again alone and cold on my crumpled

sheet of paper.

Lisa took me to herself. I was put into a drawer, and time passed on. I became impatient of my long seclusion, and was truly glad to find myself packed up to go to Vienna. Lisa was to study as a music-teacher, not for the stage, she said; but there is no believing the sincerity of a woman's intentions when under orchestral influence.

It was strange that Lisa never took me to her class; she kept me under lock and key, and I only had exercise at night, when other things were done: then Lisa took me from my cell to sing me and cry over me, and despair over my difficulties.

No one knows what a life I led then,-banged about, transposed into a key below my taste, maimed, murdered, suffocated, brought to life again: no one can tell what racking tortures I suffered. Oh, Stefano! Spiro! did you hear my cries in the invisible world where ye dwelt ?— I, your child, your beloved, thus illused and deprived of the glory that was my due from my birth.

Lisa was a very persevering girl; she had a heart, but it was a German heart, and that did not quite suit me as an Italian born and bred. She ploughed me up fearfully, and there was none of the vindictive grace of an ancient Fury in the turn she gave to my final measures. I remained only a half-disclosed mystery to her. What was to become of me? I should, perhaps, be brought out at the Mannheim Opera House, and find myself degraded and lost for ever to all hope of success. In the meantime, Lisa laboured ten hours a-day, with a voice as tough as shoeleather, and hoarse and uncertain; but on she went, as dogged in her obstinate industry as if she were doing something wrong: in which case people always are obstinate, I have observed, especially the

women.

Well, time and practice do wonders, and Lisa determined to go to England and try her fortune; and I was to go to England to London - the promised land of needy genius, where princely pay is offered for what most of them, honest people, don't understand. But, no, let me be fair; I am now indulging in the clap-trap of Italians and such Children of the

Sun,' and the stage! I will tell the truth. Of all poetry, give me the poetry of an English heart. Poetry, not selfish passion usurping the name. Give me the refined intellectual love of idealised nature, which has dictated the chaste gaiety of Milton's Allegro, and the healthy, wholesome loveliness, that shines on the face of the poethood of Britain. Honour to thee, little, chill, northwestern isle! Set in the grey waters of a disagreeable channel, thou art the home of holy and homely affections. I have felt humbled to the dust before an English ballad, ridiculous enough, too; but it was so good a creature, breathing of simple, pure affections, and all that language of the heart which touches in prose or poetry. The poetry of common life; there the British bards and singers reign, indeed, alone!

We came to England; it was the beginning of the season: May was shewing her dear, smiling face, over the very chimney-pots of the great city. And that great city! the annual fever was beginning to throb in her veins, and the Opera House was open, and concerts were ringing through the Hanover Square Rooms morning, noon, and night, and my poor Lisa wanted to sing at the Ancients.' Alas! I feared that Madame Vestris would have been as likely to perform some Olympic espièglerie on that platform, as my poor Lisa to bring me before an admiring public. She had a letter of introduction to the élite of the musical world of London; and to the tender mercies of Lord Gorehampton she was expressly commended by her ci-devant master at Vienna. The nobleman asked a few select friends to dinner, and Lisa was to be trotted out in the evening, and her merits to be decided on. Poor girl! she took me from my portfolio, and sang me through six times before breakfast. It was a fearful ordeal that she had to go through. She went at ten, as she was ordered to do, and found Lady Gorehampton, who was slightly deaf, asleep on a sofa. A page wakened her, and she begged Lisa to take a seat, and then looked through her portfolio. I was looked at, and passed over, and at last the gentlemen entered. The party consisted of Lord Gorehampton, a nobleman

of well-known musical enthusiasm. He had written sixteen MS. operas, and several things which he called airs of his own. It was giving him

self very great airs to call them so. He had kindly patronised Pasta, and had done a great deal for Catalani; the Philharmonic would have been at zero without him, and the Ancients looked to him as a tower of strength. He sat in an arm-chair, with his eyes on the ceiling, looking fiddles and kettle-drums at every body, beating time on his snuff-box to a march played by his lady from his own opera of Edmondo Ironsides, an Anglo-Saxon spectacle with British music.

The next distinguished personage was the Hon. Harry an aging tenor, full of airs (not of music though), with a much finer manner than he had a voice, and looks more saucy than supercilious. He had been the 'tame man' of fashionable singers for many a long year, and he had been the Rubini of his own set until he far surpassed the great tenore in consequential capers. There was, besides, a spiteful middle-aged bass, a Mr. Melville, and an old gentleman whom every one declared to be a person of exquisite taste-for nothing, however, but his dinners, that I could see or discover. This was the party, with the addition of one more gentleman, who arrived late.

I was looked through. Stefano! Ah, non lo conosco! murmured Lord Gorehampton. He spoke Italian on high days and holydays. He begged to be spared the infliction of any obscure music, and invited Lisa to try her mettle on an aria for William the Conqueror in the grand opera of The Norman Conquest, written by himself. He kindly sat down to accompany, and I listened to a performance of loathsome length. Such an indecent clattering of ivory I never before gave ear to. It was a mixture of Balfe and Bunn, and a delicious dash of Donizetti's dregs. Shade of Orpheus! had you only heard the imbecile pomp of the conclusion, you would have dashed your golden lyre from the seventh heavens down on the nodding head of his lordship of Gorehampton, and have silenced him thus for ever!

He was just finishing his air on the unusual word in an Italian song,

6

Why, no,' said Lord Gorehampton. You see they won't sing things there till one is dead. It is a great bore that one must die first one's self. Isn't it, now?'

'A shameful regulation!' said Vane; and, to conceal a smile, he began to examine me. I saw his noble and intelligent face, and longed to be introduced to his notice and love. He soon became absorbed in He put me on the music-desk. 'You will sing this for me,' he said, to the trembling Lisa.

me.

She sat down, and, with a voice veiled with fear of failure, she breathed me forth. I only half existed on paper, it was while floating through space that I truly lived and felt the joy and glory of life. I passed through those mirrored and gilded chambers, and felt that splendour added no ray to my own brightness. Better to rise up beneath the humble roof of a cabin encircled by loving hearts and longing ears, than under the cold gilding of a palace with a fool on the music-stool. Lisa could not give me my full honours, but she was true and good as far as she went. She had the artistic heart of a faithful disciple, and she interpreted clearly the outline of my intentions. Vane listened attentively, and soon after went away. The evening conIcluded with another selection of airs from Gubba's répertoire, and then we went home; - home to dreary

'Ah, yes, it is a fine thing to be a prima donna! Fancy Giulia getting her two and three hundred a-night, while we have to starve and dance for twenty. So sighed Mademoiselle Carlotta, in a pink gingham, and white satin shoes with orange bindings. 'And she is such a vain wretch, and so shabby to the chorus! Fan y her poor women, who attend her in all her deaths and faints, not to speak of other things, never get a farthing from her. And she never pays her Medea and Norma brats; not a bit, poor things! Besides, she is a pest to the prompter, and a disgrace to the profession. Ah, well, it's a fine thing to be a prima donna! But I don't want to have diamond shoeties at the expense of my peace of mind. I could not do the pirouette with any weight on my conscience.'

'Lord Vane admires her, does he not ?'

'Oh, that is an old story! Oh, yes, I dare say. Who does not admire her? But I am sure he cannot esteem her; and what is love without respect?' said Carlotta, with much dignity. 'However, she expects to be a viscountess some fine day. dremo noi altri.

Ve

That evening Lisa sat alone, musing over the past and the gloomy present. She heard voices on the stair, and her landlady entered. She said that there was a lady below asking, she supposed, for lodgings, but that she could not comprehend her; and she begged Lisa to come and help her, for Lisa spoke a little English. A stranger stood on the stair; she wished for lodgings; she had just come from abroad, and was anxious, if possible, to procure them that night. She was established accordingly in a room next Lisa's. She went to bed early, and Lisa saw no more of her that night.

It was about noon next day that a note reached Lisa. It was an offer to her to sing, at the Ancient Concert of the following Wednesday, the

piece performed at Lord Gorehampton's. Lisa almost fell on her knees with gratitude, and accepted the engagement without delay. Then, poor girl, she hurried out to buy gloves, a wreath, and a pair of new shoes, and I was left alone.

'Ho, ho!' I thought, 'now my time is come. I feel frightened rather. Ahem! I wonder how I shall sound.' Lisa came home heated, feverish, and penniless, for she had been more extravagant than seconda donnas should be; and it was with a very uncertain voice that she sang me through, or rather, she had only begun to sing, when the door was suddenly opened and the stranger stood there. She sprang forward

and listened.

Canta pure! she cried; and then she leant over the piano, and tears fell over her face. Lisa finished and rose, and the stranger approached the piano, seized me, and kissed me with tears of joy.

Ti ritrovo ancor! and then she paused. She laid her hand on the chords: like a prophetess preparing to declare her awful mission she stood. Lo! what sound of unearthly sweetness invested itself in my form! a meaning, new and unexpected, dawned on Lisa's mind. I rose with an unapproachable glory on the ear and heart of the sole listener. She could have fallen down on her face before the form of the Greek, for it was she! Xanthi, the long-remembered, the adored of Spiro, the Ionian girl I had seen years before at Florence, and I had dwelt in her heart ever since. We met like long-parted lovers, and I trembled beneath the joy of a full interpretation by a voice and genius of matchless power. I had at last met with my equal; I was fitly mated at last. Ah!. were we now to part?

It was the morning of the rehearsal at length, and I trembled for my fate. Poor Lisa, I did thee injustice! At eleven o'clock she came and took me up, looked at me once with tears, and then walked to the door of the next room.

'I am ill!' she said: 'you, signora, are the most fit to take my place. See, take my music; my name, too; and, as Lisa, sing this divine song better than poor Lisa herself ever will!'

Joy! joy! I entered the concert

room in Xanthi's hand. That grave audience of dowagers and directors was delighted out of its propriety. But who shall recount the surpassing glories of the Wednesday night, when I was encored by the queen, and lauded by the bishops present, and when a venerable countess was removed in fits to the tea-room, and Field-marshal the Duke of Wellington said Good!' twice, and when the Morning Post screamed itself hoarse with admiration next day? But I am becoming quite too confidential.

One paragraph more. Xanthi made her appearance at the Opera House, Giulia took the jaundice, and Lord Vane took his leave of a termagant whom he had never loved.

The tide of fashion left Giulia stranded on the shore where she had ruled the waves, like Britannia, for some sixteen years.

'I could poison, kill, burn, mangle the wretched woman!' said Giulia to her favourite tire-woman, as she sat glaring over the last tirade of praise. And what is this monstrous song that she sings fifteen times every night? It makes me sick and faint to hear of such sinfulness. I'm sure it's ugly. Tell Costa he must get it for me without delay.'

Costa obeyed; the original sheet was procured; again I met the prima donna's eyes, and she read on my brow, Addio, Giulia!

W

HETHER I was born a schemer, or nursed into a schemer, or schooled into a schemer, or whether I have contracted a bad habit of speculation, I do not know. Something, perhaps, of each. Sure I am, however, that if that blank sheet of paper which, according to Locke, is to be found folded up in our crania at birth could have been submitted to examination, it would have been found, in some way or other, prepared to receive those irregular and fantastic tracings which an inventive fancy never fails to pencil upon it. Indeed, I am quite sure that it must have been so. My father and my grandfather before me were schemers and politicians, for your politicians and your schemers are generally made up of the same materials. They were great lovers of improvement, provided it were not to be exercised on their own fortunes or estates; and I presume that it was in pursuance of some scheme of philanthropy that they squandered the one and sold the other. Be that as it may, they died, as their descendant certainly will, and as almost all schemers must make up their minds to do-poor. As they had fair opportunities of growing rich, and were not, that I am aware of, addicted to intemperance, or such-like bad prac

tices, the natural inference is, that they were more taken up with other men's affairs than with their own, and that my scheming propensities are hereditary.

But my nursing and early training were also favourable to the developement of these propensities. I suffered a very early loss of that parent whom, as a child, I could least spare, and who would, doubtless, have exercised (for she had the reputation of being a very sensible woman) an important influence on the developement of my character. As I was an only child, it happened that I was taken to live with my aged grandfather and grandmother, in a large solitary house, where, not having any playmates of my own age, I was left much to myself, and, by some strange oversight, was put away at night in a large lumbering attic at the top of the house, in the midst of a labyrinth of deserted rooms, the only living object there. Parents, let me give you a bit of advice. Never abandon a child of quick parts and delicate health to solitude. None but a child, and such a child, can tell what it is to be alone at night. Grown-up men and women may talk as they please of the pangs of lovers, and the fears and anxieties of parents, but let them trust one

who, being now a middle-aged man, can scarcely have escaped the first class of trials, though ignorant of the last, that there is no suffering comparable to the excited fears of sickly, solitary childhood. I may

have been more timid and less strong than most children are, but my sufferings, had they been diminished fourfold, would have been still hard to bear. Even now, after the lapse of some thirty years, I shudder as I think of them. No words can paint the mysterious terrors of that loud curfew-bell booming forth night after night from its great grey tower, during the first hour of what my kind ancestors on the first floor fondly imagined to be my repose, followed by that still more mysterious silence audible,' fit companion of the darkness visible' of my straggling chamber; nor the painful tension of every sense and faculty, reaching its climax in the bright flashes of light before the eyes, the loud singing in the ears, and the cold sweat bursting from every pore. When, at length, my excited imagination had succeeded in transferring the sound of my own breathing and the loud pulsations of my own heart to the breast of some ruthless assassin crouched under the bed, I could bear it no longer, but would rush screaming from my solitary chamber through tortuous passages to the head of the staircase, whence I made the whole house ring with loud cries of Jane! Jane! Jane!' I had never long to wait for my deliverance; for the kind soul would come at the first summons, lead me back to my solitary chamber, tuck me up, smooth my pillow, and soothe me till I was ready to fall asleep, when she would quietly slip away, ready to repeat the same soothing operation the next night. She was very gentle and patient with me, and never seemed to think me troublesome, or spoke one harsh word to me. I cannot say that the change from watching to sleep was a great gain to me. The habit of terror was too strong. My fears merely took a new direction from the natural to the supernatural. The terror, which had embodied itself in a human form under the bed, now scared me as a hideous phantom, ever ready to receive me in its ac

เ

cursed arms as I flew gaily down the staircase, or bounded over the wall. I have sometimes thought it in keeping with my scheming propensities that my dreams, both in childhood and manhood, have obligingly conferred upon me the faculty of flying. But to this moment I cannot understand from what source I drew those defined forms of terror which so pertinaciously insisted on receiving me as I alighted on the ground. There are many mysteries in dreams; I must not, however, waste the reader's time by attempting to solve them.

But my nights were far from being seasons of unmixed misery. I had my intervals of enjoyment when, with my head under the bed-clothes, I watched the brilliant circles of colours painted on my retina, or sketched, in exactest miniature, the cathedral, with its towers and spire, and fine old windows, and the carved work of the choir, and even the churchyard, to the minutest detail of graves and tombs. I am not sure whether or not this faculty of conception is rare with children: I certainly possessed it in a very remarkable degree, though, unlike the great German poet Goethe, I have not been able to retain it. At long intervals only, and then under great excitement, it comes back again with its power much impaired,- -as do also (and I am not ashamed to confess it) my waking terrors and fantastic dreams.

It has sometimes struck me as very strange that my aged grandfather and grandmother, who were often startled by my midnight shrieks, and would join me in calling for assistance, never thought of giving me a companion at night. It certainly was not from want of kindness, for on this score I was very far from having any thing to complain of; but I suppose that the lapse of sixty years or more had obliterated their recollections of childhood, and that it never occurred to them to put an end to my solitude.

I have alluded to these passages of my childish history because I cannot but attribute to this early and repeated excitement of that sentiment of fear, which is ever so nearly allied to the workings of the fancy, some share in making me the schemer that I am. Then, again, I was, even in