Northern Times. — 1859-04-21 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

STERNDALE BENNETT'S " MAY QUEEN" AT THE •PHILHARMONIC HALL.—At the next subscription Concert of the Philharmonic Society, on Tuesday, the 26th inst., the committee will, for the first time, introduce to the musical public of Liverpool Dr. Sterndale Bennett's new cantata of " The May Queen." This charming work, the composition of one of our most talented, genial, and original composers---the director of the London Philharmonic Society, and Professor of Music at Cambridge--was originally produced at Leeds, on the occasion of the opening of the new Musical Hall in that town. It was an immense and decided success, and the verdict of the Leeds public has since been ratified by the unanimous decision of the metropolitan critics and musical connoisseurs. As " The May Queen" will be new to the majority of our townsmen, we quote the following brief notice of it from the _Musical World :---" The text, or libretto, of this interesting work is furnished by Mr. H. F: Chorley, who has performed his task in a very pleasing manner. The story is founded on a quality destined to last, not for an age, but for all time,' namely, woman's coquetry. The period of. the action is May-day in the good old times. The May Queen has long been wooed by a fond and constant swain, but, like a great many others of her sex---Bien Jou qui s' y, fie, as Francis the First said---has a natural taste for a little bit of flirtation. This taste she indulges with a forester, called Robin Hood, who, resolving to make the best of the occasion, endeavours to embrace her. This, of course, excites the lie of her old lover, who formulates his indignation in the shape of a blow administered to his enterprising rival. As this argumentum ad hominem is propounded on the royal domain, the unhappy young man has rendered himself liable to have his hand chopped off. 'When affairs are in this unpleasant posture, the Queen herself arrives, and, having learnt the true state of the case, and found that the offender was fully justified in what he has done, remits the penalty, with an injunction to the erring fair one to be faithful to her old' love, and turn a deaf ear to Robin Hood, who, after all, is not a bold forester, but a noble attached to the court, who has  assumed his rustic disguise for purposes best known to himself, but which we are all, probably, able to guess. Professor Bennett's music to this agreeable little plot is most charming, simple, unaffected, and excellent. The overture, which, by the way, is not new, being known some years back, under the title of Marie du Bois, to lovers of music, is fresh and captivating. Indeed, the whole work breathes an aroma of the pure, fragrant forest glade, green leaves, and blossoming May."  " Did I hurt you ?" said a lady the other day, when she trod on a man's toes. "No madam, I thank you, seeing it is you. If it were anybody else I would have hollered out murder."  A chap went out duck-shooting the other day with an awful kicking old musket ; he had got the bang of it, and when he fired leaned forward to counteract the effect of the recoil. Seeing a nice flock of ducks, he crept up on an old log, took good aim, inclined his body forward and pulled; the gun snapped, didn't go off according to calculation, and per consequence the individual did—went head-foremost to the bottom, musket and all.—American Paper.