1830.] OH. Affairs in General. 99 



flowed from the lips of candidate patriotism. Hume, as a politician, is 

 an absurdity. 



" Philharmonic Society. Their eighth and last concert was a good 

 one, and went far to redeem this series from the inferiority which 

 has pervaded, with one or two exceptions, the performances this season. 

 It opened with Beethoven's splendid sinfonia, No. 7> and concluded with 

 his overture to Coriolon, a very fine composition. Malibran, Donzelli, 

 and Lablache sang, but nothing very new. De Beriot gave a concerto 

 on the violin. As far as execution is concerned, this gentleman is un- 

 rivalled. He also plays with consummate taste and expression. Spag- 

 noletti led, and Bishop conducted." 



Notwithstanding all this panegyric, the philharmonic is going to the 

 vault of all the capulets. " Sinfonias" have been its death. The 

 shortest Sinfonia of Beethoven is an hour long, and half an hour of such 

 trial to the ears is enough to occasion death to any human being, who 

 does not take refuge in sleep, which is a serious difficulty, as the Sin- 

 fonia is generally as loud as it is long. Beethoven's fame is rapidly 

 perishing in this country. Professional musicians are zealous for his 

 compositions, because they completely answer the purposes for which 

 alone nine-tenths of professional musicians are fit ; they are difficult, and, 

 of course, require manual dexterity, but there the merit ends. The 

 composition is a chaos; through the mortal hour the keenest ear can 

 scarcely detect a touch of melody, all the finer part of composition, the 

 soul of the art, is buried under an endless toil of tiresome science, and 

 the only perception of pleasure that ever reaches an audience, is when 

 every fiddler is resting upon his fiddle, and the whole Gothic confusion 

 is at an end. 



The praise lavished on De Beriot, too, is absurd. He is a neat per- 

 former, and no more. He has not discovered, nor will he ever discover, 

 the power of the violin ; one of the most extraordinary instruments in 

 the whole range of human invention. In the hands of genius, the 

 violin is scarcely less than a prodigy. It was such in the hands of 

 Giardini, of whom our fathers still speak with wonder ; it was scarcely 

 less so in the hands of Jarnovick : it is said to attain the same rank in the 

 hands of Paganini. But De Beriot, though possessing the most accu- 

 rate skill in the mere manipulation of the instrument, wants the genius 

 of the violinist. He amuses and pleases ; he never delights nor asto- 

 nishes, and for the wonders of the art, we must wait for Paganini. As 

 to Spagnoletti, he is a fiddler, and, we suppose, does well enough to 

 accompany a song. 



" We stated on a former occasion, that Sir Matthew Tierney had not 

 been consulted by the King during a period of twelve days. This intel- 

 ligence excited the utmost astonishment. We now positively assert, 

 upon the best authority, that Sir Matthew signed the bulletins during 

 a period of at least seventeen days, without having been consulted by 

 the Royal sufferer. It is, indeed, asserted that the presence of the 

 worthy knight appeared to produce so much irritation and distress in 

 the bosom of his Majesty, that it was thought prudent to request him 

 to withdraw, and he thus signed the bulletins without examining the 

 subject of them, trusting to chance and ' invisible' influence for their 

 accuracy. The three ' Sirs' are said to have acted towards each other 



N'2 



