From The Saturday Review. proper to some of the best female vocalists of the period. Nay, at the present day, the restrictions laid by prudent mammas on the poetry sung by young ladies at the piano are so severe that love, save when it takes a perfectly harmless domestic tone, is regarded with avowed disfavour by publishers. of music, cognizant of the powers by which their market is ruled. The little lyrical coquetries which would have been quite according to order forty years since would now be deemed far too demonstrative. Nevertheless, if we have any doubt that the principle of lyrical excellence laid down by Sir John Brute is widely maintained even now, we have only to cast our eyes to those places of public recreation where tastes of SIR JOHN BRUTE, a worthy knight well known to the play-goers of the Garrick period, when Vanbrugh's Provoked Wife still kept possession of the stage, had an easy and convenient standard whereby to judge specimens of lyrical art. "I would not give a fig for a song that is not full of sin and impudence." So said good Sir John, applying his standard approvingly to a ditty which had just been sung by his friend Lord Rake, and which wound up with the burden, "In peace I jog on to the devil." This was the original song of the piece, and it will be found in the collected edition of Vanbrugh's works; but some acute critic seems after-all kinds are gratified under the one comwards to have discovered that it scarcely came up to the high encomium which had been passed upon it. Lord Rake indeed braved all edicts, divine and human, when he sang, When my head's full of wine I o'erflow with design, prehensive category of a taste for music. When our fathers flourished, songs were indeed chanted at a late hour, at the Coalholes and Cider-cellars of the time, more beastly than anything that would be tolerated at the present day; but then it was understood that these were intended for the exclusive recreation of men of loose habits, And know no penal laws that can curb me; and of the mob of greenhorns who waste Whate'er I devise Seems good in my eyes, And religion ne'er dares to disturb me. their hours and health in "seeing life." To this generation in particular belongs that mass of sin and impudence nightly yelled forth at the music-halls, in the presence of persons of both sexes, including women not necessarily belonging to an abandoned class. But though his vaunts were sinful enough in all conscience, they could scarcely be termed impudent in that popular sense of the adjective according to which it is a eu-To this generation in particular belong the phemism for a dissyllable of disreputable origin. Accordingly, in later editions of the Provoked Wife we find, in lieu of the old profane lay, another song so grossly indecent that, were it a new production, it could scarcely be printed nowadays without risk of a visit from the representatives of the Society for the Suppression of Vice. The facts we have just recorded furnish a powerful answer to the often asserted theory that criticism is without practical effect on literature. The lyrics of Lord Rake were found wanting when weighed in the balance proposed in the poetics of Sir John, and were altered accordingly. There have been times when the knight's clearly expressed canon threatened to become obsolete. The verses that were sung at Vauxhall towards the end of the last century, and which, though of unmistakably Southern growth, recorded in a quasi-Scottish dialect the loves and squabbles of Jockie and Jeannie, were saucy at best, but never impudent. Something similar may be said of the vast quantity of popular songs that cropped up during the reign of George IV., and afforded ample opportunities for the display of a certain archness vocal Lizzies, Minnies, and Nellies who seem to claim a familiarity with their hearers, and allow their portraits, radiant with immodesty, to be placarded against the walls. To this generation in particular belongs the race of quasi-male-female acrobats, who by an occasional accident gratify that latent feeling of cruelty which is so often the concomitant of licentiousness. To this generation in particular belongs the exalted patronage ostentatiously bestowed on such a work as M. Offenbach's operatic extravaganza, La Grande Duchesse de Gérolstein. There is no doubt that at the bottom of the importance attached to the works of this now celebrated composer lies a strong taste for what may be mildly called the improper among the higher classes of English soci ety. When M. Offenbach was first emerg ing from obscurity on the strength of the small and slight works which he composed for the newly opened Bouffes Parisiens, the whisper went abroad that in the Champs Elysées an odd but extremely pretty little theatre had sprung up, at which pieces were performed most delightful to see and hear, but scarcely decorous enough for the Eng lish taste. The same pieces were transferred all, the musical dramas that find favour at to London, and brought out at the St. the Variétés might be a trifle too free for James's Theatre; but they attained no genuine Britons. That we were averse to great success, and it was understood that the illicit liaison as an expedient for creatwhat one liked to witness in Paris, where ing a serious interest was an hypothesis too John Bull is supposed to be out "on the well grounded to admit of suspicion, and it loose," one did not care to behold in Lon- was a fair inference that we should be don. As, however, M. Offenbach expanded equally nice in the article of funny improfrom a composer of operetta into a com- prieties. poser of what, from its dimensions at any rate, seemed entitled to be called opera, and the field of his labours was no longer the upstart Bouffes, but the time-honoured Variétés, people began to name him with respect as a musical genius whose solid worth, veiled under a gauze of frivolity, had been underrated; and a smile of grave approval was substituted for a knowing chuckle or a significant nudge in the ribs. La Belle Helène was pronounced a great work when properly interpreted, and greater still was La Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein. Great also was Madlle. Schneider, whose name, by her excellent performance in both of those works, had become intimately associated with the music of the age. As the fame of M. Offenbach increased, an opinion was diffused that London was in a humiliated condition. The two great lyrical works had been seen in every European capital, and the "Grand Duchess" had even found her way to New York, where, represented by Madlle. Tostie, the prima donna of M. Offenbach's earlier works, she was received with great delight, talking as she did in her original language. In London, indeed, English imitations of the French chefs d'œuvre were produced, but these were so exceedingly unprovocative of mirth, or even of cheerfulness, that people who had gone through a course of the dreary pleasantry could only marvel to hear that what seemed singularly dull on this side of the Channel was considered especially droll on the other. Their faith in M. Offenbach would probably have broken down altogether had there not been travelled friends at hand to declare how much better things were managed in France, and how the tedious burlesques which bore the title of Offenbach's books were only base copies of a genuine article. London, indeed, was the sole capital at which Offenbach had not been represented properly, and on that account might be considered a degree lower in civilization than other towns. Nevertheless, while the intellectual darkness of London was commiserated, a compliment was paid to its moral susceptibility. The old nudges and chuckles were revived, and the conjecture was hazarded that perhaps, after So As the establishment of the Divorce Court fearfully shook the belief in the domestic virtues, previously deemed unsullied, of the middle classes, so has the summer season, now closing, terribly enlightened us as to the fastidiousness of our 'Upper Ten" in the matter of public amusements. slightly is the illicit liaison repugnant to the London patrons of French drama, that Nos Intimes, the most risky piece on the list presented by M. Felix, afforded greater satisfaction than any other work, leaving the world 'to wonder why an embargo had been laid on Paul Forestier. The dramatic portion of his season being at an end, M. Felix fills up his term by engaging Madlle. Schneider and bringing out La Grande Duchesse, arousing admiration by the magnitude of his spirit and of his prices of admission. His success has been brilliant. Not only was his theatre crowded on the first night sacred to Offenbach, but the list of visitors published in the papers looked like a compressed edition of the Gotha Almanac, enriched with excerpts from the Peerage. As for Madlle. Schneider, she no sooner showed her face than she was received with an enthusiasm that could not have been exceeded had a welcome to a popular sovereign newly returned from exile been the business of the occasion. That people should be amused at the performance of La Grande Duchesse at the St. James's Theatre is natural enough. A subject dreadfully intelligible to the meanest adult intellect is treated with much ingenuity by the play-writer; odd figures are exhibited to the public, comic situations are brought about without any restraint caused by considerations of probability, the whole is made a vehicle for music of a taking kind, and nearly every part is well-sustainedthe celebrated actress, Madlle. Schneider, having been declared by the voice of Europe to be pre-eminent in the character of the Duchess. The question is, whether this is the sort of work that ought to command a general outburst of aristocratic enthusiasm, in an age when an affectation of indifference seems to be the order of the day; whether the state of the lyrical drama which arises when the theatre most approximates LAST SCENE OF THE ABYSSINIAN WAR. to the music-hall is that which ought above ably executed, is successful, there is noth- From The Spectator, 4 July. WAR.. There is, in fact, no difference between the feeling addressed years ago by the musical pieces brought out at the Bouffes, and that to which the so-called operas of the Variétés now make appeal. not go so far as honest Sir John Brute in THE LAST SCENE OF THE ABYSSINIAN People will professing a love for such shocking things as sin and impudence, but that a certain satisfaction at " naughtiness" is a prevail- has been a pleasant interlude in a most disTHE vote of thanks to Sir Robert Napier ing sentiment among modern audiences of agreeable session. every age and both sexes is not to be been very bitter, the hatreds developed in doubted. Had the book of La Grande its course have seemed very earnest, the The party strife has Duchesse been of a purely innocuous char- speeches made have been very personal, and acter, M. Offenbach might have worn out it is almost with a sense of relief that men all the lungs and all the fiddle-strings in see the parties for one night reunited to do Christendom before his creations would honour, in the name of a nation which on have excited an iota more of enthusiasm this subject has no parties, to a man who than is produced by the ordinary entertain- has restored its military renown; to hear ments in which music and extravagant the leaders of Opposition complimenting the drama are combined. But the story of the Government, and the Government at a loss "Grand Duchess" is essentially naughty; for words to express its appreciation of the the fair potentate herself is decidedly a fighting services. Mr. Disraeli would hang naughty girl. She is naughty when, being tinsel on an Achilles, but the forced characa hereditary sovereign, she picks out of the ter of his rhetoric, with its nonsense about ranks a strapping private, merely because, the standard of St. George upon the mounas Thackeray says of Tom Jones and his tains of Rasselas, does not conceal the hearty kind, he has large calves, and raises him to cordiality with which Parliament has bedistinction, gloating all the while on his stowed the highest honour within its gift, senseless face with the most searching ex- the deliberate thanks of the nation to an pression of delight. She is naughtier still efficient servant. It is right that the thanks when she summons the dolt to a tête-à-tête, should be followed by more substantial reseats him on a low stool by her side, ca- wards, but they constitute in themselves an resses him with her dainty hands, and, honour of no mean kind. It is no light though she refrains from a verbal avowal of thing to men who, with soldierly instinct, love, avows her passion by actions more ex- value honour above all earthly goods, to be pressive than words could possibly be. In- solemnly told, amidst ringing cheers alike deed, whether she appears in public at the from the representatives of the people and head of her army, or whether she makes from the chiefs of the aristocracy, that their one at a party of two in her boudoir, the names also are inscribed in the long roll of Grand Duchess is the incarnation of every Englishmen who have deserved well of the quality that distinguishes the damsel of ill-country for which they have risked their regulated mind. What is most extraordi- lives. nary, the offences she commits, and at which society" is disposed to applaud so heartily, are just of that sort of which the society" most violently disapproves. Many a man who would contemplate without much emotion the progress of an intrigue between a lax gentleman and a married lady would shrink with horror from any manifestation of a love affair between a high-born lady and a private soldier. Not only morality, but the feeling for caste which keeps so many roués in order, is offended, unless we regard La Grande Duchesse as no more than a comic pantomime, and deem the lady's offences against the laws of female propriety as unreal as those of the clown against the laws of meum and tuum. same 66 66 given by name, no reward can vie with them When those thanks are sincere and time they have been awarded, as Mr. Gladin the eyes of a true Englishman, and this stone said so gracefully, not by a vote, but an acclaim. It is well that the eulogies are done, for we think we see signs of that reaction they so invariably provoke; but it is also well that the leaders of parties, the Head of the Army, the best military critics in the Peers, should tell the people how thoroughly the eulogies were deserved, how true has been the instinct with which, though sent in, no territory won, the nation has no battle has been fought, no butcher's bill recognized in Sir Robert Napier that most efficient of all human beings, an efficient General. It is this quality of efficiency, 66 more than any other, more than the simplic- | dition has appeared; but it has recognized ity which describes that marvellous march in to the full the perfection of the work, the professional phrase as the "building of a directness of the application of means to bridge 400 miles long," more than the cool ends, the completeness, —a completeness daring which sent 1,500 men into the clouds as of Brunel or Stephenson, rather than of to storm a fortress that, as Lord Ellenborough the regular British General, in the entire happily said, If defended by its assailant affair; and has confidence in the man to had been impregnable to man," more even whom that completeness is mainly due. We than the moral nerve which risked all rather believe the nation would see Sir Robert Nathan leave friendly allies at the mercy of a pier lose a battle without howling for his barbarian, that has given Sir Robert Napier head, a remark that could not have been a place in the imagination and the rever-made of any General since Wellington. ence of the British people. We have been It may be said that the country has singled so wearied with inefficiency, so sickened out one man too exclusively for its gratitude, with excuses, so nearly driven by ineptitude but though all did well the country is in the to despair of ourselves, that an expedition right. In every war everything depends without a blunder, a march which reached upon the actual chief, and Sir Robert Naits goal, a retreat without a disaster, a great pier was the actual chief of the Army of enterprise finished as if it had been designed Abyssinia, the man who gave counsel as by Bismarck and organized by Von Moltke, well as orders to all below, not the mere restores our waning self-respect. Half Eng-speaking-trumpet of a staff. He was as land expected, as it sullenly consented to well entitled to all the credit as Stephenson do its duty, that it would be done in "regu- to that of building the Menai Bridge. So lar" English fashion; that the army would far from over-rewarding a soldier of this linger along the mountain road, doubtful kind, we do not reward him half enough, do alike of itself and of its object; that allies not recognize sufficiently how vast an addiwould be bought by promises difficult to tion one such capacity makes to the national keep and impossible to violate; that the strength, how long and arduous is the experains would be upon us before Magdala had rience, for the most part unrewarded and fallen; that disease would break out in the unacknowledged, through which a man of camp, and that after two years of dreary this kind arrives at the perfection of his warfare, after reinforcements had been de- powers. Suppose to-morrow it were needmanded from India and England, after angry ful to conquer Egypt, or defend Canada, debates in Parliament and angrier recrimi- what would be the money value, the sum it nations between the Horse Guards and the would be worth the national while to give India House, we should find ourselves vic- for this Indian Engineer, who, till he betorious, but with twenty millions to pay, came Commander-in-Chief of Bombay, had and Abyssinia upon our hands. That is the in his whole career never received the sum proper course of English affairs, and to find a successful speculator on 'Change makes in that we have a man who can get out of that a morning, who had never once tasted the groove, who can organize a composite army delight of independent command, and who into a bar of steel, who can use the resources after a great campaign was deprived by a of two civilizations with equal effect, can formality of the decoration acknowledged make way-worn Highlanders and thirsty to be his due? We are no advocates for Beloochees shout in a unison of delight be- over-paying soldiers, -Gibbon was right cause the enemy is before them, can over- when he said that honourable poverty best come nature as well as enemies, organize befitted armies, but at least let us leave transport as well as fight, and then, with his them the hope that when the hour at last work all accomplished, his instructions all arrives, when the experience of a career, fulfilled, can carry back his army fitter for and the training of forty years, and the war than it was when he received it: this knowledge painfully garnered through a life, has made a distinct addition to the personal are all employed to secure a national end, happiness of every man within the nation. the nation will not be niggardly in its apThe country never quite caught the wild plause or its acknowledgments. If it ever romance of the expedition, the disinterest- falls into that habit, if it reserves all its reedness which has so impressed the Conti-wards for commerce, and all its enthusiasm nent, the strange combination of East and for eloquence, if it haggles with men who West, of science and barbaric force, of offer their lives, and strives to pay for genius camels refreshed from portable Artesian by the pound, it may yet learn, on a day wells, and elephants carrying the last triumphs of inventive artillerists, and it will not catch it until the sacer vates of the expe greater than last Easter Monday was, what it is to have lowered the honour, and damped the ardour, and depressed the tone of men who, whether they conquer or fail, have always this one claim to plead, that they pay for every blunder with their lives, and that their lives are never given save in a national cause. Militarism is the worst of the many diseases which have afflicted European society, but the spirit of soldiership needs only to be directed to be among the noblest of impulses; and it is no injury to Englishmen that the old Hebraic influence so rapidly passing away still leads them, when they would be most reverential, to address the Almighty as the Lord God of Hosts. THE Bishop of Argyll and the Isles preached a very striking sermon at Westminster Abbey A NEW PHASE OF THE ABYSSINIAN BUSI- last Sunday. It was upon the text, "God is NESS. WAS KING THEODORE DECEIVED BY GENERAL NAPIER? THE following curious letter appears in the actually in the shape of both scepticism and sin Pall Mall Gazette: : To the Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette: Sir I am glad to notice that a correspondent in your columns has taken up the subject of the surrender of the captives by King Theodore. The following is Sir Robert Napier's own account of the transaction respecting his late Majesty's present of cows. (See despatch dated April 14.) On Sunday morning, April 12, after the defeat of his army, King Theodore wrote a letter to Sir Robert Napier asking for friendship, and offering a present of cows, as well as to liberate all Europeans. Sir Robert Napier's reply was conveyed verbally, Mr. Rassam and others "acquiring the impression" that the cattle mentioned in the King's letter had been accepted. Ayto Samuel, the interpreter, conveyed this verbal answer, and when the King inquired what reply had been given about the offered cattle, Samuel replied that Sir Robert Napier had signified his willingness to accept them. Theodore, therefore believing that friendship was established, sent down the present, and released the whole of the Europeans, with their wives and children. When it was reported to Sir Robert Napier that the cattle had arrived outside the camp, he gave orders that they should not be admitted within the pickets; but he sent no letter or message to the King on the subject, who was allowed to remain under the impression that his present had been accepted. Without further communication of any kind, the King's position was attacked on the 13th, Magdala was cannonaded and stormed, and at the last moment Theodore shot himself, rather than fall into the hands of his enemy. light, and in Him is no darkness at all," and was an attempt to reconcile the faith in a God of such light with the darkness which we see around us. The Bishop's faith was that the delay, the tardiness in the coming of God's kingdom, is necessitated by the sort of kingdom which alone God has shewn His purpose through Christ to establish, a kingdom not imposed by Him, but accepted and implored by us, a kingdom to the light of which we shall have worked our own way intellectually and morally. God will not put all things under His feet in the sense of "force," but will have all things put themselves under His feet "in the way of choice." In other words, science must find its way to God by its own light, and the spirit by its own free choice; and God will wait for this, however long, rather than strain the human intellect and conscience by too overwhelming a manifestation of His own power and will. Of many impressive sermons recently delivered in the Westminster Abbey services, this must have been one of the most impressive. Spectator, 11 July. A NEW class of evidence has at length, like the electric telegraph, made its way slowly into the precincts of the law courts. On Saturday, in the Admiralty Court, in a case of damage to a ship, photographs were admitted to show her condition, -a development little expected thirty years ago in throwing light on law proceedings. The lawyers, however, are not to be put down by the alleged accuracy of the photographs; for, on the ground of conflict of evidence, they obtained a reference to the Trinity Masters. Still, some day, we may see a sworn photographer in Chancery and a new class of legal functionaries. Taking photographs may constitute part of the examination on the law of evidence. Athenæum. |