1831.3 Affairs in General. 665 



father, is described to have acted most disingenuously to have first opposed 

 Lord Nugent, then to have disavowed doing so, save by his own personal 

 vote, and immediately afterwards to have sent his pocket-voters to give 

 plumpers against him for Lord Kirkwall. 



To the whole of this we say, what Burchell says in the Vicar of 

 Wakefield to Miss Amelia Wilhelmina Skeggs, " Fudge !" The Mar- 

 quess of Chandos is worth a ship-load of Lord Nugents. He is a manly, 

 high-minded, honest fellow, with his brains in the right place, and as 

 sure of yet taking a high rank, perhaps the highest, in the confidence 

 and councils of the country, as Lord Nugent, whom, by-the-bye, the 

 Whigs seem to have left very unceremoniously to the natural operation 

 of his genius, is sure to remain in the same position for life. 



The world has for the last month forgotten Poland, and talked of 

 Paganini, and nothing but Paganini. The signor's debut has not been 

 lucky. The fact is, this king of the fiddlers, has been too much in haste 

 to carry off all the circulating medium of England; and by thus assail- 

 ing John Bull on his sensitive point, that most patient of animals, or, as 

 a favourite fashionable authority would say, that always-to-be-plucked- 

 by-foreigners goose, and never-to-be-plucked-enough, was for once out 

 of temper ; and if the signor had fiddled on the night proposed, he 

 would have fiddled to the walls, as bare of an audience as his own 

 demands were of moderation. 



The demand which Paganini had thought it modest and reasonable 

 to make on those who desired to witness his performance, as it ap- 

 peared in his advertisement, was as follows : " Price of Boxes : Pit 

 tier, eight guineas ; ground tier, ten guineas ; one pair, nine guineas ; 

 two pair, six guineas ; three pair, four guineas. Stalls, two guineas ; 

 orchestra, one guinea and a half. Admission to the pit, one guinea; 

 ditto to the gallery, half a guinea." The effect of the advertisement was 

 so startling, that it is stated, not more than eight or ten boxes were 

 taken, and this indisposition on the part of the public produced, we sup- 

 pose, that indisposition on the part of Paganini which caused the concert 

 to be postponed. 



The public surprise being equalled by the public disgust at this 

 unparalleled piece of modesty, in which Laporte, the Frenchman who 

 leases the King's theatre, seemed to be an accomplice ; the " Times" 

 lashed both parties without preface or apology. 



" Laporte's presumption in doubling the prices of admission to the King's 

 Theatre, on the first night of Paganini's performance, is one of those extra- 

 vagances which could only have entered the head . of a foreigner, who had 

 beforehand arrived at the happy conviction, moreover, of the infinite gulli- 

 bility of the English nation. To understand this the more clearly, it is 

 necessary to bear in mind that the whole theatre is on this occasion set apart, 

 not for a dramatic performance, but for a concert merely, and that it will hold, 

 if filled at the ordinary prices, at least 1,500 in money. The expense to be 

 sustained is considerably less than on an ordinary night. There is no chorus, 

 no corps dramatique, nor corps de ballet, to be engaged. Nothing is wanted 

 but an orchestra, the whole attraction centering, in fact, in the single talent 

 of Paganini. But is he justified, or Laporte for him, in levying this enormous 

 tax? We have had instances enough before in this country of extravagant 

 pretension on the part of opera singers, dancers, and others ; yet none of them, 

 in the full zenith of their popularity, and with far stronger reasons on their 

 side, ever ventured on such an outrageous proceeding as this. What Pa- 

 ginini's audiences have submitted to in Frankfort, Berlin, Hamburgh, Paris, 



M. M. New Series. VOL. XL No. 66. 4 Q 



