OPERA. 



OPERATION. 



top*. The uddn introduction on the public stage of a foreign 

 fenguag*, and that language delivered in recitative, would hare put 

 UM tolerating spirit of our countrymen to a trial far too seven to b 

 prudent ; the event, therefore, which was anxiously wuhed for by the 

 higher order*, to whom novelty U everything, and by thoee who had 

 acquired a new taut* in their travels, was gradually brought about. 

 In July, 1703, Italian iitlmiari, or "interludes and musical enter- 

 UiiunenU of ainging and dancing," were performed at York Building*. 

 Two years after, ' Arainde,' translated from the Italian, the dialogue 

 and narrative parts in recitative, and the aingers all English, was pro- 

 duced at Ihury Lane ; the pit and boxes were allotted to subscribers. 

 " Before and after the opera, dancing and singing, by Signora Margarita 

 de 1'Epine.* In 1 704, ' Camilla/ also a translation, was performed by 

 the same persons in a similar manner. The next year witnessed a 

 further and still bolder advance towards the final introduction of the 

 exotic melodrama ; TbomyrU, Queen of Scythia,' was brought out at 

 the same theatre, in which I'rlnuii, a castrate, and two foreign women 

 sang their parU in Italian, the other performers singing theirs in 

 English' At length, in 1710, ' Almahide,' written wholly in Italian, 

 and performed exclusively by foreign singers, was presented to the 

 public at the Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket. Thus the Italian 

 opera gained a settlement in this country ; and in spite of some oppo- 

 sition and much ridicule by which it was at first attacked, goon became 

 firmly fixed, and now seems to be OB necessary, as a source of amuse- 

 ment to the metropolis of this kingdom, as any other favourite and 

 long-established entertainment 



The Italian opera was brought into France in 1646, by the Cardinal 

 Maxarin, and continued for some years to be performed at the Louvre ; 

 but the establishment of the Academic Royale des Musique, in 1670, 

 superseded it, and except in 1772, when a troop of Italians represented 

 Pergolesi'a ' Serva Padrona' as an intermezzo, between the acts of Lulli's 

 ' Acis et Galatee,' it never again was heard at Paris till introduced 

 there early in the present century. 



The giand French opera is the legitimate melodrama, being wholly 

 musical, and was founded by Louis XIV. In 1669 that monarch 

 granted letters-patent to the Sieur Perrin for the establishment of 

 an 'Academic des Opera en Laiigue Francaise,' who, taking as his 

 partner the Sieur Cambert as composer, commenced his under- 

 taking at the Theatre de 1'Hotel de Guenegaud, in 1671, where 

 he produced ' Pomone,' the poetry by himself, and set to music 

 by his colleague. This is a pastoral drama, opening with a musical 

 prologue of about thirty lines, in which the author has contrived to 

 tuff a greater quantity of nauseous flattery of the Grand Monargue 

 than perhaps was ever compressed into so small a compass. In 1672 

 the privilege was transferred to Lulli, who, with the assistance of 

 Quinault, a lyric poet of very superior genius, conducted the Acaddmie 

 in a most able and successful manner till his death. [ Lri.u, in Bioo. 

 Drv.] Th opera comigue had its birth in France in 1750, in imitation 

 of the Italian opera buffa. This, however, is of the mixed kind, the 

 dialogue being spoken. 



The genuine Italian opera has long flourished in Germany. On the 

 birth of an archduchess in 1724, an opera was exhibited at Vienna 

 with uncommon magnificence. The opera, entitled ' Eurysteus,' was 

 written by Apostolo Zeno, and composed by Caldara. That imperial 

 poet-laureate was succeeded in office by Metastasio, who wrote many 

 of his admirable lyric dramas for the Italian theatre at Vienna, which 

 were set by the great masters of the day. His ' Clemenza di Tito,' as 

 composed by Mozart, will for ever be considered, by all true judges of 

 dramatic poetry and music, as the most beautiful and finished example 

 of the melodrama that human genius ever produced. For the different 

 German court* some of the finest operas have been composed, but we 

 con here only refer to the names of their authors, GLUCK, GRAUN 

 HANOEL, HASSE, MOZART, ROSSINI, SPOHII, WKHER, WIXTKR. &c., in 

 the Hi'),:. I)i v. 



What is called English opera, is with two or three exceptions, of 

 the mixed kind. The first that we have any account of that can be 

 relied on is Shadwell's Psyche,' composed by Matthew Lock, and 

 brought out in 1873. Two years after, Dryden wrote his ' Albion and 

 Albanius,' an opera, set by a Frenchman, Louis Grabut, whom, to 

 please the antinational king, Charles II., Dryden, in a preface to the 

 work, praises in high though most undeserved terms, at the expense of 

 his countrymen. But when that great poet wrote his ' King Arthur,' 

 he was fain to apply to Purcell for assistance, whose music has saved 

 t from the oblivion to which it would otherwise bo condemned. 



poet, in an epistle-dedicatory to this, takes an opportunity of 

 stractmg bis opinion of English composers. He says that music had 

 then arrived at a greater perfection in England than ever formerly : 

 qwdaUy passing through the artful hands of Mr. Purcell, who IMS 

 composed it with so great a genius, that he has nothing to fear but an 

 ill-judging audience," Addison's ' Rosamond v was, it is to be 

 supposed, a real opera, the dialogue in recitative. This was repre- 

 sented in 1 / 07, but failed, as Hawkins tells us, owing to the poverty of 

 the music by one Clayton. ' The Beggar's Opera' is so well known 

 It need only be named. The music is a good selection of the airs 

 most popular at the time, arranged by the celebrated Dr. Pepusch 

 les, by Dr. Arne, is the only opera, strictly so called, that 

 U place on the stage. Thi is nearly a translation of Metastasio's 

 Artaaene, by the composer himself, and though at the time severely 



criticised, is far superior to most of the musical dramas that have 

 since been written. The music is rich in beautiful melody, and if other 

 attempts at an English recitative opera had proved equal to this, the 

 melodrama might now have been firmly rooted in British ground. 

 Arne composed many other charming musical pieces ; his ' Love in 

 a Village ' will never be superannuated ; and in truth, if the dramatic 

 music of some of our countrymen who charmed the public ear during 

 the latter half of the last century could be heard without prejudice, 

 and without that yearning after what is foreign and new which 

 characterises "the fashionable world," and others who yield to iU 

 influence, it would be admitted that in original expressive melody we 

 are inferior to no nation in Europe, startling as the proposition in.-iy 

 be to those who have not impartially and duly considered the subject. 

 [Aim:; ARNOLD; BISHOP; DIBMN ; JACKSON; LINLEY ; Sun in; 

 STORAGE ; in Bioo. Dir.] 



OPERATION. This article is to be considered as a continuation of 

 ALGEBRA, and as a development of the views of the nature of algebra 

 there laid down. It cannot be read entire, except by students who 

 have some acquaintance with the Differential Calculus, Ac. 



The great considerations on which the mathematics are founded 

 have always, until lately, been stated as those of number and space ; so 

 that arithmetic and geometry have been called the wings of this branch 

 of exact science. This similitude, suggested by the twofold character 

 of its objects of comparison, may be carried a step further ; for as 

 wings will not enable a bird to fly without nerves and sinews, so the 

 mere consideration of space and number will never make a mathema- 

 tician, without an organised method of using the ideas of both. \\Y 

 have already [MATHEMATICS] suggested that the science of operation 

 must be a constituent part of mathematics ; but it has always been so 

 mixed up with the sciences bearing names derived from number and 

 measure, that until lately it has had neither separate name nor exist- 

 ence ; and even now, what has been done in it is only the mere begin- 

 ning of a system. 



The use of symbols of operation not standing for magnitudes but 

 for directions how to proceed with magnitudes, began with LeibniU 

 and Newton, before whose time all algebraical characters denoted 

 simple numbers. The progress of the Differential Calculus forced the 

 attention of mathematicians upon modes of denoting, not results of 

 processes, but ways of proceeding. The generalisations arising out of 

 the organisation which notation gave to processes led to the use of 

 indefinite and arbitrary symbols of operation. [FUNCTION.] Finally, 

 it was observed that the symbols of operation employed in many 

 general theorems would give simple and well-known relations if their 

 meaning as symbols of operation were forgotten, and they were con- 

 sidered as symbols of quantity. For example, if A0(.rjbe <f> (.c + 1) 

 <px, A being a symbol, not of a quantity multiplying <p.r, but of 

 an operation to be performed upon cp.c ; and if D <p.c, u j <f>.r, &c. denote 

 the successive differential coefficients of <j>.t, Taylor's theorem gives 



A <i>X = 



D 3 $X 



If A and D had stood for quantities (which they do cot), the pre- 

 ceding equation might have been divided by <px, and the result would 

 have been 



A = D + D* + 



= - 1 . . . . (A) 



If such a result had been obtained by those mathematicians who first 

 ventured on the use of a negative quantity, they would doubtless have 

 given to operations a sort of existence as quantities, and would have 

 felt no repugnance to say that the direction to change <p.c into $(x + 1) 

 <t>x was equal to raised to the power of a direction to differentiate 

 <t>x, diminished by a unit. This might have beat their negative quan- 

 tity (or arithmetical quantity less than nothing) in the complication of 

 its absurdities, but not in absolute impossibility. Let two persons be 

 required, the one to take four yards out of three, and the other to 

 subtract a unit from not the differential coefficient of <p.t, but the 

 direction to take the differential coefficient of Qr, and it could hardly 

 be said that the first had a more hopeless task than the second. 



The modern mathematicians, with Lagrange at their head, had had 

 too much experience of the nature of extensions to hazard any assump- 

 tion upon the properties of symbols of operation, when separated from 

 the quantity to be operated upon. The first step made was the ob- 

 servation that certain theorems involving symbols of operation might 

 be easily remembered by the resemblance of the formula to well-known 

 expressions; in fact, by the coincidence of those formula with the 

 expressions, on the supposition that the symbols of operation un- 

 changed in meaning, and become symbols of quantity. And if it be 

 said that these mathematicians were saved from introducing a diffi- 

 culty analogous to that of negative quantities by the want of resem- 

 blances already existing in common modes of speaking and common 

 views of arithmetic, it may be answered that such was not the case, 

 but that it would have been easy, and was not without precedent, to 

 consider arithmetic itself as a science of operations upon one single 

 magnitude, the unit. If we always express the unit by i, we may, if 

 we please, consider 2 not as I -t- 1, but as the direction to perform upon 

 I the operation in I + 1 ; so that 2 being merely a direction what to do, 2 [ 



