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THE BUN.
LONDON, THURSDAY, JULY
31, 1862.

GARIBALDI'S resolute proceedings Just
now
in
Southern Italy, far more than his bold words at
Palermo and Marsala, fitzg,ur a startling chary, or
some kind as really imminent. His language
could hardly be characterised by a greater audacity
than it has been remarkable for of late—but more
particularly on two very notable occasions. First
of all, when addressing a vast Sicilian multitude
at Palermo, in the presence of the Prefect
or local Governor. And, secondly, when ad-
dressing anothcr Sicilian multitude before the
Syndic of Marsala—a spot hitherto distinguished
by its association with a cheap light wine,
but henceforth historically famous as the scene
of one of the most famous of the warlike
exploits achieved by the modern RIENZI. Lan-
guage so audacious it has been in its condemna-
tion of the Imperial ally of the " King of ITALY"
—to the sweep of whose sword, nevertheless, the
Bing of ITALY owes the liberation of all Lombardy
from the Austrian rule—that literally, and without
one particle of exag,;eration, the Government at
Turin has had (we all recognise this) no alternative.
In each of the places mentioned GARIBALDI has
spoken ; and down by a
sort of necessity has
been toppled the presiding authority—here of
the insular capital, ;were
of the insular seaport
—disgraced and degraded
and dismissed because
of the mere complicity 01
listening! Down
falls the Prefect of Palermo. bourn falls the
Syndic of Marsala. Yet, all the While, the
when
lu,crsowds
that cheered GARDIALDI to the echo
those words that have thus proved fatal trttee
power of the two authorities just now partietaa-

rised—are the loyal subjects to the last of the
SOVEREIGN, whose ministers have just now
appointed successors to Prefect and to Syndic. It
is all a contradiction. It is all an anomaly. And
yet a contradiction and an anomaly that can be per-
fectly well understood.
The Government of VICTOR EMMANUEL has
had in its present "situation," we repeat, abso-
lutely no alternative. "Whatever else may be said
of the French EMPEROR—whatever we may, any
of us, think about the duplicity of his policy, about
the meanness of his quid pro quo system of compen-
sation—when he followed up the glorious Proclama-
tion of Milan, by the discreditable Treaty of Villa-
franca, or when he balanced against the liberation
of Lombardy the annexation to France, imme-
diately afterwards, of Nice and Savoy—there is
no possibility of denying that be it was who, on
a famous jour de Van, not quite a hundred years
ago, gave the signal for that last great
conflict south of the Carpathians! That stormy
succession of battles, led on by his Imperial
MAJESTY in person—victories (on the side of France
and Sardinia in armed alliance) that drove back
the Austrians from their south-eastern frontier line,
step by step to Magenta, and afterwards step by
step to Solferino: until they were compelled to draw
off their forces altogether from the plains of Lom-
bardy, and retreat from the probabilities, almost
the dead certainty, of destruction under the
shadow of the formidable fortifications of the
Quadrilateral. Whatever was the ultimate object
held selfishly in view by NAPOLEON lll.—all this
NAPOLEON 111. unquestionably did : and he did it,
moreover, to the admiration of Italy, of France, of
England, of all those who are large of heart enough
to sympathise with the liberation from foreign
thraldom of any one of the great oppressed nationa-
lities. That the French Emperor should afterwards
condescend to the miserable trickery of filching
Nice and Savoy from the Italians, didncootmaplltiesrhetdh.e
fact as to what he had previously accomplished.
It did not change by one iota the reality of the
freedom he had won for the Lombards. It marred
the reputation NAPOLEON 111. had just been
winning for himself on the battlefield as a
Liberator—it marred this magnificent reputation,
we say, when he took, in sordid payment for his
victories, Nice and the Nizzards, Savoy and the
Savoyards! But while it did this, it, at the same
time, still continued to afford, as it had already
afforded, to the Italians their long•looked for op-
portunity. Judging the French EMPEROR'S policy,
In this matter, at its very worst—we may most
positively aver that, if NAPOLEON 111. had not cast
a covetous eye upon Nice and Savoy, when he first
resolved upon throwing down the gage of battle at
the feet of Austria for the Liberation of Lombardy,
ITALY MIGHT STILL TO THIS DAY HAVE LOOKED

VAINLY FOR HER OPPORTUNITY. We say this as
Englishmen. We say this as sympathising but
impartial spectators. Would the Government of
England have resolved (if NAPOLEON 111. had re-
frained from doing so) upon drawing the sword
against Austria for the liberation of the
Italians? Why the principle of the whole
of our foreign policy—the great principle animating
the eloquence of almost every State paper penned

by Earl RUSSELL, is avowedly and reiteratedly the
principle of non-intervention ! England could not
consistently have adventured upon that course, there-
fore, which was nevertheless adventured upon—for
selfish purposes, ifyou will, but still adventured upon
—by the French EMPEROR. Nice and Savoy were
shamefully lost, but Lombardy was won. And, better
still, for the darling hope of the diplomacy of
CAvot.TR, of the heroism of GARIBALDI, of the kingly
ambition of VICTOR EMMANUEL—ItaIy had

(through these first achievements) obtained at last
her opportunity !

What followed the conquest of Lombardy by the
French EMPEROR, and the presentation by
him of that liberated province to the future
"King of ITALY," we all know. The minor
states and principalities—of themselves, as it
were—fell to his lot by a sort of political
gravitation. Parma, Modena, Tuscany, the
Romagna, bit by bit, province by province,
duchy by duchy, they all drifted together
in the new combination. Each in turn became
thenceforth part and parcel of the new and homo-
geneous, and not as previously of the old and hetero
gQneous state. Afterwards came the grandest result
of all—the result achieved (amidst the wonder of
all Europe) by GARIBALDI at the head of his 1,000
Garibaldians ! The French EMPEROR —whatever
GARIBALDI may have said of him within the last
few days at Palermo and at Marsala—the French
EMPEROR had by his Italian policy given not only
to the Italians, but to GARIBALDI himself, the" op-
portunity" that (but for that selfish Italian policy of
the French EMPEROR) would to this instant of
time, in all human probability, still have been
wanting. Unwillingly enough, very possibly,
NAPOLEON 111. had given to GARIBALDI the
opportunity of making his marvellous descent
upon Sicily and Naples ; but still however
unwillingly—he had actually (deny it who can)
given GARIBALDI that grand and enviable

opportunity. Out of those few words, uttered

on that ever memorable jour de Pan already
spoken of, out of the few significant words then

addressed by the French EMPEROR to the Austrian

Ambassador in the old Bourbon Palate of the

Tuileries—

(" What mighty contexts flow from trivial things I")—
came one after another the political liberation of
Lombardy, of Modena, of Parma, of Tuscany, of the
Kingdom of the Two Sicilia ! From that incident
sprang no less as consequences, without any doubt,
the agonising disappointment of Villafranca and the
infamous bartering of Savoy and Nice. And yet
at the same time it may be asserted quite as unde-
niably that but for that incident History would, in
all likelihood, never have had any record at all of
the Descent upon Marsala or of the Victory at
Calatafimi !

, 1 theltc,oi sni
i ri a
the recognition of all this that explains
eoprecently pursued, and still being pur-
suedtnentPosition to GARIBALDI, by the Italian
Govern
Pa-
lermo having
of Marsala
addition to all considerations
is a certain intimate
can-
not be altogether overlooked,
been
teaccounts for the Prefect of g
dilsigorualcied. Besides, in
havinn sbuperseded, and for the Syndic
family
ions of State policy, there
alliance, now, that
alliance between
old
de apnrcoiuedn t and
dynastyhaughty
ou g h t
80,ge
0:1 Savoy—[t he
would think, for very shame, to3:_novi, one
• be otherwise
designated !j—between the ancient and
haughty
House of Savoy and the
parvenu bus.
wonderful House of BONAPARTE, the not
amply
royal but imperial dynasty founded by NAPOLEON
that later and greater CIIABLEMAGNE. With the
KING'S daughter, the Princess CLOTILDE, married
to the EMPEROR'S cousin, the Prince NAPOLEON, it
is hardly to be expected that the Italian Govern-
ment can break thus flagrantly with that Sovereign
of France—to the signal given by the flash of whose
sword Italy really and absolutely stands indebted,
under Heaven, for the mere chance of her present
state of emancipation.

Yet, as really and absolutely as we re69Zuile
all this on the one side, we can recognize the
!
whole amount of truth there is upon the other
It would be difacult to wonder in any way ,

st the feelings lurking in GARIBALDI'S
great, but stormy, and misguided heart—feel-
ings now so passionately blurted out in words
that are suggestive of nothing, if they are not sug-
gestive of War and Revolution ! GARIBALDI knows
more dietinctly than any of us that if NAPOLEON
has unwittingly given him and his Garibaldians
before now their opportunity—of which opportunity
they have ever hitherto so marvellously availed
themselves—His MAJESTY has beheld GARIBALDI
working out " his" destiny with anything rather
than with sympathy. Every step that GARIBALDI
has taken in advance, he has taken in advance
tin spite of the French EMPEROR. Sicily
and Naples were liberated in his despite.
Genoa was quitted, Marsala was gained,
the Bourbon troops were fought and conquered at
Calatafimi, Naples was entered by GARIBALDI and his
personal attendants—in very despite of the Emperor
NAPOLEON 111. Worst of all, GARIPALLI remem-
bers full well, is never likely to forget to the hour
of his death, that to the " lust of empire," to the
greed of territorial aggrandizement lurking in the
heart and brain of NAPOLEON 111. are owing the
pitiful shuffling into that monarch's power of his
(GARIBALDI'S) own birthplace and fellow-coun-
trymen—Savoy and the Savoyards. The wonder
is not that GARIBALDI is now at length
boldly speaking out, but that he has not spoken
plainliyogKlonnougwttienarggedot!het That is our only
GARIBALDI.nowbe om
matchless day
audacity dsy
man, and knowing equally well how long
realou wonder in regard to the impetuous
out thus
thus
übandthe
words
agonisingly he has been deceived and thwarted
by the tortuous policy of the French EMPEROR,
who can marvel that—while still protest-
ing his loyal'y to the interests of VICTOR
EMMANUEL—GARIBALDI should evince a readiness
at length not merely to cast a look askance,
but to hold out a hand of fellowship towards MAZ-
ZINI and his followers,P It is the last stage of their
struggle that the Italians are now manifestly
about to enter upon. Well will it be for the per-
manence of the happy issue of that fast approach-
ing contest, if these 25,000,000 Italians look
henceforth confidingly far their Liberation, not to
the specious magnanimity of the French EMPEROR,
cot to the prowess and ambition of their own
Soldier KING, not to Vie crafty intellect of MAZ-
ZINI 7 not even to the heroism of GARIBALDI, but
simply and solely, reverently and manfully, to GOD
and to themselves.

It is a very easy course to treat such a question
as our present and future relation to Canada as one
which may be settled by a stroke of the pen, or a
smart, off-hand sentence ;—the misfortune is, that
such a mode of settlement really settles nothing.
It merely represents one, generally obvious, view
of the case, and complacently passes over—
" ignores" is the word now-a- days—many other
views, equally important, though some of them
may be less obvious. Mr. ADDERLEY does not care
much to keep the colony—Mr. ROEBUCK would
evidently like to give her notice to quit; at least,
to let her know that we do not care a straw to keep
her. He wants " the. Canadians to understand
that England would not be sorry to see them de-
part from her to-morrow ; they do us no good, at
least no more than New York; they do not even
receive our manufactures, and they treat us like
aliens." Even the most thoughtful and best read
man in our Cabinet, if not in the House of Com-
mons, Sir G. C. LEWIS, " looks forward without
apprehension and without regret to the time when
Canada may become an independent State," though
he does not think "England should cast Canada
loose, or send her adrift, before she has acquired
sufficient strength to assert her own indepen-
dence." As to the Regius Professor of History at
Oxford, he, of course, would rejoice to see our co-
lonies all set up for themselves.
Both the present Leader of the House and its
ex-Leader, however, take very different views of
the subject. Mr. DISRAELI " thinks that a great
empire, founded on sound principles of freedom
and equality, is as conducive to the spirit and
power of the community, and as valuable as com-
mercial prosperity or military force; and, there-
fore, he would be very sorry under the present
circumstances, after all that has occurred, to sup-
pose that the connexion between the mother
country and this important colony should end."
Lord PALMERSTON, who followed Mr. DISRAELI on
Friday, entirely agreed with him on this point. He
said—" I quite concur in thinking that we should
look upon our colonies as part and parcel of the
British empire. Our fellow-subjects when they
remove from this country do not cease to be our
fellow-subjects ; their spirit is the same as ours ;
their interests should be our interests; we should
be each to one another a source of mutual honour
and mutual strength. I also quite concur with the
right hon. gentleman in wishing that the day may
be far distant when, from various causes, those
great communities may deem it to be their interest
to separate from us, because I do not think such a
course would conduce to their benefit, while I feel
assured it would not tend to the advantage of the
mother country."

There can be no doubt that all the views just
mentioned, as expressed in the House of Commons,
are fairly representative of opinions outside of it.
That the immediate cause of the late debates should
be the commencement of a separation between us
and the colony, no one could wish. By all means
let not the separation be made in an undignified
squabble, or in any way which should gender in
the minds of the new born nation the miserably
splenetic temper of Yankees towards their mother-
country. The defence question is one to be settled
by fair conference between ourselves and Canada.
Where we think Lord GREY, Mr. ADDERLEY, Mr.
ROEBUCK, and those who think with them are
likely to err is, in not allowing the Canadians to
form an independent judgment on what
amount of defence they need. Under Lord
PALMERSTON'S inspiration, our Legislators
have been almost defence crazy ; they

their military defence. They see no danger just
now; their finances are in a bad state, they wanted
to get rid at once of a bad and costly militia bill,
and a bad ministry too, they effected both at a
stroke—and to give themselves financial breathing
time, they are content with militia and volunteers
to the number of 23,000. And who shall say that,
by next summer, they will not be quite as safe, as
if they had complied With Lord PALMERSTON'S
notion, and embarrassed themselves with the cost
of 100,000 militia ? If so they will have saved the
heavy cost ; and will have time to think deliberately
before they incur it.

Lord MoNeK, who is on the spot; does not think
the Canadians will fail in their duty. He spoke
thus, with applause,
to the citizens of Montreal :
" I am perfectly satisfied, from the spirit I have
witnessed among the people, and the exertions
which with their limited meats they have made to
put themselves in a position of defence, that they
will not be found wanting should the day of danger
unhappily arrive. (Applause.: Gentlemen, what
I should wish to impress upon Canadians is this,
not that they should raise a standing army, or en-
gage in any large expenditure, iut that they should
take such measures as will enabe them in a sudden
emergency to put forth their strength to meet any
attack. (Applause.) I speak in the presence of a great
mercantile community, and I oily ask you to take
the common precaution of every merchant in the
case of venture to insure against risk or loss. But,
gentlemen, the insurance which I ask you to effect
has this advantage over the ordinary commercial
transaction, that not only will you repair loss should
it take place, but in all probabil.ty the moral effect
produced by the insurance will prevent the risk
ever taking place." (Applause.) These, we may be
confident, are the real sentiments of Canadians.
They do not think the subject presses this year, but
they cherish no unmanly wish to be independent
by relying on British arms, as well as on our Navy,
whose aid all are willing to furnish.
As to the general question we share rather Lord
PALMERSTON'S and Mr. DISRAELI'S feelings than
those of the other speakers. We would not retain
the connection one hour longer than the Canadians
wished—but we should much prefer that it should
be long before they wished to break it. We should
least of all relish their becoming the twentieth State
of a Northern federation, We believe they
do not covet that doubtful honour They remain
Royalist rather than Republican, and see little in the
twenty millions of Northern Sovereigns to lead them
to prefer increasing their number to twenty-three
millions. They know better than we do that where

every man is his own Sovereign, every man also
must surrender his liberty to a hard, domineering
majority of Sovereigns. And for their sakes, and
for ours, we hope the Canadians will long prefer
the hereditary sovereignty of one to the quadrennial
election of a supreme magistrate, with all the inter-
vening four years of corrupt plotting to instal him.

IA letter yesterday from Mr. P. SAUNDERS,
" late Cotton Commissioner," confirms from per-
sonal experience so strongly the advice we have
often tendered to the Manchester manufacturers,
that we can but call attention to the testimony
such an authority. Like us, he was struck with
the thoughtless applause awarded to Mr. COBDEN
when with his unadorned eioquence he maintained
that it was not the manufacturer's business to
grow cotton, any more than a miller's to grow
corn. He, too, remarks on the irrelevance of
the illustration. The Manchester man is not
asked to grow, but to buy cotton—only, if through
any cause he cannot buy it in Liverpool, we main•
tain that it is his business to buy it where he can.
If the London miller could not get the corn he
wanted in Middlesex markets he woukl soon have
his agents in Wakefield, or even in New York or
Chicago. We have all along only maintained that
they ought in this emergency to have their agents
in every cotton growing distriit in India.
Now, what says Mr. SAUNDERS ? Precisely the
same from personal observation, as we have
gathered from numerous other sources. His is, at
least, not second knowledge. He has seen the
shrewd ryot in his own fields, so late as last May ;
he questioned him on the subject, and what is the
Indian's answer a "Sahib, we hear of high prices,
nut there are no buyers or contractors here ; when
the sahibs want indigo or sugar, or oilseed, they
come among us and build factories (kothees), and
make advances and contracts; but in the case
of cotton, which is said to be so much wanted,
there is not a single sahib buyer or contrac-
tor. There is something wrong. We won't
grow more than we want for ourselves, or our native
merchants."

Is the Ryct wrong? He knows nothing about
political economy and free trade principles; but he
knows by experience that if the European sahibs
want an article he can grow, and are sure they can
command a price for it when grown, ho is sure to
see them near him, offering him every facility. Had
Manchester been wise in time, had it sent forth its
agents in adequate numbers at the time of cotton
planting with advances, and prices, and simple
apparatus, it would have supplied its mills at a far
less cost than it will now incur for poor-rates. It
would have merely had to extend some way further
the Operation of the very principle which takes its
agents to the Liverpool Cotton Market. That is all.
We acknowledge that the mode of purchasing would
be somewhat diverse, but surely not too much so for
the intelligence of Lancashire.

Every master cotton worker in the North will,
however, see Mr. SAUNDERS' letter. It is, as he
observes, too late to increase the area of cotton cul-
tivation this year, but it is not too late to establish
agencies at once, and to secure what may be obtained
of this year's crop, and to prepare for a large increase
next year. Will the manufacturers be so perfunc-
tory as to make no effort of this kind. If the great
body of them cannot be moved, will no individuals
come forward, put themselves in communication
with Mr. SAUNDERS, and others competent to give
them the practical information required, and by
leading the way in supplying their own factories,
show all what each may do. It wants but a begin-
ning ; only for the sake of a starving population it
will be matter of deep regret if Manchester cannot
extensiye cotton agency in
lonrilgainndatlen,dait once, an
India.

seem to forget that the Canadians have no panic

orators in their Parliament; and that they may have

the best grounds for thinking invasion a very re-

mote danger. The affair of the Trent was an im.

perial one, but we cannot expect them to be

guessing the probabilities of England provoking a

war with the Federals. Canadians know that

HER MAJESTY'S VISIT TO GERMANY.

they themselves have no intention to do it. They

know, too, that a victorious North, with a South to

Her Majesty the Queen and the Princesses and younger
Princes will, upon their return from Scotland, proceed
upon the Ist of t,epternber aoroad. Her Majesty will pay
a strictly private visit to the -King of the Belgians for twe
or three days, and will subsequently- pass some weeks in
seclusion at the Castle of Rheinhardtsbrunn, near Gotha,
which her brother-in-law, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and
Gotha, has placed at her disposal.
Her Majesty will travel in the strictest incognito, under
the title of Duchess of Lancaster. The Prince of Wales
will join her Majesty at Rheinhardtsbrunn a few days after
her arrival, and after spending some time with the Queen
will proceed upon a visit to his Royal Highness's sister, the
Crown Princess of Prussia.
As naturally no festivities coull take place upon that
occasion, his Royal Highness's birthday, when he comes
of age, will not be celebrated by the Royal Family, and
his Royal Highness will remain abroad beyond that day
with his sister and brother-in-law.

garrison, would have quite enough on its hands
without troubling them ; and that, in the other

be in
fl
case, an exhausted North, weary with a long
struggle and overwhelmed with debt, would
no condition to attack Canada,with an Englisheet
nn he back ground. Canadians not having lis-
e
no
probad for years past to alarmist oratory, and, seeing
ble
enemy near, do not understand all the
furore about arming which has seized us here. We
must at least give the Canadians time to imbibe the
Jewish workmen of
notion that, tobe independent, a nation must live like
the
Baer' fixed, Notwith-
stahand and a trowel in the old, with a dagger in one
hilt of other, with its hand on the
it% sword, or its
he after dinner talk
of the Mayor of
Illontreal, we ~..
in
have no doubt that the Canadians are
thoroughly 117 do t
Milling to all
,that is needful for
a

MINISTERIAL WHITE BAIT DINNER.—Her
117a-
jesty's Ministers 1- roceeded down the river yesterday even-
ing, on board a Citizensteamboat,which was
with colours, and disembarked at the Trafalgar-stairs,.
Greenwich, at a quarter to seven o'clock, for the purpose of
attenuing the annual Whitebait dinner at tho Trafalgar
Tavern, gaily decorated

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, JULY 31, 1862.

EXETER HALL,

THE COTTON FAMINE.

HERR SCHACHNER'S ORATORIO.
Sacred music within the last century has reached
a height ofexcellence which forms for the composer
in this field as much to repel as to excite him.
Whilst public sympathy, especially in Eagland,
encourages his tfforts—that sympathy has been
developed by successive standards of composition,
which only genius of the highest order could hope
to sustain the test of. The Oratorio—the musical
form in which the " Mysteries and Moralities" of
the middle ages took their position in the Roman
Church, and from thence passed into what may be
called the religious cantata ofTrotestant Europe,—
at the successive hands of Handel, Haydn, and
Mendelssohn has ascended to a level which,
whether in respect to structure or sentiment,
we can scarcely think will be surpassed. Another
difficulty lies in the comparatively narrow field of
the subject. Though the Bible is for the most part
a highly dramatic narrative, it contains but few
commanding themes which are adapted to lyric
illustration. It treats of events rather than charac-
ters in the ordinary flow of its sublime story, and
in their detail wants the consecutiveness essential
to artistic ends. Such themes as the " Deluge"
and the " Fall of Jerusalem," which we have known
to be attempted, are so purely historical and diffuse,
and therefore wanting in a central human interest,
that scarcely the power of a Handel could infuse
them with a due vitality. Tho great subjects, on
the contrary, which have a true artistic element,
which deal with men rather than events, and some
central being especially, and so excite the sym-
pathies which must always be converged
and not diffused, have already been so
grandly treated,—and to the inclusion not
only of the sublime founder of our faith, but
His chief forerunners and successors,—that their re-
petition would be as idle, as it would be mostly
felt to he presumptuous. The Sacred Record,
however, we must remark, exhibits one great
event, and that event connected with a superior
human interest, which, much to our wonder, has
not attracted either of our great sacred composers.
That event is the captivity. Not only in the char-
acter of Daniel does it possess an adequate human
centre for the convergence of the sympathies, but
the event itself has an attraction and natural
division in its movement, which gives it a charac-
ter that is peculiarly exciting and dramatic. It
opens with Israel's abasement,—tbe picture of
that weeping by the waters of Babylon, which has
passed into the most pathetic as well as most
august of historical traces—it proceeds with the
manifestation of the divine power, in order to
effect Israel's deliverance—among the instances of
which Belshazzar's Feast at once occurs to us, as
one of the most memorable on record—and it con-
cludes with Israel's triumph, on the return to the
Holy Land, and the rebuilding of the Temple,
under the enlightened sway of Cyrus. Considered
merely historically, there is scarcely another event
in Scripture which presents such a growth of inter-
est, or so sublime a culmination. Little wonder,
therefore, can be felt if a new and unknown com-
poser should be inspired by such a subject, the
more especially when he knew it was left un-
touchs d by the greatest masters. His ambition
must be considered natural whatever the amount
of his ability. We wish we could have added
that his ability is of a character to war-
rant his ambition. Herr Schachner's new
work (entitled " Israel's Return from Babylon"),
produced last night at Exeter-hall, for the
benefit of the Columbia Female Emigration
Society, can scarcely be said to fulfil
the conditions required by the theme. In the
first place, he has been unfortrtnate in the book
he has had to work upon, which not only exceeds
the natural divisions that, give such clearness to
the subject, and are so stamped by their distinct
sentiments of sorrowing abasement, hope,
and fear, and finally triumphant gladness,
but which commits the further blunder of
associating with the Scripture text, the Scripture
songs of Thomas Moore. These latter are so very
lively, and have such an artificial elegance, that, so
connected, they seem as proper as a fashionable
lady Pusey ite would be in the company of a Hebre iv
Prophet. Herr Schachner's music, we regret to
add, is somewhat in keeping with the book. It is
not only devoid of originality, but of that distinct-
ness and development which are so requisite to ren-
der even the most ordinary strains impressive.
Scarcely a theme in it, or even a phrase obtained its
adequate expression; but most of the ideas, such
as they were, were less contrasted than in-
volved in a struggle which deprived them of
all power of definite impression. A minor
defect was a certain liveliness in some of the
airs to the words of Moore (very naturally
contracted), which had rather an operatic than an
oratorio character. This was especially the case
in the best success of the evening, " The Evening
Hymn," in the third part, sung by Madame
Titiens and Mr. Sims Reeves, which contained a
very charming melody, and was very loudly rede•
manded. It was unquestionably very pleasing, but
it was entirely out of place. One of the airs,
also by Mr. Weiss, " Awake, arise and
shine," recalled in its opening passage Che-
valier Neukomm's song of " The Sea." On the
other hand, it would be unjust to deny that Herr
Schachner, in this oratorio, puts forth many
evidences of his claim to the name of a musician.
He has evidently a thorough knowledge of the re-
sources he has to deal with, however wanting gene-
rally in the method of applying them, and he has
occasionally exhibited even the possession of this
method. In the duett, "The Lord has tried his
children," sung by Mr. Sims Reeves and Mr.
Weiss, he has infused considerable feeling, and in
the concluding choruses of the second and third
part he has exhibited conainerable vigour.
The execution of this oratorio was as perfect as
could be, and to its great excellence must be attri-
buted most of the good impression of the music.
Madame Titiens and Mr. Sims Reeves were both
in admirable voice, and, sustained by Mr. Weiss
and Mdme. Laura Baxter, gave to the solos and other
pieces all the effect of which they were capable. The
chorus also, and the band were thoroughly efficient,
and under the masterly direction of Mr. Alfred
Mellon left no point of merit undeveloped in their
respective spheres of duty. The entire result was
a most favourable reception of the work, several
parts of it being loudly applauded, and the
composer called for at the close. As
a still more gratifying fact, wa are happy to add
that the hall was crowded, and that therefore the
worthy end for which this music was produced—
the support of the charity we have mentioned—
must have been handsomely accomplished.