The Express.
London, England, 1865-05-01 00:00:00

cial regularity nootherexamplesappear then the se-
condary constitutional states of Holland andßelgium.
The causes of this untoward position of affairs have
been often pointed out, but are as far from the
chance of being removed as they were years ago.
The evil may be described in few words—exces-
sive military expenditure. It is true that we our-
selves have not entirely escaped, but our insular
position has saved us from much of that enormous
outlay which is crippling the countries of conti-
nental Europe. Even if we have spent more the
increase in the national wealth has enabled us to
bear the burden so easily that in this age of enor-
mous deficits the unique spectacle is presented of
a Minister of Finance with more than 4,000,000/.
on hi hands.

1,413 T INTIMIAGaIaik

THE FIRST

(sztrrn's TILIGIU111.)
THE EMPEROR'S JOURNEY TO ALGERIA.

APRIL 30.

The Emperor arrived her at 6 o'clock this even-
ing. The imperial carriage paned through Lyons
without esoort. The streets were draped with
flags, and his Majesty met with an enthusiastic
reception.
The Emperor afterwards dined on board the
imperial yacht Aigle.
His Majesty will leave Marseilles for Algeria to-
morrow morning at 9 o'clock.

There is no doubt that a great portion of our
national prosperity proceed■ from the increase
in commerce, notwithstanding the drawbacks occa-
sioned by the monetary pressure in the autumn of
last year, and the consequent fail in value of some
of the most important articles of produce. Still
the steady development of both foreign and do-
mestic trade will not fully amount for our increas-
ing wealth. It is not without importance that the
numerous public companies formed during the last
two years are now making • fair return. The
capital invested is yielding its profit. It is very
easy to talk of the manufacture of companies, pro-
moters and so forth, in • disparaging sense, but
there is no doubt that joint-stock enterprise has
materially added to the wealth of the nation, and
notably so at the present period. Suppose that
these undertakings had not been established, the
capital they employ must either have remained un-
productive, or perhaps been uselessly wasted. Over
speculation is no doubt to be deprecated, but it can
hardly do more harm than over caution. The
man who loses his money by embarking it in •
bubble company is practically no worse off than his
neighbour who buries his own in the ground with-
out ever venturing to touch it. In both cases there
is an equal waste of means which, judiciously used,
would have benefited both the possessor himself
and indirectly the nation at large.
The only point upon which the Budget has been
censured, however lightly, is the apparently small
surplus which is left to meet the chance of future
contingencies. But, whatever may be said, this
argument appears to have been either urged too
far or not far enough. Looking at the growing
revenue of the country, the probability of an ave-
rage if not abundant harvest, and the certain
advance in trade—likely to make increasingly
rapid strides now that the pacification of America
is reduced to • question of months—it seems ab-
solutely certain that, es on the present occasion,
the next Budget will show that the national
income has been under tether than over estimated.
Whether the sum now reserved be a question of •
quarter or half a million more or less will, there-
fore, be of no particular consequence. Taking,
however, the opposite view, the only chance of our
being led into a large and unexpected expenditure
must be found in • foreign war. In that case a
million more or less will be but a drop in
the ocean, and is not worth taking into
account. One of the chief arguments urged for
a lightening of the Customs or Excise duties has
been that increased consumption will soon repair
the deficit, and this position has almost invari-
ably proved true within modern experience. It
would, therefore, appear the true policy of the
nation rather as • matter of choice to overstep the
limits of prudence than to keep too timidly within
them. With • certainty, as far as all human
things are certain, of gain next year, why should
we hesitate to ensure • positive advantage in this ?
For these reasons it can hardly be denied that Mr.
GLADSTONE has done wisely in being satisfied with
his modest surplus of a quarter of • million ; espe-
cially as his estimate is pretty sure to be falsified
in precisely the manner a popular and successful
Chancellor of the Exchequer would prefer.

A Cabinet Council was held on Saturday at the
official residence of the First Lord of the Treasury,
in Downing-street. The ministers present were
---;.be Lord Chancellor, Earl Granville, the
Duke of Argyll, Sir George Grey, Earl Rus-
sell, the Right Hon. Edward Cardwell, Earl de
C:ey, Sir Charles Wood, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer' the Duke of Somerset, the Right Hon.
T. Milner Gibson, Lord Stanley of Alderley, the
Earl of Clarendon, and the Right Hon. C. P.
Villiers.

11.1
'll3kll. 44
PSGiI
ti
M DA rVV KING, MAY 1, 1965.

EI'ItESENTATION OF i

" L'AFRICAINE."

We find in the Independance Beige of yesterday
the following critique of Keyerbeer's new operas
produced at Paris on Friday night :
On Saturday morning, shortly after 1 o'clock, the repro-
mistake of L'Africaine, which began, with • punctuality
quite military, at a quarter-past 7, was terminated.
1 hasten to give you the impressions which this
grand occasion has produced upon me, believing
that it will not be without some interest for the readers of
the independence, were it even only as an offering of
early fruit. Proceeding to take my place in the orchestra
through the Rue Lepelletier, which wee magnificently
lighted es far as the Boulevards, mein the facade of the
opera outlined ander its garlands of gas, and marked from
space to space by symbolical stars, beholding the
crowds of carriages filled with young women in
splendid toilettes, and ornamented with Bowen and
diamonds—l could not refrain from thinking I was going to
some splendid Mt*. It was a fête, and • lima operatic
Pte. The Emperor and Empress, who took possession of
their box a little before the end of the first act, were
dressed in deep mounds', and some ladies ie the boxes of
the fiat tier were also similarly attired. In general the
gentlemen adopted • blank dress and a white cravat.
The vast space of the opera was filled to the
ceiling with a crowd of young Mile, whom spring
toilettes, fall of splendour and freshness, brought
out in the most pleasing manner the sombre ground-
work of the scene. A great number of the official
world were present, no doubt as a portion of the cortege
of the Emperor, who decidedly leaves to-morrow for
Algeria, as well as to witness a second time the work of
Mayerbeer, of which they had already a foretaste in the
general rehearsal, which took place on Sunday evening.
The impressions produced on the first occasion were entirely
confirmed by the final trial which has just taken place.
The MOW was so great sad derided that we have to re-
gister a new clef crwurre for its composer. Can the same
be said for the author of the poem' I doubt it ; he has
obtained but a hypothetical moues.
You already know that the subject of L'Africai ne ia Vasco
de Gains, the bold Portuguese navigator whose glory
and adventures have been described by Osmoses la his
Lusiades. I frankly confess to you that I never read
the poem composed in honour of View de Gams, Count
of Vidiguerra sad Admiral of the lodise. I am therefore
totally unable to Nay whether then is to be toned in the
poem of C11:11041101 the least trace of the double love which
the hero felt for Donna Inez, • daughter of a member of
the Royal Council, and for a beautiful African slave
welled &like, who before she was made • cap-
tive was the powerful Queen of Malgachee. I
am even inclined to think that this double love, like
many other details of the new work, has had its origin in
the imagination of the moat fertile and often the most sue-
easeful librettist of our era ; for if we are to believe the
historians, Vasco de Game, born about 1450, was not less
than fifty years when he was smithy King Emmanuel to seek
the new route to India by doubling the Cape of Good Hope.
Now this is not precisely the age of love ; but in the
theatre, sad especially is an operatic poem, we must not
look too close. However this may be, it ie in the changes to
which this double lovegives rise that the librettist has sought
the interest of his action, or of his plot. There is, at least,
an element of curiosity in the situation of • man like
Vasco de Gams placed between two women,
' both of whom he loves stweeraively, if not simul-
tenwasly, the one because be owes her much gran-
' lads, the other simply bemuse he owes her nothing but the
happiness of -lov;ug and being loved. But for an operatic
poem a half psychological and physiological subject would
not suffice ; therefore each of these two ladies has a wood
lover, whose assiduities they a:perigees with regret,
Dings Inez, the European, is betrothed from the
rising of the curtain to • greet lord, Don
Pedro, President of the Royal. Council. Selika, the
African, has • companion in slavery, • certain Nelasko, wbo
was also a great chief in the island of Madagascar before be
became captive through an improbable adventure at sea.
These two lovers are naturally lesions, with all the
strength of lovers in Portugal and Africa, and the one is
quite as passionate as the other. However, the jealousy of
the Portuguese is more legitimate, became Donna Inez
become his wife. You now understand all the obstacles
against which the imagist Vasco de Gams had
to contend. If he paid his court to Donna Inez, the
jealous Selika will be sure to make him repent of it ; if he
escapes from the terrible Portuguese, the iudignant Males-
°hien is ready to punish him. He must be a very adroit
navigator to steer his barque between thew opposite
rocks. Here, therefore, are five leading personages well
marked. L'Afrievsne ie in five ads, and wises
through three phases of action ; the first takes
place in Lisbon ; the second at ems ; the third is
the Island of Madagascar—at least we suppose it
is there. In the first act the scene is in the council cham-
ber of the King of Portage]. Vasco de Gams, who was
believed to have been lost at NM in one of his daring

which farms the poetic uslilecit of the seemed tableau takes
pleas. The seem is a marvel of colour sad effect. Hem it
is that &like, having before her eyes the mil mesa ea
which appeared in the distance the rued which wee
to bear De Gams and Inez, lupines with • sombre plea-
sure the fatal perfume of the fruit with red leaves, which
leads gradually from delirium to death. Nu mks, slope
the witness of her agony, remaine bent beside his quells,
whom be hag so much loved:and who, if she is not to be him,
will oot at lout belong to anybody Si... This is the nab-
, steam of the libretto. There are osetalnly other more
interesting, more dramatic, and eves more ably conceived;
but Meyerbeer, who undeestood the enbjeut and who scald
exercise • ellectiou from a aerials number of poems, gave the
pzeterence to the present one, sod the afoot of the fled re-
pressistatiou shows that be was Dot quite wrong. There is
in L'Africaine what we rusty lad is this kind of theatrical
productions, the difficulties of which are greater than are
royally supposed, mnical situations happily craosived
sad combined, sad in default aI a very marked oppeeition
is the eentimenta of the persons, all of them lovers in their
Whim, &certain variety of types which his supplied to the
oompoesr the subject of many a sublime pusses and more
! than one inspiration, which will Monroe immortal like the
name of Meyerbeer himself.
Without doubt the gems& offset at the score is not lees
severe this grand. In the three list sots sapeoiallv, it
is the lyrical iselopeeta, after the fashion of Gluck,
which prevails, and we feel that this majestic
Janus bifroas of made, one of whose faces was
constantly towards Germany, his country, whilst the other
was turned towards Italy sod perhaps • little towards
France, wished as far astpoesible, to fix his eyes on the side
of the Rhine, but from the beginning of the fourth act, the
melody flows in full flood, and even in the preoeding sea,
where it is absent from the singing, we discover it is the
marvelloue 'mope:eat of the orchestra. I shall
imam myself at present to pointing oat the porticoes which
have mediated the strongest and mostprolociad afoot lathe
first act the chorus for Mesa of the (rend loquisitioo, and the
bishops, " You whom the world reveres," which wu
encored in the seamed act; the slumber song, by Mille.
Saxe (Selika), "On my Mom child of the Sue !"
in the third act all the charms, so varied is
rhythm, of the introduction, which is a muter-piece of
instrumental and choral melody, as also a magniffimat
phrase recited by Faun (Manske) with isoomparable power,
"To the north, turn to the north ; or if not death."b In
thatthe
fourth act we may mention almost all the pieces, et
which mimed a transport of enthusiasm was a dad, full of
Madames and sweetness, between Naudis sad Mdlle. Saxe.
Never did Meyerbeer display mono/ the inspiration of love.
One might almost say that the notes fall like the tears of
a virgin into the cup of a lotus. In the fifth ad the entire
theatre burst forth into wild applause whim the orchestra
executed the symphonic prelude in the time of • funeral
march, which preesdes the aeries' of Selika older the
insuchicrel tree. In this there axe 16 bars, ere-
noted in unison by altos, violas, and violins, on the
fourth string, the fascinating melody of which ie leer-
preseible. Although the hour wm far advanced there was
• desire to hear this prelude several time, the audience
could not do without it, end when, boarding to usual
custom, the pit loudly demanded the name of the author,
and the curtain wu raised for • kind of apotheosis, in which
all the artistes were grouped aroma the bust of the im-
mortal author, the eyes of many were filled with teen,
whilst the orchestra repeated once more the splendid
phrase. It was like the song of the dying swan. As
to the performance, Handle, Faure, and Mille. Sam,
whom the composer had Memel, pointed out before
his death as the interpreters of his work, were de-
serving of the highest praise. Perhaps Mlle. Sire
deserves the highest place of all. Her voice was ',plaudit'.
Nandi& is not exactly modelled like • hero, and in the reci-
tative the Italian accent was too prominent, but he rang
the duet in the fourth act in the mat charming
=num Faure, is hie lialgaohian dress, was mai-
ailimat, and his voice wu more sonorous and more power-
ful Mesmer. The dim-lissome* in the fourth act is at once
full of sweetness and richness ; and the only pity is that
It is en short. The memory, especially that of the man-
chimed tree, was painted by the hand of • master, but the
three decker, of which lama& has been said, had not much
moms, and shared the same fatless the libretto.