's faint waning spark had fled, Kept the lone vigil, pour'd the fervent prayer, And linger'd still, when life itself had past, Viewing her pale sweet aspect to the last. Weep not, ye sad survivors, to forego The springing joys thus levell'd in the dust; And, though life's proffer'd gifts rejoice her not, A GRATEFUL RECOLLECTION. I do remember well the hour when first ALFRED TULk. BUDDING AND BLOSSOMING. CHAP. I. 1830.-BUDDING. BY JOHN NEAL. A young and saucy, though rather shy-looking girl-such as you may have romped with fifty times in your life, when the old folks were out of the way, or Aunt Polly fast asleep in the great arm-chair, with her spectacles dropping off was sitting near a large open window, with her pen lifted, her left hand half buried in a mass of dark shining hair, half put up, and falling about her neck-her eyes half shut, her eye-lids drooping and trembling, her lashes glistening, and a sheet of soiled and crumpled paper spread out on the table before her. A heap of wet roses and half-opened flowers, dripping with dew; a magnificent piano, with the rich purple covering pulled awry, and trailing on the floor; a half-finished drawing; a half-written letter; a half-read book lying on its face in a tilted chair, and just ready to slip off; a morning wrapper half put on, draggled and wet, and powdered with golden dust, and bordered, six inches deep, with tangled grass and torn buttercups, and scented with clover-blossoms-are enough to show what sort of a girl she is, and what she has been doing for the last half hour. After fidgeting awhile in a chair large enough to hold three of her, and kicking over the footstool two or three times, and losing first one slipper and then the other, and hunting them, now with one toe and now with the other, all round a circle of three or four feet in diameter, she starts up and runs to the open window, through which the sunshine of a new day has just entered the room like a spirit from another world, filling the whole house with joy; and lets down the long white muslin curtains "of mist and moonlight mingling fitfully," down, down, till they lie in heaps upon the floor, and whirl about in the morning wind like a sudden flirt of snow in midsummer. And now she stands listening and shivering, and almost breathless; and now, shaking loose her abundant hair, and looking out through the pale shimmering mist, as if she saw something, or heard something in the sunshine beyond, she leans forward; her lips move, and she seems about to speak-and now her face changes, her eyes flash, and after listening a few moments longer, she steals back to the chair a tip-toe, and begins writing. Mercy on us, how she does write, to be sure! Scribble, scribble, scribble! tear, tear, tear! till the passionless creature, who passed before you but a few minutes ago like transparent statuary, is trembling from head to foot; and you may hear a low, sweet, musical voice singing to itself "Through shattered roof, Of honeysuckle woven thick." And now she comes to a full stop. And nowrip, goes another half sheet of paper; and away goes the slipper that has been tittering on her toe for the last five minutes, half across the room; and away goes one foot after it, while the other is feeling for its fellow under the chair, and trying to shoe itself in the dark, heel foremost without anybody's help. And now she leans her head upon her hand, poor thing! and now she bites her lips, and catches up a handful of damp roses, and plays the very mischief with them, spattering the dew all over the paper as if she had been crying. And now she nibbles the tip end of her pen, and pushes her unfinished drawing out of the way as if she hated the very sight of it; and now she jumps up and gives the piano cloth a twitch, and upsets the tilted chair. And now she falls to work anew, with her nose almost touching the paper, as if she were making lamplighters. And now she tears off what she has just written for the fortieth time, with the greatest possible care, and gives it a spiteful twist, and flings it smack at the window curtain, and falls a-writing again as if she hadn't another minute to lose-beating time with her slipperless foot, and shaking her head the while, and murmuring as if rather more than half asleep; with her eyes fixed upon a bit of paper, sprinkled with large flower-dew and scented with half-blown roses, on which is written "A creature in the shape of MAN Stood wondering on the silent shore; Thoughtful and beautiful he stood, As listening to the ocean roar." "Yes-yes, that'll do to begin with-‘A creature in the shape of man'-of course, therefore, not a man. Heigho! I wonder if impromptus are always so very hard to manage? A creature in the shape of man, stood wondering on the silent shore.' If they should happen to print it wandering, now! Thoughtful and beautiful, and-innocent.' Oh, that I could get the word 'innocent' there! Of course, then, everybody would see that I didn't mean a man—a real, downright, good-for-nothing man. How beautifully it might be finished then, without any these abominable repetitions that papa scolds about so much. Thoughtful and beautiful, and innocent, as listening to the ocean roar!'"' of And now, having emptied her heart, up she jumps, and runs to the window, and looks out with eyes brimful of dampness and light, just in time to see her father pass almost within reach of her hand. How her little heart did thump, to be sure! And then, too, how suddenly it stopped, when he stopped, and appeared to be listening! She was afraid to move, almost afraid to breathe; and when he turned hastily, and, seeing the curtains dropped, put his hands upon them, as if to know the reason why, she grew desperate, and gathering up all the fragments of paper within her reach, swept them carefully underneath the table, and flung her apron over them. "Ah, Julia, is that you?" said her father, pushing aside the curtains, and looking in with a smile. "You are up early this morning. At the piano, hey?" Poor Julia coloured and looked foolish. At your drawing, too? Thank you, my dear child. I do really want to see that drawing finished. And the letter to your cousin Martha -you have begun that, I hope?" Yes, father." By this time her father's eye had taken a survey of the whole room, and the smile vanished. And just then the confounded papers under her apron began to rustie; and when she set her foot upon them they only rustled the harder, and began to untwist of themselves very slowly, as if they would be taken notice of. So thought poor Julia, and she never forgave them. "Ah, what's that?" and as he spoke he stooped, but Julia was too quick for him. A little more, a single hand's breadth, and that scrap of poetry she had torn off and flung at the window with such violent emphasis a few minutes before the only fragment worth mentioning she had happened to overlook while gathering up the rest, and the only one she thought much of, since she had forgotten what it was—would have been slowly untwisting itself before the very eyes of her father, the only man on earth she ever cared a snap for. in the tranquillest climes, Light breezes will ruffle the flowers sometimes.' And who wouldn't be out of temper to find herself so strangely and cruelly misunderstood? But that I was either mortified or disappointed, I deny. That unprincipled woman, flirting with everybody she comes near, married or unmarried, and lavishing her caresses-not her blandishments only, but her caresses -upon everything alive that wears a hat. Upon my word, Martha, I am ashamed of her, and of myself that I ever liked her. But then, she is a great fortune, you know; and such people may behave as they like." By this time poor Julia was ready to jump out of the window. Of course it couldn't be the poetry she had been writing, half-a-dozen or a dozen lines at most, which kept him occupied so long, and made him look so very serious. But then what could it be? She would give the world to know. Glancing at the table at this moment, she missed that unfinished confidential letter to her cousin Martha. A half-smothered scream escaped her, and she was just ready to snatch the paper, when she recollected herself, and sat pale as death, waiting the issue, and read on, and on, and on, without once looking wondering at her father's forbearance, while he up, or appearing to know that she was watching him. What an escape! No wonder the poor thing turned pale and dropped into a chair, and looked as if she had just been sprinkled all over with a "Is he handsome?' you ask. Upon my word, watering-pot or fished up out of the deep sea. Martha, I hardly know what to say. That he is But when her father reached out his hand to good-looking, easy, and natural, I am willing to acher, and she saw that he was in earnest, and knowledge; and that, on the whole, I rather like that the earth would not open and swallow her that seriousness which others call haughtiness and stateliness, and that revelling eye and thoughtful up, though she had wished it half-a-dozen times forehead which others complain so much of; and that within the last five minutes, and the paper was exceedingly changeable mouth; to say nothing of put into his hands with averted eyes, and he his fine, shapely hands, which I think too small had but to open it in her very presence to be- and too womanly by far; of his 'large brilliant teeth' come acquainted, perhaps, with the only secret-rather too large, by the way-and his 'bewitching she had ever kept from him in all her life; and when, instead of opening it, he kissed her-not upon the forehead, but upon the mouth-and said to her, laying his hand reverently upon her head, "Julia, no; if it is proper for your father to see what you have written, you will never withhold it. If otherwise, my dear, he has too much confidence in your heart, notwithstanding all the faults of your head, ever to ask it." "Father, dear father," she cried, throwing her arms about his neck and sobbing violently, "I have been very foolish; but you will forgive me, won't you?" 66 Forgive you? And for what, my dear?” smile;' but I do not acknowledge, and I rather think I never shall, that he is either a 'magnificent fellow' or the handsomest creature upon the face of the earth,' whatever that mischievous, naughty, foolish woman may say to the contrary.' The father smiled here, and Julia began to hope for the best, and left off pulling the roses to pieces. "Enough for me to know that he is unhappy-disappointed, perhaps with extraordinary talents Here the father began to breathe hard. Here he turned and looked at poor Julia for a moment or two, as if about to speak, but after a short struggle with himself, he appeared to change his mind and went on reading-with a contraction of the mouth and a look about the eyes that frightened her. What can it be? Will he ever get through? But for the life of her she couldn't fix her mind for a moment, nor remember a syllable she had written. Hot flashes kept coming over her at every change of her father's countenance, and she wished herself at the bottom of the Red Sea over and over again, but all to no purpose. Would he never get through? Oh, dear me! "I care nothing for the opinion of others. Thank heaven, I am old enough to judge for myself." Here the father drew a long breath. "A woman of sixteen, dear Martha-I am in my sixteenth year, you know, fifteen last May-might well be supposed to have some experience of the world, and to know something of herself and of the human heart. Shouldn't you think so, dear? Mother was married almost at my age Here the father stopped short, and pulled out his pocket-handerchief, and wiped-first his eyes, poor fellow, and then his forehead. "Goodness me, how I do run on, to be sure! What I was going to say, though, was this-that the understandings of women are acknowledged to come sooner to maturity than the understandings of men; and that, in my opinion, where experience may be wanted and reason fails in these affairs of the heart, instinct may be safely trusted-the holy, the unquenchable instinct of woman's nature! as father himself calls it-for, after all, what can a woman ever know of a man beyond what he may choose to tell her." "The jade!" "Did you speak, father?" "Yes, my child;" looking at her with eyes brimful, and a heart running over. And then he drew her upon his knee, and putting one arm round her waist, pointed to the following postscript — "I am no longer a child, Martha. Heigho!" Poor Julia! The sight of those few wordsonly light in the whole-was like a flash of lightning to the benighted traveller. It showed her where she was, the path she had left, and the precipices all about her. Everything was clear now. She remembered everything, she saw everything! All that she had ever whispered, or written, or thought amiss, in all her life, burst upon her now, in that dread momentary glimpse of heaven and earth of abused power, a forgotten mother, a wronged father, and a sullied conscience, a disappointed faith and a presumptuous hope; and she slipped through the encompassing arms of that dear father, while his tears were falling into her upturned face like summer rain, and he was whispering to her to be comforted even while he shook with unutterable emotion, and bowing her head upon his locked hands, mur mured-" Father, dear father!" and then was speechless. Whereupon her father lifted her up, and questioned her for a few brief minutes, and then kissing her again and again, bidding her be of good cheer, and uttering no word of reproach, but saying merely, as they parted for the day, and he was straining her to his heart-"My child, I tremble for you; you are a woman of genius, and everything depends upon the next five years," left her in peace. And lo! the following letter went to cousin Martha by the next mail. "Dear Martha,-I am not in love, but my heart is broken. I shall never be married. I have told everything to my dear father, much that you never dreamed of, nor could have thought possible. I am left free, with the solemn assurance that if I continue unmarried for five years, I shall be ashamed of all my present opinions and feelings. I know better, Martha; but I yield, because my dear father deserves it for his goodness, notwithstanding what I must call his deep-rooted, unconquerable prejudices. "When I am in my grave, Martha-and I feel that I am going to it very fast-be may understand my true character, perhaps, and pity and love me for the sacrifice I have determined to make for his pleasure. He tells me-and I I throw myself down upon that bed there, never to "I am weary of life, Martha. How gladly would rise again, if I was only fit to die. And after all, what is there worth living for? declare to you, that I have hardly patience to bear it even from such a father-he tells me that poor Fre derick is a fortune-hunter, a coxcomb and a simpleton, and that long before five years are over I myself shall acknowledge it. Poor Fritz! a simpleton and a fortune-hunter ! "Five whole years, Martha! Heigho! Where shall we find ourselves at the end of five years, when, if I live, I shall be in my twenty-first year? He says, moreover, that no unmarried woman of twenty ever looked upon the man she loved at fifteen without a feeling of astonishment and shame, unless where the growth of her mind was stopped for ever by the companionship. I give you his very words, Martha. Heigho! "Farewell. JULIA. "P. S.-You are never to mention his name to me, nor speak to him of me, should you ever become acquainted-nor ever show this letter to anybody till I am in my grave." CHAP. II. 1835.-BLOSSOMING. "DEAR MARTHA,-I write you this morning, I hardly know wherefore. My dear, whimsical father has just called me into the study, where he has been at work for the last hour in all sorts of mischief, and placed a sheet of soiled and crumpled paper before me. Mercy on us, what will the man do next? While I am writing you at his own desire, he empties a half-bushel of wet roses upon the table before me, kicks over a footstool, upsets a couple of chairs, flings a new book upon the floor, face down, spills a |