The Sun.
London, England, 1856-08-11 00:00:00

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Now ready, in 1 vol., with 1,500 Engravings of Arms,
THE PEERAGE and BAROITETAGE
for 1856.
By Sir BERNARD BURKE, Ulster King of Arms.
New Edition, corrected from the personal Communications of the
&c.
" The best genealogical and heraldic dictionary of the peerage and
baronetage, and the first authority on all questions affecting the
aristocracy."— Globe.
Hurst and Blackett, Publishers, successors to Henry Colburn.

TO THE ItDITOItOf THE TIMES.
Sire—My first impulse on reading your article on the
"Traviata" was to remain silent, but, feeling strongly
the responsibility which you have cast upon me, I am
induced, on reflection, to trouble you with this commu-
nication; and, while I recognise the zeal fcr public mora-
lity which prompted your criticism, I cannot doubt that,
in the investigation of a truth to which you attach so
much importance, you will give me a patient hearing,
and that this appeal to your candour will not be in vain.
Grant me this indulgence, and I hope to satisfy you that,
however just your strictures may be, as applied to
the Dame au Camellia, the opera of "La Traviata," both
in scope and detail, is not only undeserving of censure,
but is of a strictly moral tendency. And first let me
meet an objection which may be suggested as to my ap-
pearing as the defender of the libretto. It may be said
that I was interested, at whatever risk to morality, in
making use of a plot offering musical opportunities for
the display of the versatile genius of the principal artiste.
This is not so. Nothing would have been easier than to
expunge from the story everything which you have
treated as objectionable, without sacrificing a particle of
the interest, or changing a single situation of the drama.
To take your own analysis, the excitement of the tale de-
ponds upon the play of passion between the two lovers,
upon his jealousy, upon hordevotion, and upon the tragic
fate of the heroine at the moment when her troubles seem
to have been surmounted. To give scope to these feelings
Violetta might have been made a girl of simple purity
and humble birth. The self-sacrifice which is the charm
of her character might have been rendered necessary by
the aristocratic pride of her lover's noble relations. The
denouement would have been equally effective if theglimpse
of happiness which precedes it had been caused by the vie-
tBry of simple worth over the prejudices of a haughty fa-
mily. The change of a very-few words would have effected
the necessary transformation. You will ask why I did not introduce alterations which would have removed every
ground for cavil. My answer is, that they would have
injured the moral tendency of the plot. As it stand e the
melancholy catastrophe illustrates the Nemesis that at-
tends on vice, and that cannot be entirely averted even
by the most touching and devoted repentance. Strike
out from the character the evil which had blighted it,
and the last scene would hare offended against the dra-
matic canon—that suffering should only be exhibited for
the purpose of teaching a moral lesson. The business of
the stage is'to hold "a mirror up to nature," to exhibit
the contest between good and evil, and, as a necessary
consequence, to let vice be seen in contrast with virtue.
I do not understand you to contend for the principle
that none but faultless characters should find a place in
our dramas and operas, or that the education, whether
of the schoolroom or the theatre, should be based upon
the delusion that there is nothing but purity in the
world. Such notions have no eoubt bean entertained by
good men, who, as a natural inference from their doc-
trine, have condemned the stage under whatever condi-
tions. For my own part, I believe the exhibition of
the retribution which attends on sin may have as bene-
ficial an influence as the highest example of virtue. In-
stead of fruitlessly attempting to ignore the existence of
vice, would it not be well rather to follow the counsel
of Bacon, and let the young see the basilisk before the
basilisk casts its fatal glance on tliem !
I do not wish to fill your columns with a catalogue of
the many classical tales and dramas which are open to
at least as severe a criticism as that with which you Lave
visited Verdi's opera. You would not surely proscribe
the "Vicar of Wakefield," for example, for the objec-
tionable characters it introduces, or for the supposed
seduction on which the interest of the tale depends.. Though the greatest works of the greatest dramatists
and novelists are filled with examples of the
most fearful and hideous crime, you allow that the
common sense of mankind has determined that no evil
can arise to morality from the manner in which these
subjects are handled by the great masters of tragic emo-
tion, and that the tendency of such displays is rather to
purify than to corrupt the passions of an audience. Ido
not argue for the indiscriminate representation of vici-
ous characters upon the stage ; but I do ask that a mo-
dern libretto may be judged by the same principles on
which Sophocles and Shakspere, Corneille and Racine,
Alfieri and Goethe, have thought right to work.
Two conditions seem to be essential whenever vice is
presented in fiction—one, that its grossness should not
be offensively obtruded ; the other, that it should not be
presented in an alluring form. It is true that the play
of the " Dame au Camellia" offends in some degree
against one at least of these principles, and is open to
some of the charges which you have transferred to the
opera of "La Traviata " But in the construction of the
libretto of the opera everything of the kind has been
studiously avoided, and it is only to those who are fami-
liar with Dumas' novel that the situation of the drama
can oven by an accidental association suggest a single
impure or offensive idea. The opera begins with the re-
coil of the heroine from her past dissipation ; her for-
mer career, so far from being offensively obtruded, is
only dimly indicated by a few words, which the moral
purpose of the plot requires, There is not in the whole
play a sentence that the most prudish could condemn as
indelicate, nor a sentiment to raise a blush on the face
of decent womanhood. The sympathy which the cha-
racter of Violetta commands is given not to the evil of
her ways, wherein she has offended, but to the nobility,
sorrow, and suffering by which she atones her guilt.
It may possibly be true that the vice of the Dame aux
Camellias is presented under an alluring shape, but it
is certain that the sin of the Traviata only wins our pity
by her repentant devotion. If, as you say, the perdi-
tion of the libertine in Mozart's opera is not "likely to
invite imitation, or to excite the pruriency of passion,"
it may with equal truth be said that the hopeless strug-
gle of Violetta to retrieve the past supplies a more
powerful, because a more natural warning, against the
evils of such a career than any necromantic and unreal
catastrophe like that of Don Giovanni. Incidentally I
may add, with reference to one of your objections, that
in order to disconnect the opera as much as possible from
any impuritiesisugigested by the novel of Dumas, or what
you calf the debauchery of modern life, the scene of the
opera is purposely thrown back to the beginning of the
last century. No one who sees or reads the opera with-
out a previous acquaintance with the French tale will
find in it the slightest matter of offence—a circumstance
which will sufficiently explain how it is "that the ladies
of England have not felt their delicacy outraged" by a
plot which some have thought it just to denounce as im-
pure. Your own illustration derived from the play of
"Jack Sheppard" seems to show in the clearest light
the moral tendency of "La Traviata." :The two dramas
are exactly the antipodes of another. In "Jack Shep-
pard" the charm is derived from the excitement and
adventure of the thief's career, not from the occasional
expression of passing compunction. In the opera the
whole interest is absorbed by the deep, though unavail-
ing efforts of the sinner to blot out the evil of her earlier
life. Therefore it is that, while Jack Sheppard may in-
vite imitation, the example of Violetta will rather tend
to doter from yielding to temptation. The one resembles
a will-o'-the-wisp to allure, the other a beacon to warn
and to save.
There is yet another way in which the opera of " La
Traviata" may operate for good. An over-fastidicus
sensibility has made it too much the fashion to sigh at
misery, and to shun the wretched. It is not very long
since you yourself administered a just castigation to the
morbid prudishness which had dared to reflect upon
an angel of mercy who did not shrink from watch.
ing at the pillow of the sick and wounded. And is
there not the same unclean spirit to be found in the
code which would exclude the suffering and repentant
sinner from the sympathy of her sisters ? Should we
not do well to pour oil into the wounds of the unfor-
tunate, and to open a door, were it never so small,
to the return of the erring ?, Is it not our duty at
least to admit the truth, which our Pharasaism pracLi-
cally denies, that noble feelings may freqetently dwell in
the broken heart even of a stricken and repentant Mag-
dalen ! If, as I believe, the tendency of La Traviata
is to soften the hearts the pure towards those who are
struggling to raise themselves from degradation, I shall
never regret the part I have had in its production. Had
the plot contained one circumstance to hold up evil to
imitation it should never have appeared at a theatre
under my control. But as I believe it presents a whole-
some warning to the weak, and may teach a lesson of
mercy to the strong, I should be most reluctant to de-
tract from its moral value, out of deference to what I
cannot but regard as a mistaken sensibility. I need not,
I think, dwell on the objection which you take to the
dying scene. I know nothing in which it can be sup-
nosed to offend, unless it is in being too exquisitely true
to nature. But it does not approach in painfulness many
Shaksperian scenes, as, for instance, the death of King
John by poison, and I believe it is within the legitimate
limits of dramatic emotion. The tenderness of the
heroine's farewells and plaintive music in which they
are embodied, refine by their beauty the suffering which
touches the heart, and I cannot conceive why the con-
cluding scene of the "Traviata" should be thought more
open to objection than the death of Katherine or Juliet,
the murder of Desdemona, the melancholy catastrophes
of King Lear and Hamlet, or the admired tragedy of
"Adrienne Lecouvreur." If death by natural sickness
is too terrible for the stage, surely the throes of poison
ought not to be exhibited. Physical agony, it is true,
ought to be veiled, but the death of Violetta is as free
from every adventitious horror as it i 3 possible. for any
truthfully-acted scene of the kind to be ; and really the
only question with respect to it is one which bas been
practically settled for centuries,—whether the closing
scene of life is or is not a fit subject for dramatic repre-
sentation ?
In conclusion, let me assure you that in presenting
be lwithoutbelieve,
thatm o d modification, o
and,
nli
ndi
se
_-
tering to a good, a right, and a merciful cause. Youmay
ltihbee
rlai bt
erleyt t ob
eol
etvheed
possibly differ from my views, but if you will only exa-
mine andlirar
isatti7l
libretto of the opera, rejecting every
am, Sir,
rmeimnientishceenprcienotfedthe " Dame au Camellia," I do not de-
spair of your final judgment being with
your obedient servant, B. LUMLEY,
Her Majesty's Theatre, Aug. 9.

(Nom the Times.)
Mr. B. Lumley, the manager of her Majesty's Theatre,
in the Haymarket, has forwarded to us a defence of the
opera named "La Traviata,') which has been performed
under his auspices during the last season. In truththe
exhibition stood much'in need of a defence, and as many

The remains of this much-lamented and distinguished
gentleman left his residence, Ravens well, Bray, early
in the morning, attended for a considerable portion of
the route by the carriages of most of the gentry of
the neighbourhood, and reached Mount Jerome Ce-
metery at 10 o'clock. We observed, as chief mourners,
Charles Weld, Assistant-Secretary of the Royal So-
ciety of London, brother of the deceased; R. Meadows
Taylor, Dr. Fordo, and the Messrs. Prendergast.
Upon the arrival of the cortege at the gate of the
cemetery, it was met, notwithstanding the season of the
year, when so many persons are absent from town, by
a large assemblage of members of the Royal Dublin
Society, anxious to pay their last tribute of respect to
their late venerated vice-president, including Lord
Talbot de Malahide, V.P. ; L. E. Foot, and J. F.
Waller, LL.D., Hon. Secretaries ; W. E. Steele, M.D.,
assistant secretary ; H. C. Whiter, registrar ; Professor
Davy, F.R.S. ; E. R. P. Colles, librarian ; D. Moore,
curator of the Botanic Gardens ; asd Mr. M'Manus,
head master of the School of Art ; Right Hon. F. Black-
burne, F. S. Sidney, LL.D. ; J. Barton, Henry Roe, J.
Patten, G. Saunders, H. Beauchamp, M.D., W. Fry,
T. Gresham, H. C. Field, M.D. ; Edward Clibborn, H.
Carey, Parke Neville, P. Ryan- S. Foot, C. E. Bagot,
M.D., J. M'Dona, M. Creg4_,_r, P.R.H.A., R. Wilson,
C. P. Croker, M.D., G. M. M`GustlY, A. J. Ferrier,
M. M'Master, L. Thornhill, &c. ,
The servants of the society were also in attendance.
The service was impressively performed in the chapel
of the cemetery, by the Rev. Messrs. Quinton and Tom-
linson, in the presence of a large and attentive assem-
blage, who followed the body to its final resting-place.
Thus closed the earthly career of one distinguished
through a long life, exceeding eighty years, for an ar-
dent love of art and science. Possessed of geniu,, an d
a mind of great elegance, Mr. Weld improved his origi-
nal gifts by study, and by a personal acquaintance with
foreign lands. Ho visited a great portion of Europe and
America at a period when travelling was comparatively
a rare and difficult achievement, forming acquaintance
with most distinguished men of the age, including
Washington and Sir Humphrey Davy. " Weld's Tra-
vels in America" rank amongst our standard literature ;
and his descriptive work on Killarney, illustrated by his
own drawings, has never been exceeded for interest 'and
truthfulness. As a member of the Royal Dublin So-
ciety for a period of fifty-six years, his life and labours
were mainly devoted to its prosperity and usefulness ;
and his memory will be long held in grateful recollection
by every member of that body who had the honour and
happiness of his acquaintance.
The last official act of Mr. Weld, in connection with
the society to which he had been so long attached, was
assisting at the ceremony of laying the first stone of the
new Museum, by his Excellency the Earl of Carlisle, in
March last.

We congratulate the society on possessing in their
board-room a fine portrait of their late vice-president,
painted by M. Cregan, P.R.H.A., a compliment paid
Mr. Weld some years ago by the society when honorary
secretary of that body.—Dublin Mail.

A TRUE SOLDIER'S WIFE.—Mrs. Wilding, wife of a
corporal of the Royal Artillery, was one of three women
who were allowed to land with the troops at Old Fort,
in the Crimea. She was present with her husband at
the battle of the Alma, marched by his side across the
country to Balaklava, and was present at the battle of
Balaklava, where she took a horse from a Russian
officer. During her residence in the camp she earned by
washing an average amount of 20s. per diern,and saved a
considerable sum. her invariable companion during
the war was an excellent revolver, which she much
prizes. Corporal Wilding, with his brave wife, left
Woolwich for Weedon barracks hut week.