The Sun.
London, England, 1862-06-20 00:00:00

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THE SUN.
LONDON, FRIDAY, JUNE 20, 1862.

Sir MORTON PETO has again appealed to the
public in its own behalf. We noticed recently his
" Letter to one of his constituents on iron ships and
fixed forts," a letter entirely in accordance with the
views we have expressed on the whole subject, from
the time when Lord PALMERSTON, in the hey-day
of his power, determined to hurry into execution
his costly crotchet of land fortifications. We are
now indebted to Sir MORTON for a yet fuller
defence of the policy sustained so ably in his letter,
in a pamphlet of nearly a hundred pages. It is
published by W. MITCHELL, 36, Charing-eross, and
we recommend every reader who cares to master
this subject, sopecuniarily and nationally important
to us all, to procure the pamphlet. We can assure
him that it will interest as well as instruct him.
For, written by an intelligent, clear-headed man of
business, it is so free from professional technicalties
on the one hand, and from oratorical and bewilder-
ing special pleading on the other,that every sensible
man will fully appreciate its arguments,
Sir MORTON PETO 'PM almost challenged to come
forth in exV,dnation, and in defence of his views.
TA-u their singular report the Defence Commissioners,
and their associates, had published that they " were
desirous of examining Sir MORTON PETo, M.P.,
who had publicly expressed opinions on the subject
of their inquiry, but that he had requested to be
excused from attending." This looked, of course,
as if he feared to meet their cross-examination. It
turns out, however, that he would have been
quite willing to attend, but he required, as a rea-
sonable condition, a copy, or at least a perusal, of
the evidence the commissioners had taken on this
second reference of the subject to them. The
reader will remember, that when the Government
found the House would not listen to further waste
of money on the Spithead Forts after the affair of
the Monitor and the Merrimac, Sir G. C. LEWIS
shuffled off the subject by promising to
refer the subject afresh to the same
Commissioners whom Lord PALMERSTON had
used, in the first instance, to get this ambitious
fortification scheme forced on the country. Every
impartial man felt, of course, that this was but
trifling with the business. The Commissioners
were pledged men. They had led the Premier
to begin a great military folly, at a vast cost to
the country, and it could not be expected that
they would, come what might, give a verdict
against themselves. Nor did they. Out came
their report on the 20th of May, and having
taken to themselves four other members, we will
not say worse than themselves, the last report
of the whole was certainly worse than the first.
It is so, because, while they say that " they ad-
here to their opinion expressed in their report
of the 26th of February, 1861, that the combined
system of forts and floating batteries therein re-
commended, will be not only the most economical,
but the only really efficient mode of providing
for the defence of Spithead."—they say this in
the teeth of the fresh evidence they had obtained.
This is the charge which Sir MORTON PETO
completely establishes against them. The larger
part of his pamphlet is occupied in reviewing the
evidence they obtained, and on which they gave a
verdict for themselves and their co-respondent Lord
PALMERSTON. He makes out the clearest possible
case for a new trial, on the ground that the Com-
missioners' report is contrary to the evidence. Wit-
ness after witness is against them. Witness after
witness who had some time back been favourable
to fixed forts, is now against them, or thinks them
costly superfluities, or emphatically asserts that the
money were better spent on iron ships. Based by
the independent witnesses, the Commissioners call
in Government servants, whom they thought they
could rely on to sustain the foregone conclusion of
themselves and the Premier ; but of these, too, they
might well take up BALAR'S complaint of BALAAM,
for they called them to bless fixed forts, and they
all, more or less directly, blessed the iron ships of
Old England. Never was there a case of more com-
plete break down. Never was a report presented,
before, in such contrariety to the bearing of all the
opinions and facts on which it professed to be
founded,

One chief point is the value of fixed forts against
moving iron vessels. Indeed, on that point, almost
all may be said to turn. The evidence was con-
clusive, that even granting that guns could be made

which would pierce the Warrior at the distance of

a thousand yards—the requisite condition—it would
yet be almost a miracle for the fort to hit her while
in motion. Even Sir W. ARMSTRONG was as clear

as the rest on the difficulty of hitting the moving
object, and some of the practical and scientific men
show most clearly the reasons of the difficulty. The
Commissioners, at their wit's end to make out a
case from artillery as it is, tried to justify their pet
scheme to Sir J. F. SMITE by appealing to the
future. It would take three years to construct the
forts (or follies) ; might they not by that time rely
on heavy guns which would penetrate iron plates at
a thousand yards? The honest veteran experi-
menter here told the amateur Commissioners a bit
of his mind. " Ans. : I do not give a fraction for
assertions of that kind. I have been engaged in
making experiments the greater part of my life,
and I know how little you can rely upon expecta-
; ti
()ta.." Indeed, fhe evidence leaves but one con-
\ elu4ieu on the minds of impartial readers, that no
i'ta•tould materially interfere with an iron ship
\
P.'"iuit t4to a. . , .
self Where Bh,disregarding them, and placing her-
e could bombard Portsmouth easily
enough.
Bat the ~ aaal3
inatlon"—that is the thing, says
Lord PALMERST
°ll.--'the combination of forts which
could only get a chance
shottltt the moving enemy's
ship with our irun ship,
Aat:,tthe misfortune is,
that the evidence assures us t
many ships even if we have the forltve a
" must haveul f we had not
them ! So far from being economical, the forts, we
are told by the witnesses, because they Cod
nott's
follow the enemy's vessel, would not enable
us to
dispense with a single ship • urts,therefo
I The f
re,
dd
an enormous addition will be simply to the
expense. Wo:se than that, they will require a,
many gunners to work them as would man
ten Warriors. Meanwhile, the money spent in
building them would provide us a fleet which
if France were to become our assailant, would
enable us to defend Portsmouth by placing our-
selves before Cherbourg or Brest. The ablest wit-
nesses all agreed that it was far more important to
lay out our money in iron ships which could meet
the enemy anywhere, than on fixed forts, which he
might evede, or near which he might never come.
Much, again, has been said on defending Ports-

mouth as any arsenal at any cost, but, besides the
inefficiency of helplessly fixed forts, our arsenal
system itself is now antiquated. Iron ships must
be built in the yards of our great navigable rivers
where there is every convenience for the work, and
stores must be kept in future further inland, and
far out of the reach of all bombardments. Rail-
ways and telegraphs make this perfectly easy.
Nothing destructible need lie within reach of an
enemy'sfire. Much stress has been laid too on
defending
our merchant fleet anchored at Spit-
head, by the forts. The naval witnesses agreed
that this was absurd, since an enemy's iron ship
would steam about amongst them, destroying them
at leisure,while the helplessfixed forts could only look
on, as a shot fired by them at the enemy would be
much more likely to damage the wooden merchant-
men. Looked at, indeed, from every point of
view, the Spithead forts will be a criminal waste of
the nation's money, because not' only will they be of
the least possible use, but the evidence proves what
common sense would have anticipated, that the
same amount of money spent in iron ships would
have made us far safer. We believe this holds
good to Vac, uttermost. A iron ship is as perma-
-1 nent as a fort, and worth half a dozen forts.
We hope it is not too late for the House of Com-
mons to interfere to stop the " woeful waste,"
pointed to by Sir MORTON PETO on page 18—that
of the vast amount now being spent on new forti-
fications at some dozen places ; and on a plan which
Mr. BIDDER convinced these unbelieving Commit-
sioners, was untenable. Six or seven millions of
money, it is to be feared, are being sunk on what
will be of no use at all—on fortifieation. which
' modern artillery will crush at once, and which will
leave as much necessity as ever for iron vessels
to do their work. We must, however, refer the
reader again to Sir M. PETO'S pamphlet, which
ought to settle this question with the House of
Commons. •

Under the pretext of moving for copies of further
correspondence relating to the future navigation of
the Godavery, the hon. member for Stockport
originated, last evening, in the House of Commons
a very full:and a deeply interesting discussion upon
that vital question, just now, with our manufac-
turers in the North Cotton Famine. As Mr. SMITH
remarked, in the very outset of his speech, in bring-
ing forward this motion, to a numerous class of
labourers in this country, that the Cotton Famine
is, to all intents and purpose, in serious truth,
nothing less than a Food Famine. Without
adeq nate supplies of the raw material, in our
cotton manufactories there is a falling off in the
amount of employment furnished to that particular
class of our industrious population. Thousands are
not employed at all, or, if employed, are on short
time—many of the busiest factories are closed
altogether ; and what begins with a Cotton Famine
ends, in too many instances, in a dearth of the very
means of subsistence.

The precise situation of affairs, for a long while
past, in regard to the Cotton Trade is, by this time,
perfectly well understood. The American Civil
War shuts out from the English Market the ordi-
nary supplies cf cotton from the cotton-growing
States of the late United, and now fatally and (as
we are most of us beginning to recognise)
permanently Dis-United States of the Great
Confederation. The Southern States—those now
known:as the Confederated States, having JEFFER-
SON DAVIS as their President—were, until the out-
break of this lamentable struggle, the principal
source from which our manufacturers derived their
annual supplies of cotton. They are so now, alas!
no longer. Our regrets, however, at this serious in-
terruption to cur labours as importers, first of all
1 and manufacturers afterwards of the South.grown
I
1 American cotton now denied to us, have wholly and
entirely a reference to the immediate evil conse-
quences resulting from it. Eventually we are
firmly convinced that the result can alone be advan-
tageous. It can alone be advantageous to
us, we mean of course for inasmuch as it
will surely tend to render us independent
of other countries or colonies than our own for
all future supplies of an article so essential to one
branch of our industry in manufactures. The little
lesson we are now learning will not—we may be
certain of this—be learnt in vain. It was but very
recently that we took occasion to particularise the
opportunities lying open before us to the east and to
the west, and to the south, in both hemispheres, and
at our very antipodes—opportunities by wisely
availing ourselves of which we may in a very few
years render ourselves easily enough independent
of America, independent of any foreign power what-
ever for our all-essential supplies of the raw
material of cotton. Eight distinct directions we
pointed to as open to the choice of our enterprise in
this way—particularly of our engineering enter-
prise, as applied to this branch of agriculture.
Egypt, Asia Minor, the borders of the Gulf of
Comachio, the eastern coast of Ceylon, certain =cog
our West Indian possessions, Australia, and the
north island of New Zealand were recently pointed
to as holding out especial temptations. Above all
—in many respects attention was drawn, and has
often been drawn, of late to the obvious possibility
of our obtaining large and profitable supplies of
cotton in future from our Asiatic empire, from
various parts of that vast and fertile peninsula of
Hindostan. Several of the most important chapters
in the remarkable work to which we then more
especially directed public attention, relate, in point
of fact, to the facilities placed at our command in '
this way by the capabilities of the soil of India as
applied to cotton cultivation.

It was in reference to its exposition of the suit-
ability of vast tracks of land in Hindostan for
cotton planting, that the debate of yesterday in
the House of Commons possesses, to our mind, so
much interest for all ranks and classes of patriotic
Englishmen. The possibility, nay the probability,
of turning India to inestimable account in this
'manner was distinctly admitted last evening
in the 'most explicit manner by the right
hon. baronet the Secretary of State, to whose
care are entrusted those vast and magnifi-
cent possessions. Sir CHARLES WOOD distinctly
"stated the steps which had been taken by the
Government to increase the supply of cotton, ob-
serving, thereupon, that all the evidence yet pro-
cured tended to show that the same means which
had been employed in the cases of sugar, silk, and
indigo would be equally successful in the growth
and improvement of cotton ; and, he added, he had
no doubt that before long, if a remunerative price
were paid for Indian cotton, we should be, if
not independent of other countries for the
supply of this article, supplied from India to
a considerable extent." This, observe, from no
private member below the gangway, upon
a back bench, possessed by an infatuation
about some pet project, but—from one of the Sec-
retaries of Strte, speaking from his official post in
f pinions, ront of the Treasury bench, and there expres-
sing
carrying with them the
weight inherent
cot in them as the utterances
of one of the leading members of her MAJESTY's
Government. Nor can it be deemed surprising in
any way that Sir CHARLES WOOD, as Secretary of
State for India, should
speak thus hopefully and
even confidently. For all that really and truly
can anywhere bo recognised as impeding

in India the particular branch of agriculture
here alluded to, that of cotton planting, may be
defined at once as removable obstacles to wit—
the rudeness of the implements, the necessity of
works of irrigation, the poverty of the ryots, and
their dependence upon the soucars, or native
bankers. Take a single case in point on what can
even now be accomplished in spite of these
kinds of obstacles. There can be no doubt of
it that in Dhurwar cotton has been pro-
duced, as the result cf Mr. SHAW'S experiments,
equal in quality and length of staple, and tenacity
of fibre, and so forth, to the very kind of cotton
(the ordinary Orleans) forming the bulk of the raw
material used in the majority of our manufactures.
Improve the implement—systematise the irrigation
—elevate the condition of the ryots, rendering them
independent of those native bankers, the soucars,
under whose heels they may now be said to be ground
down helplessly—above all, afford the advantages of
cheap carriage between the inland and the coast, by
multiplying the railways, and among other things by
opening up the navigation of the river Godavery,
and England may begin to look confidently to her.
own Indian possessions for her future supplies
of Cotton.

What will be the verdict of the wives of England
on Captain CARNEGIE ? What their opinion of the
jury's verdict which released him from all responsi-
bility for having his wife "made beautiful for
ever ?" If they acquit the captain, what will be
the ground of the acquittal—will it be " that really
Mrs.CARNEGIE ought to have paid for her own beauty
out of a private income of £7OO or £BOO a-year;" or
will they, which we gentlemen hope is the case,
own that a lady ought not seriously to pledge her
husband's credit without letting him know what
she is doing. Happily, whether they agree with
this last view or not, the law does ; and our better
halves are instructed by Baron WILDE that
the turning point of liability on the part
of their lords is, whether the creditor had good
reason or not to think the husband was aware
of the expense his wife Was incurring. In the
case before us, judge and jury were all of opinion
that Captain CARNEGIE had no knowledge of the
cost atwhieh hiJwife was purchasing renewed charms
—for balls it would seem more than for her hus-
band—that Madame RACHEL did not think he had,
and that, therefore, she must be nonsuited when
demanding the debt as from him.
But should Mrs. CARNEGIE get off so lightly
If she has, as the captain said, a private income of
£7OO or £BOO a-year, and if she was so eager to be
enamelled and made beautiful for ever, and to appear
in public without a high dress, and to recover a
lost and faded complexion, and to smooth over the
scar of an abscess on her breast—as to be ready to
give a thousand pounds to accomplish all this, and,
if this was accomplished, why should the "enamel-
ler" lose all her money. Her charge might be ex-
orbitant, but who shall set a price on works of such
high art ? To think of a lady whom other
ladies had talked of as scarred in her breast, com-
ing forth a beauty in her own eyes and in those of
her lady's maid ; of her " wearing a white tulle
dress, smothered with feathers, to represent a snow
storm ;" of the lady being able to tell the enameller,
" I looked very lovely indeed, as my maid will tell
you"—to think of this lady being unable out of
£BOO a year to "find money for the enameller, it
really does strike us that Madame RACHEL'S case
is somewhat hard. •

It would have been very hard but for the mon•
strosity of the charge. It was this, we apprehend,
which really upset her—it looked so like, we much
fear that it was, a gross attempt to get an extra _
vagant amount of money out of husband and wife
through the fear of exposure. Madame RACHEL'S
advertised fees were high enough in all conscience.
Five guineas for attending a lady for a ball without
enamelling. That seems fair—but 160 guineas and
upwards for enamelling a lady when we are told
that the process consists in applying a few cos-
metics, and has no resemblance to the process from
which the name is taken, but the beautiful soft
ivory whiteness imparted by it—this does seem
some what monstrous. Still, if ladies resort to the
advertiser, it is not for them to complain of the
charges. In this case, however, Madame RACHEL
made a more than questionable use of the " up-
wards" appended to the 160 guineas; no lady could
expect it would involve her to more than five times
the amount. So, we suppose, Madame RACHEL is
now left to try her remedy against Mrs. CARNEGIE,
which we certainly should not advise her to do ; a
lady who with such an income had only her jewels
to offer the enameller, is not likely to have much
money hereafter—and perhaps a jury might cut
down the bill to an amount which would not meet
the costs of prosecution.

Madame RACHEL regretted that the case should
come into court, " because ladies require secrecy."
She well may, for she has doubtless done much to
limit her practice. At every ball and meeting of
the fashionable world the whisper will now go
round amongst the envious of one sex and the
doubtfully admiring of the other—" Is she enamel-
led ?" There will be scratinibings and whisperings,
and comparisons of past with present charms, to an
extent unknown before. Madame RACHEL'S name
will be invoked by spite, and will titter on the lips
of the quiz, A new class will be created by this
trial—that of the " enamelled fair."

The funeral of the late Earl Canning will take
place 0-morrow morning. The procession will leave
Grosvenor-square Poen after 10, and will reach Westmin-
ster-abbey at half-past 11 o'clock. Some friends of the do-
ceased peer wia follow in their private carriages ; but the
greater number will assemble at 11o'clock in tho Jerusalem
chamber or the Abbey, to which they will be admitted by
tickets, delivered to them upon application at No, 10,
Grosvenor-square,
FRIGHTFUL OCCURRENCE ON THE CHARING-
CROSS liatLway.—Yesterday morning, shortly before 11

o'clock, a frightful accident took place at the massive iron
railway bridge in course of construction across the roadway
in the York-road, Lambeth. William Cobbett. aged 25, a
riveter, residing at 17, Frances-street, Waterloo-road,
George Hawkins, aged 19, living at 5, Tanner-street, York.
road, and some others, were at work on a kind of s wing•
scaffold upwards of 36 feet from the ground, and while
driving in red hot rivets the bolts securing the scaffolding
suddenly gave way with a loud noise. Cobbett was instantly
hurled to the ground, his head coming in contact with the
pavement, and Hawkins, after falling a short distance suc-
ceeded in grasping a prejectiag piece of iron, where he re-
mained some moments until rescued, while some other
workmen most narrowly escaped. The two unfortunate
men were at once conveyed to the Westminster Hospital,
where they were promptly attended by the house surgeon,
who found Cobbett to be perfectly insensible, having the
left leg fractured in a fearful manner in two places, as well
as concussion of the brain, which leaves him in a most dan-
gerous state. The other,man was slightly injured, and is
going on favourably.
THE BLIND AND DEAF AND DUMB.—At the late
meeting of the International Philanthropic Asscciation it
was resolved to appeal to the Government to grant a com•
mission to inquire into the conditiOn of the blind and deaf
and dumb, and the prevalent causes of these maladies. The
proportion of blind people in the whole population of the
United Kingdom is lin 1,000. In England the number is
19,200, and the proportion to the population 1 in 1,046, Of
the deaf and dumb there aro 19,000 in the kingdom, or
about 1 in every 1,600. •

CHINESE SUICIDE.—A touching instance of this
occurred at Canton some years ago, in the case of a young
accomplished girl, who had been unfortunately married to
a brutal husband. When on a visit to her parents, she
complained to a small party of her unmarried sisters and
contains of the misery she endured, and declared her intention
of drowning herself. "Oh I" said these young ladies,
"if that is married life, we shall drown ourselves too." So
they all joined hands together, and, walking into a fish-
pond, became brides of death.—" Six Weeks in a Tower;"
in Blackwooa's Magazine.

ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA.

ROBERTO IL DIAVOLO.

Our two operas seem to have resolved on a little
racing at this moment, and, we might add, with
the view of winning the Great Exhibition Stakes.
Her Majesty's had the start on Saturday, and at a
pace which is likely to continue. The Italian
Opera went off last evening, and before the night
was over came up with its opponent in very hand-
some style. This contest certainly promises to be a
"neck-and-neck" affair, and all we can say in the
matter is, that we hope the " run" will be a good
one, and that the public, as they ought to do, will
freely back their favourites. Seriously, we rarely
remember a work produced at two contending
theittres in which the general claim to excellence
was so nearly balanced as on this occasion. At
Her Majesty's we may venture to say the special
interest is the more attractive. The Alice
of Madame Titiens, which towers so grandly
over Jenny Lind's, will scarcely be sup-
posed to find a rival in Madame Pence's.
This lady is an artist of indisputable claims.—
thoughtful, effective, and satisfactory in every-
thing she does—whose vocal gifts, like her mental,
if not extraordinary, are always pleasing. She
exhibits the highest amount of talent, but she is
not a woman of genius. However she may move
or content you, she can never surprise, or electrify.
Her Alice is far above an average performance. It
is earnest, natural, and well-intended from the first
note to the last; and, in certain passages of the
music, is ae good as need be listened to. Her
delivery, for instance, of the first aria, " Va mi
disse," is so pathetic road sincere, that it
elicited a recognition which was as marked as it was
well deserved. Still her Alice is not that of Madame
Titiens. It wants the force both of voice and soul,
the unequalled tones and the kindling passion
which give the latter iu xll olio dues a pre-ewiueuee
now that is beyond dispute. Genius has always the
distinction that it is equal to all occasions, and in
every character there is some climax whose thorough
mastery is essential to the entire fulfilment of its
conception. Such, for instance, in the character of
Alice, is the encounter with Bertram beside the
Cross. Here, to be merely satisfactory is compara-
tively to fail. The task is not merely to excite the
sympathies, but to appease the imagination; and if
the genius is wanting which can do that, we mea-
sure the attempt byvvhat it needs, much more than
by what it accomplishes. The difference of feeling
in this scene is a Sufficient gauge of the two con-
ceptions. Whilst Madame Penco merely expresses
terror, Madame Titiens exhibits horror, and the
profounder view, of course, is the more impas-
sioned and . impressive. And proportionately
this distinction applies to the highest
moment of the scene. When Madame Titiens
flies to the oross, in order .to repel the detected
Bertram, as we have already said, she suggests a
seraph in the act of defying the arch-fiend. Her
look and bearing have positive grandeur. The
soul of the peasant suddenly expanded by a high
religious impulse, invests her frame for the mo-
ment with absolute sublimity. Madame Pence
flies at this height with no such force of wing. Her
effort does not want energy, but it is more of the
limb than of the spirit. It is an inspiration of
the stage rather than of a great poetic feeling,
We consider the Alice of Madame Penco quite as
good as Jenny Lind's, but it certainly is not one to
be compared with Madame Titiens. TO the Isabel
also of the other theatre the palm must be conceded.
Signora Carlotta Marchisio sings not only with all
the brilliancy of Madame Miolan Carvalho, but
with the advantage of a voice that is far more sym-
pathetic, and of an expression that is always truer
because it is more emotional. It is no discovery to
make now that the charming Parisian song-

stress is almost wholly devoid of feeling. Her
Princess Isabel is one of those vocally
perfect but entirely passionate perform-
ances, which have denoted her from the first,
It is another instance of the manner in which she
torments us with the look of a woman whilst she
charms us with the perfection of a mere musical
instrument. in the cavatina of the second act she
wanted the fire of Signora MaTchiso, and in the
"Robert toi que j'aime" of the last she wanted the
emotion. When we come to the gentlemen of the
Italian opera, the balance turns the other way.
No comparison, of course, can be insti-
tuted between Signor Armandi and Signor
Tamberlik. It is not the latter's superior energy.
or even voice (as heard last evening), that estab-
lishes his pre-eminence—it is his profounder feeling
and more perfect art, which supply him with an
unerring standard in prescribing to his energy its
exact amount and limitation. Thus he never sings
spasmodically. He is never powerful on set occa-
sions, or gives us strength because he can give it, or
as a mere matter of variety. His force is but a more
vehement demonstration of his feeling; and as it
springs out of it, go-exists with its most delicate
expressions. His tenderness is always quite
as conspicuous as his force, which, of course,
it serves to intensify by the mere fact of its contrast.
As an instance in the Roberto how pathetic is his
sense of shame and grief after his ruin by the game-
sters—and his filial expression throughout the
masterly trio with which the opera concludes. It
is these evidences of delicacy that delight his
hearers quite as much as the superb energy
he manifests in this and other charac-
ters, and which have served to place
his fame on so distinct and sure a basis. But
even a higher acknowledgment is due to
the great performance of Herr Formes, whose Ber-
tram stands apart from anything that has been seen
for many years. Though he was labouring under
a hoarseness which compelled the printing of an
apology, such was the striking ideality of his
conception and treatment of the demoniac being,
that it almost stifled disappointment at his vocal
incapacity. The scornful grandeur, and malignant
transport which stamped his bearing, and varied
his expression from the first scene to the last,
showed an unusual reach of art, whilst
in the human element that mingles with and almost
atones for the demoniac—the paternal feeling of
Bertram, he was not wanting in the tenderness
necessary to complete this strange conception. As
a little instance of the originality which marks this
effort throughout, we may refer to his action in the
gaming scene, in which, by an unseen darting and
clutching of his hand over the shoulder of Roberto,
he seems to snatch fortune from him and direct the
course of the dice. His terrible struggle at the
voice of the demons, and frenzied rush into their
cavern in order to learn his own and his son's fate,
Was ono of the grand things of the night,
only matched by the proud solemnity with which
he declaimed the invocation, and afterwards
watched in grim repose the successful working of
his spell. Had his voice only been able to
sustain his superb conception his per-
formance would have been one of the most
striking that has ever been witnessed on these
boards. The Raimbaldo was again an im-
provement in the hands of Signor Neri-
Baraldi, whose charming voice and earnest expres-

sion gave the utmost effect to the descriptive ballad

6' Regnava un tempo," in which he details
Roberto's history. The choruses, we need
not say, :were absolutely perfect, being at this
theatre—given with all the fire as well as light and
shade, which make them such an enjoyment to
the public. The band exhibited of course its usual
perfection under Mr. Costa. Upon these two points
undoubtedly this house maintains its superiority in
the production of this opera. As respects the
spectacle it must also be allowed to be most success-
ful at this house, both on account of the historic air
which is given to the accessories; and the trium-
phant effect of the Abbey scene, which presents one
of the most masterly achievements we have yet wit-
nessed by Mr. Beverley, animated and enforced by
a continuous movement that is as poetic as it is
striking. The gaunt and mouldering remains 05
the Abbey, whose skeleton outlines in the moon
light loom into such mystic dimness, expand their
impression into an effect that is wholly indescriba-
ble, when the reanimated nuns glide about them
in their endeavours to allure Roberto to his pur-
pose, with a grace arid picturesqueness that
still further enhance their beauty. The effect of
this scene alone must make this reproduction
popular. The house, we need scarcely say) was
crowded in every part, and the satisfaction of the
most warm and decisive character.