The Sun.
London, England, 1860-06-04 00:00:00

pearing only after long intervals of time in Italian
history, and deriving his chief influence from the
rare combination of the exact personal qualities
most required to meet the exact wants of a com-
pletely exceptional period in his country's annals.
Of the two struggles carried on, one by the
patriot bands in the kingdom of the Two Sicilies
against a'rule of unexampled cruelty, the other by
the Papal intriguers in Central Italy against the
nascent freedom of their country, the former pos-
sesses for the moment by far the keenest dramatic
interest. Yet it would 'be a great mistake to re
bard it as the more important of the two. Rome
is now fighting for her very altars and her hearths.
It is a moral warfare, of which the results must
prove far more important than any mili-
tary campaign. To dislodge twenty five thou-
sand well-armed, well-disciplined, and most
desperate troops from the Sicilian capital is
an insignificant matter when compared with
the dislodging of deep-rooted prejudice and tradi-
tionary belief from the minds of many millions of
the Italian people. A great living poetess, in one
of the noblest passages of her works, has counted
up all the things that go to making up a Pope
before he wears the triple crown. Passing the
world-wide throes by which his empire was first
secured, the depair of the wise, the good, the free,
the faggots flash, the short, mad cries, " down
oubliettes," the persecution sustained, now at the
hands of a tyrannical prince, and again at those of
an infuriated populace passing by all this, she has
dwelt on what even the best of Popes must be and
do. He must hold by Popes a little, and by councils
a good deal, by hierocratic empire, more or less
irresponsible to men ; he must crush the particular
conscience of each individual man, and repress in-
quiry, meditation, and argument, as treason
and faction in his spiritual despotiv4;,, He
must remorselessly sacrifice his country to his
caste. And this is the truth which Pope
Pius has branded into the convictions of
the whole Italian people, who now scoff
and toss back the crozier which Rome would
stretch like a yoke across their necks, to press
them still closer down with an unrelenting tyranny.

In this antagonism between the Italian people
and the Church of Rome are contained the elements
of a great moral and religious conflict, one, of which
the inevitable necessity is but faintly perceived by
the Italians themselves. It is in vain to draw the
distinction, which they so frequently set up, be-
tween the vices and crimes of the Prince of the Roman
State, and the reverence and authority due to the
Pontiff of the Romish Church. This distinction
must, we know, disappear before the inexorable
logic of facts. The desire of the Italians to sepa-
rate is not half so strong as the determination of
Rome unceasingly to confound her double func-
tions. Throughout the whole Catholic world the
spiritual offices of the Church have at the present
moment a direct reference to the form of Govei n-
meat established in Central Italy. The influence
of the confessional, we are informed in all the
Italian journals, is brought to bear directly on the
political and moral security of the new Italian
hngdom. The finger of the priest crosses or curses,
ot the believer or the heretic, but the tool of
Austria and Rome, or the loyal subject of King
Victor Emmanuel. All the laws of human na-
ture must be reversed, all the experience of
history must be set at nought, if the tonsured
intriguers who thus plot against their country are
' still able to command in Italy veneration for their
creed. The Romish faith, it is true, retains a won-
derfully strong hold of the feelings, and the imagi-
nation, and the conscience of its devotees. But its
influence is now exposed to shocks, in which the
strongest ties of human nature itself would infal-
libly be snapped asunder. If, by some monstrous
portent, all the relations of domestic life should be-
come so frightfully inverted, that not in one village
or in one town alone, but in all the populous
cities, in all the hamlets, in every cottage of
the Italian peninsula, the father should systemati-
cally neglect, and maltreat, and rob, and beat; and
insult his own offspring, paternal authority and
filial affection would assuredly become empty names
—the outraged child would repel the distinction
between the theoretical reverence which he was
bound to pay and the practical cruelty which he
hourly suffered. It is no otherwise at the present
moment with the fine distinctions which it is en-
deavoured to preserve between the spiritual father
whom the Italians should revere, and the temporal
tyrant who would again bind them in his chains.
In the one case as in the other, common sense and
human nature laugh to scorn all the theorisings of
an idle sophistry.

FRENCH THEATRICALS.

LYRIQUE.

The great success which has attended the revivals,
at this theatre, of the chefs-douvre of Weber, Mo-
zart, and Gluck, gave rise lately to a still more
arduous enterprise—the production of Beethoven's
opera of " Fidelio." On the present occasion, how-
ever, the failure is evident, and the liberties
taken with both music and libretto have
resulted in a pasticcio little better than
a travestie of the opera. It may well be
doubted if any efforts could have rendered this
opera, in spite of all that has been said in its praise,
welcome to a Parisian audience; the instrumenta-
tion is doubtless a fine study for musicians, and
the genius of the great German composer is evi-
dent throughout, but that genius was eminently
symphonic, and so little is there of easily intelli-
gible or really vocal melody in " Fidelio" that even
with the Malibran and Mlle. Cruvelli as Leonora,
it never became a popular favourite, notwithstand-
ing its unquestioned grandeur of conception and
orchestration, to which the resources of the Theatre
Lyrique are totally inadequate. Mme. Viardot, as
Leonora, displayed all her energy and artistic talent,
but the part is high for her voice, and we cannot
but regret she should have accepted it after her
triumph in Orphee. Battaille is equally unfortu-
nate as Rocco, the jailer, and the subordinate parts
were sustained, as best they might be, by Mlle.
Faivre, MM. Froment and Serene, of whom Mlle.
Faivre, at least, merited the applause she received.

GAITE.
The list of novelties this week is rather worse
than nil, seeing that the only production it has
brought forth is a lugubrious affair entitled " Une
Pecheresse," being the adventures of a young lady
of the class of " La Traviata," " Marion Delorme,"
and many others, all of which are so perfectly
known to the play-going world that there is not an
incident or scarcely a passage in the present piece
which is not anticipated by the spectator. The
principal character is a furiously virtuous young
man, by name Andrew Stevens, a sign-painter by
trade, who having the good—or ill—fortune to pre-
serve a young woman from suicide, incontinently
goes and marries her. He speedily diseovers that
this was a mistake, as she turns out to be one of the
unhappy tribe, familiarly known to London police-
offices as " unfortunate." The results of the singu-
larly hasty union may easily be divined—ceaseless
jealousy on the part of the husband, and misery
to both. Two or three comic roles are introduced
to enliven the dulness of the proceedings, one
scene of which is laid at Musard's ball, which
rather relieve the heaviness of the 'piece, and at
the close Monsieur Andrew has the grace to ac-
knowledge that he has been wrong, and his sus-
picions of his wife unfounded. Full of common-
place sentiment, absurdity, and improbability as
this piece is, there is a vein of interest running
through it which somehow, in spite of all defects,
keeps the attention and sympathy of the audience i
alive. It s fairly acted ; and the names of the
writers, MM. Prebois and Barriere, were received
with a warmth that promises " Une Pecheresse" a
fair prospect of a run.
nd

During the performance of "Pierre de Medicis"
on Monday evening Mme. Ferrais had the misfor-
tune to sprain one of the tendons of the heel, and
was totally unable to continue her performance. The
opera is in consequence postponed for a few nights,
to allow her a little repose.
Miss St. George, a special favourite of the Lon-
don theatres, has arrived in Paris en route for the
other principal capitals of the Continent, whither
she is proceeding with a view to give musical and
dramatic entertainments; a species of representa-
tion to which the sprightly talents and voice of this
, young lady are most admirably adapted to give
effect.

Miss Cushman, the justly celebrated American
tragedian, is at present in Paris on her return from
Rome, where she has been passing the winter.
MM. Binfield's Soirée Musicale passed off bril-
liantly. The programme commenced with their
trio on Oberon. Then came an old favourite,
Stevens's glee " Ye spotted snakes," new to Paris,
and sung with good expression and ensemble by
Mlle. Falconi and the madrigal party. Mr. H. Bin-
field performed a charming new harp mazurka, and
his variations on the " the faro" and Parish Alvar's
" Mandoline" study with his usual brilliant finger-
ing; his Agnus Dei was very well rendered, and
was warmly applauded. Bach's fine organ
in fiat, and Schubert's " Hark, the lark,' ar-
pre,lude