58 
CAMOENSIA MAXIMA (WELWITSCH). 
[Nature and Art, February 1, 1867. 
popularize their own inventions. Instances both 
native and foreign might be quoted of this double 
gift vested in one person, though, unhappily, in very 
unequal degrees. Herr Streichart is all very well j 
when engaged in the cause of Mozart or Beethoven, 
but when, on every possible occasion, he bursts into 
songs of his own composing, Herr Streichart does 
mot advance civilization to the best of his ability. 
So, from one of the most popular English tenors, 
his countrymen have a right to expect greater con- 
solation than that to be derived from his personal 
efforts in ballad-writing. Singers who are also 
composers will naturally give their own songs 
whenever and wherever they possibly can ; and this 
must be accepted as one influence at work against 
the more frequent introduction of good music into 
the concert-rooms. 
It will surely be admitted that the native school 
boasts of many young sopranos, whose names are 
constantly seen in matinee programmes, but almost 
invariably in connection with one or two songs, 
which are made to last' for a season, and which are 
repeated everywhere without the least apparent 
compunction. A fair-haired English Miss (all 
honour to her for despising the Mdlle. apostasy), 
begins the season with vocal reflections on the 
blessings which follow a “ Genial vernal shower 
continues in precisely the same strain, and carols 
on to the end of the fashionable months, without 
advancing any new theory whatever. All this is 
infinitely monotonous, infinitely inartistic, and in- 
finitely damaging to the interests of music. From 
the German sopranos we cannot get the lovely songs 
of Schubert and Mendelssohn, but are obliged to 
put up with vocal valses, none of them comparable 
with Yenzano’s, which poor Madame Gassier sang 
so well. The best songs, either English or foreign, 
are unfortunately not those ordinarily met with at 
concerts, and the complacency with which artists 
pass over, neglect, and contemptuously ignore the 
thousand good compositions within reach, and waste 
their talents on inferior songs, is to be sincerely 
deplored. 
A resume of recent musical events will, of 
necessity, be brief. Mr. Alfred Mellon at Covent 
Garden (for during the reign of Harlequin the old 
name of the theatre may be spoken), has clearly 
proved that anything will do as a prelude to a 
gorgeous pantomime. M. Emile Jonas’s Avant les 
Hoces, called by Mr. Gilbert a Beckett, the English 
librettist, Terrible Hymen , is about as vapid and 
meaningless a trifle .as the English public were ever 
called upon to tolerate. But two persons are con- 
cerned in rendering M. Jonas’s inspirations : Mdlle. 
Linas Martorelli plays Marie, a bride elect, and 
Signor Gustave Garcia, Pierre, the stronger vessel, 
on the road to matrimony. Pierre is decidedly 
weak-minded, and Marie the reverse. The fun 
(save the mark !) consists in a change of costume, 
and poor Signor Garcia is in vain called upon to 
be comical in his handsome companion’s drapery, 
Pierre speaks broken English, and this does not 
improve the situation. Signor Garcia sings, well, 
and so does Mdlle. Martorelli ; but both are out of 
place in Terrible Hymen, which, fortunately, takes 
little more than half an hour in representation. 
Of the Forty charming Thieves we have nothing to 
remark except to be taken prisoner would inevitably 
be to renounce the respectable world, and join their 
band. Mr. Tom Holder made his debut as an 
oratorio singer in Elijah, at the Sacred Harmonic 
Society’s concert in the last month of the last year. 
Mr. Holder had a cold, and undertook the tenor 
part at a short notice ; but Mr. Holder made a dire 
mistake in undertaking the music at all. He will 
have another opportunity of asserting his claims to 
be regarded as something more than a respectable 
tenor when Mr. Mapleson re-opens his magnificent 
theatre ; but Mr. Holder has so much to learn that 
his chances of distinction are very doubtful. That 
he has disappointed expectations,- is beyond doubt, 
and that those expectations were raised upon totally 
false grounds is tolerably evident. The public tire 
of hearing a singer practise. The best thing for 
any one in need of such training is to go through 
it in private, and avoid theatres or concert-rooms 
during the course. 
At a concert given by Mr. Henry Leslie at St. 
James’s Hall, on January 5th, Mr. Santley sang, 
for the first time, a sequel to the “ Stirrup Cup,” 
by Signor Arditi. Sequels are seldom impressive, 
or at all equal to the original songs, and “The Gift 
and the Giver ” is no exception whatever to the 
rule. On Saturday the 12th, a series of Promenade 
Concerts was commenced at Her Majesty’s Theatre 
— of which more anon. 
CAMOENSIA MAXIMA (WELWITSCH).* 
T HE African continent, perhaps, of all the large 
continents, is, although unlike South America 
and many parts of tropical Asia, covered with 
dense forests of almost innumerable species, forming 
impenetrable masses of luxurious vegetation, the 
* Dr. Welwitscli, the celebrated African traveller, who 
collected this plant and from whose specimens our plate was 
taken, had promised to furnish us with an article upon it ; 
but, unfortunately, he has been by indisposition prevented 
from so doing. 
richest in vegetable wonders and curiosities ; and 
the well-known adage, “ ex Africa semper aliquid 
novum,” is, with the progress of exploration,' con- 
tinually being realized. Two very singular and 
interesting plants have already been illustrated in 
this work, viz., the Welwitschia mirdbilis and the 
Tree- Aloe ; and, to recall some other remarkable 
forms, the branched Palm ( Hyp/uene Thebaicd), the 
Baobab (Adansonia diyitata), and the thick-fleshy - 
stemmed vines ( Vitis Bainesii and V. macrojms) 
