ON THE PRESENT STATE OP THE OPERA IN LONDON. 41 



been allowed to sacrifice that precious time which ought either to 

 have been devoted to the acquisition of useful knowledge, or to lay- 

 ing in a stock of health and strength indispensable to the fulfilment 

 of the arduous duties of life. 



This erroneous course, however specious in appearance, cannot 

 even succeed in obtaining for its victim the applause on which she 

 calculated ; the concertos, however well adapted to show off a con- 

 summate master at a concert, are sadly misplaced when attempted 

 by an amateur in the drawing-room, and the minor pieces are ge- 

 nerally of so slight a texture as to be voted completely passees 

 within a few short months of their publication. The ill-executed 

 concertos weary, and the rondeaux, &c., have been heard to satiety 

 on every barrel-organ. What is to be done ? A collection of su- 

 perior music is placed before her, or she is requested to take a part 

 in a duet ; but, alas ! she dare not venture upon untried ground ; 

 music which she has not learned with her master is to her a sealed 

 book. In theoretical knowledge she is still more lamentably defi- 

 cient than in the practical ; with the origin of the common chord, 

 the diatonic scale, and the minor mode, she has no more acquaint- 

 ance than with the laws of harmony or counterpoint. The proba- 

 bility, moreover, is that she has never even heard the names of 

 composers who have been with justice considered as the Raphaels 

 and Michael Angelos of the art. 



Inferior models having been invariably placed before her, she is 

 alike ignorant, theoretically and practically, of all that constitutes 

 excellence in music ; and the more perfect the composition the less 

 qualified will she be found to understand or appreciate its merit. 

 Under these disadvantageous and disheartening circumstances, she 

 will either abandon the pursuit in despair or confine her practice to 

 a miniature collection, in her own hand-writing, of the prettiest 

 and newest waltzes. A favoured few may, no doubt, be found to 

 whom this description of the usual routine of a musical education 

 will be inapplicable, but it cannot reascmably be expected that these 

 exceptions should be capable of producing any perceptible effect on 

 public taste. 



It will, I presume, be readily conceded that the mind of a person 

 thus educated can be but slenderly provided with the knowledge 

 requisite to form a correct judgment of a performance so complicated 

 as that of a grand opera. 



The gentlemen auditors may, in general, be said to be in a still 

 more benighted state than the ladies : can it, then, be a subject for 



VOL. VI. — NO. XIX. F 



