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actually recovering its earlier spirit, and 
whose old popularity has suddenly returned 
in all its deserved vigour, had a prodigious 
audience on his night; and, if we are to 
believe report, more were turned from the 
doors than were admitted. 
It was a remarkable feature of the sea- 
son, that the only novelties were two 
operas: both not unpopular but neither 
likely to survive, and neither sustaining the 
reputation of the composers. Bishop’s 
opera of Aladdin, magnificent in scenery 
and decoration, but failing in plot and dia- 
logue, and resting upon the music, had 
the advantage of coming out at a period 
when the rival opera had already lost its 
novelty ; and when its faults might have 
been a warning: but WelLer’s genius over- 
hung the composer. This opera was an 
imitation, and though it displayed some 
graceful conceptions, the result was feeble- 
ness and virtual failure. 
The vigour, brilliancy, and depth of 
Weber’s style, did not desert him in his 
opera of Oberon; it contained some noble 
passages, a great deal of finely harmonized 
music, gave throughout evidence of the 
great master. But its science was too 
obtrusive, its melodies were too profound, 
and the memory of Der Freischutz was 
too splendid and recent for the hope of 
triumph. It fought its way to the close 
of the season, and will probably be revived 
as a curiosity long after it shall have lost all 
interest as a performance. 
Yet now a new and melancholy interest 
attaches to it from the death of its com- 
poser. At the time of Weber’s arrival in 
this country, it was obvious that his health 
was in a most precarious state, great fee- 
bleness of person, a pallid physiognomy, 
reluctance to move or speak, gave signs of 
the decay that was so soon to carry him to 
the grave. He was naturally of a con- 
sumptive habit ; and the study of his art, 
an infinitely exhausting and mind-wearying 
labour, naturally tended to increase his 
disease. He composed with the intense 
application of a German; and the dange- 
rous and reckless fervour of an enthusiast. 
The severest bodily labow is not more ex- 
hausting than thought urged to excess; 
but there is this fatal difference on the side 
of the mind, that its labours of the day 
deprive the night of sleep.- The peasant 
flings himself on his bed, and never feels 
the trouble: of existence till morn. The 
man of genius, lies down without the capa- 
city of rest, tosses from hour to hour in 
feverish and waking nervousness, or rambles 
in dreams, not less feverish and still more 
fearful— 
--——‘* Is blown about upon the raving winds, 
’ Hangs on the outside of the pendant world; 
“Rolls onthe ridgy cloud, or thence flung down 
Dives in the caverns of the ancient earth, 
Or fights the slimy worm in new made gravés, 
‘Or Jies inthe pitchy vault, and sees pale ghosts; ' 
Walk from their leaden beds, and hold wild talk 
Monthly Theatrical Review. 
[JuLy, 
Of things that make the hair stand up, the bones 
And firm-knit muscles shake; the clammy tongue 
Cleave to the lips, the chilling blood run back 
Turning the-man to stone.” —— ‘ ‘ 
Weber is a great loss to the musical 
world. He was the only man who had 
attempted originality in our day, perhaps in 
a much longer period than our day. Mo- 
zart’s genius is now beyond all question, 
but his style was Italian; if his melodies 
were his own, his spirit was devoted to the 
richness, tenderness, and exquisite feeling 
of the southern school. He was less a 
German than an Italian in the whole con- 
ception of his music; as the poet says, 
** More an ancient Roman than a Dane.” 
His ‘‘ Figaro” is incomparable, but it is 
the light and fantastic gaiety of the south, 
Even his “ Don Giovanni,” profound and 
magnificent as it is, and uniting all the bold- 
ness of genius with the highest refinement 
of taste, his Don Giovanni the imperish- 
able monument Of its composer’s fame is 
Italian, in the deepest rush of its harmo- 
nies it is but the rushing of that Roman 
torrent, which once swept away all the 
talent of Europe in its stream, and which 
shall roll on while genius has power to cap- 
tivate and enthrall the human mind. 
Rossini’s fame, which so long had no 
rival, was founded upon the double imi- 
tation of the Getman and the Italian 
schools. His melodies were often exqui- 
site and native, his accompaniments had 
the depth, the variety, and the lavish use 
of instruments, that characterize the north. 
He rose rapidly and seemed to have at 
length attained that secure height from 
which eminent talents look down without 
fear on popular caprice or the changes of 
time. But his strength has been over- 
powered at once: his fame is forgotten, 
his light has been suddenly absorbed and 
extinguished in the more intenseand power- 
ful splendour of Der Freischutz. What 
Weber might have yet done must, of 
course, be now mere conjecture. But his 
future powers were not to be concluded on 
from the partial failure of his Oberon. 
It was in a language of which, with all 
his zeal he knew little ; it was composed 
under the anxiety of a limited time ; it was 
not the spontaneous suggestion of his own 
taste; finally, it was task work. All this 
does not imply, that it was not perfectly 
voluntary, and that the proposition to 
compose.an opera for the British stage was 
not highly creditable to the proposers, as 
. well as a fair object of ambition ta Weber. 
But every man who knows the natural 
working of the mind, will know that no- 
thing can be taken as the estimate of its 
actual powers, but the subject of its own 
unsolicited suggestion, the meditation of 
its solitary name, the urgent’ and’ instrae- 
tive passion ofits own lonely enthusiasm. 
Such was the Freischutz. The period 
which it had taken Weber to compose'that 
