1826.] 
words are carefully excluded ; and such 
hazardous expressions as tyrant, sycophant, 
time-server, placeman, court-jester, moun- 
tebank, royal menial, and so forth, are de- 
elared to be under special anathema. The 
volume which, as containing only the li- 
eensed words, will not be above a dozen 
pages of crown octavo, will be introduced by 
a preface, showing that the corruptness, dis- 
loyalty, and indelicacy of the age require ape- 
euliar'supervision in dramatic matters ; that 
-a licenser with unlimited powers, and be- 
yond:all appeal, is absolutely necessary ; 
and that, as it is fitting that this licenser 
‘should be a man of pure morals, unstained 
Jife; just in his dealings, chaste in his con- 
versation, George Colman, junior, is pre- 
cisely the man for the situation. 
Thie King’s Theatre is still crowded to 
hear Pasta, who has gone through a round 
of her favourite characters, and who cer- 
tainly sings better than she did when slie 
afrived. This improvement is a curious 
circumstance ; yet it frequently occurs, un- 
favourable as our climate is to delicacy of 
voice. Fodor improved marvellously while 
here, and seems to have jost her powers at 
Paris. Curioni, when he came here, was a 
miserable singer, strained, feeble, and awk- 
ward; he is now becoming a tolerable tenor, 
and, but for the fellow’s incorrigibly ugly and 
undramatic face, he would be a decent sub- 
stitute fora primotensre. Pasta’s improve- 
ment is considerable in all points; she 
sings with more taste, variety of tone, and 
neatness of execution, though in this last 
point she has still much to learn, She is 
gradually giving up that boisterous and bull- 
fronted style of acting, which she must have 
learned from the Lombard peasants, and 
which would be hissed on every stage. in 
the world excepting Paris, where they have 
no conception of tragic acting ; and in Eng- 
land, where the audience never care whie- 
ther Italian acting is good or bad, and where 
the best acting of the “ prime donne’’ never 
excites them to more than a yawn. 
But theatrical is like all other glory—like 
the glory of generals, orators, legislators, 
and lord-mayors—it is evanescent, a dream, 
a vapour, a rainbow. What has become of 
all the “‘ prime donne”’ that we have suc- 
_cessively adored ? In what oblivous gulf has 
even Catalini, the most magnificent of them 
all—that form of beauty, and that voice of 
 enchantment—she that might have stood for 
the representative of “‘ ‘Italian genius,” 
gone down from the sight of mankind— 
_ when even her brilliant star has sunk, where 
shall we look for the rest in the general 
overshadowing and eclipse? Pasta, too, 
the luminary of the season, is preparing for 
an obscuration, rapidly coming over her, in 
the shape of a Madame Soutag, a German, 
whose youth, beauty, voice, and brilliancy of 
fion, are running away with all the hearts, 
applauses, and five-franc pieces of the Opera 
5 
. Ttalienne of Paris. She will, of course, be 
Monthly Theatrical Review. 
empted by English gold, and we shall 
211 
have her here as soon as she shall have 
condescended to tell Mr. Ebers for how 
many thousand pounds a month she will 
condescend to visit our opera. 
All musicians, all singers, all composers, 
and all dancers are eccentrie ; but the most 
eccentric of all is the fiddler Paganini. For 
the last halfdozen years he has been on the 
point of coming to England; the Philhar- 
monic Concerts have lived but in the hope 
of his presence ; and the general combustion 
in the world of his imitators (for rivals he 
has none) has been unparalleled. Yet his 
heart has sunk within him ; he has been ter- 
tified by the report of the fogs, which 
would be fatal to his fiddle-strings, and 
with them, to his glory; and he has con- 
stantly shrunk from the perils of extin- 
guished renown. Paganini is, by universal 
acknowledgment, the monarch of violinists ; 
he is now an old man, but his tone, his 
rapid touch, his whirlwind of execution, 
approach to the sublime. His style is wild, 
strange, and severe; he is the Dante of 
fiddlers, and is not to be listened to but by 
persons of vigorous nerves and robust con- 
stitutions. ‘The Italian women fall into 
hysterics at the first sweep of his bow; and 
the Italian men, when they see the full in- 
spiration coming on him, consult their sanity 
by rushing out of the theatre. 
The English will stand any thing, and 
they stand Paganini and cannon-balls ; but 
he astonishes even their intense insen- 
sibility, frozen nerves, and national courage. 
Paganini learned his art of no man ; he had 
no master but nature ; and no school but a 
dungeon. For some act of early violence 
or singularity he had been thrown into pri- 
son; there he found a violin; the violin 
had but one string; the instrument became 
his consolation—he devoted himself to it 
with the fierce enthusiasm of his nature. 
At noon, at midnight, he was equally 
heard, drawing the most exquisite and 
powerful tones from this mutilated instru- 
ment; on this single string he not merely 
mastered all the difficulties of music, but 
produced new and marvellous combinations. 
Italian prisons are rapidly shut and slowly 
opened—he lay in this prison for ten years ; 
he at length issued out, covered with long 
hair, his brain half wild, his eye flashing, 
his step disordered, and his violin in his 
hand. It was probably that violin which 
had unlocked his prison-doors, for the 
fame of this imprisoned wonder of music 
had penetrated through all Italy. _ His first 
performance sanctioned all that had been 
told of his powers; he was from that mo- 
ment at the head of instrumental music in 
the land of music, and the Italians lift up 
their hands atid eyes to heaven when they 
hear the name of Paganini. 
The Greek war has been made the sub- 
ject of melo-drame at some of the minor 
theatres. Why should it be left to the mi- 
nor theatre? Why should not the winter 
ag sao a subject which would find a 
E 
