A further desert journey brought the party to the confines of Palestine, where a little verdure began to appear, and occasional patches of cultivation were seen.

were too small ever to have lived here. Down from seeing this tomb, and the magnificent we went, and still down among new wonders, prospect of the desert which the mountain long after I had begun to feel that this far tran- commands. scended all I had ever imagined. On the right hand now stood a column, standing alone among the ruins of many; while on the left, were ye more portals in the precipice, so high up that it was inconceivable how they were ever reached. The longer we staid, and the more mountain temples we climbed to, the more I felt that the inhabitants, with their other peculiarities, must have been winged. At length we came down upon the platform, above the bed of the torrent, near which stands the only edifice in Petra.

"The first thought or impression which I remember as occurring on my entrance into the Holy Land, was one of pleasure that it was so like home. When we came to towns, everything looked as foreign as in Nubia: but here, on the "This platform was sheltered on two sides by open hills, we might gaze round us on a multitude rocks; and as my eye became accustomed to the of familiar objects, and remember to whose eyes confusion, I could make out, among the masses of they were once familiar too Never were the building-stones which lay between it and the rarest and most glorious flowers so delightful to empty watercourse below, the lines of five ter- my eyes, as the weeds I was looking at all this races, and at last the piers of many bridges."-day; for I knew that, in His childhood, He must vol. ii. p. 319. have played among them, and that, in His manhood, He must have been daily familiar with On further examination, this city was them...... So already I saw that vision found to lie in a basin completely closed which never afterwards left me while in Pain by rocks; and more and more objects lestine-of one walking under the terraced hills, of interest presented themselves :-among others, a theatre, with ranges of seats cut out of the rock, and a curious temple in a che of the rock with a façade of between sixty and seventy feet.

or drinking at the wells, or resting under the shade of the olives; and it was truly a delight to think that besides the palm, and the oleander, and the prickly pear, He knew as well as we do the poppy and the wild rose, the cyclamen, the bindweed, the various grasses of the "The main street is about two miles long. Its wayside, and the familiar thorn. This, and the width varies from ten to thirty feet, and it is en-new and astonishing seuse of the familiarity of closed between perpendicular rocks which spring His teachings a thing which we declare and proto a height of from one hundred to seven hundred test about at home, but can never adequately feet..... It is paved and drained, but badly feel-brought me nearer to an insight and underlighted, for the rocks so nearly meet as to leave, standing of what I had known by heart from my really and truly, only that strip of sky' which infancy, than perhaps any one can conceive who one often reads of, but which I never remember to has not tracked his actual footsteps."-vol. iii. have seen before, except in being drawn up out of P. 53. a coal-pit..... The pavement is of large slippery stones, worn in places into ruts by ancient Palestine and Syria have been so frechariot-wheels. A conduit runs along, and little quently described by modern travellers, and above the wayside, a channel hollowed in the our limits are so nearly reached, that we rock; and, in parts, there are, at the height of have only room for a few more extracts. thirty feet, earthen pipes for the conveyance of

tinued."

water. On the face of the precipices, sometimes This is the less to be regretted as the merits upright as a wall for three hundred feet, are curiof the work entitle it to an extensive circuous marks, left by more ancient men than those lation. Few persons have started so well who paved the streets and laid the water-pipes; prepared by previous travel; by familiarity shallow niches, and the outlines and first cuttings with the Old and New Testaments, and of pediments, and tablets begun and discon- profane history, ancient and modern, including the works of previous travellers; few This extraordinary spot was left with have had their heart and soul so completely great reluctance; and the adjoining Mount in their work; few have examined so careHor was then ascended, where Aaron was fully, conscientiously, and charitably, whatcarried up to die. Scarcely any European soever has come to their notice; and few traveller had been previously allowed to have shown equal power in vividly calling ascend, and examine Aaron's tomb-a up the past. To such a wayfarer in these Mahommedan structure; but the Arabs are regions, travelling is no idle pastime, no now becoming less fanatical or more merce-light and innocent amusement. Every step nary, 20 piastres a head being levied from brings forth some deep significance; every the party at Petra, and Mount Hor being scene has its absorbing and mournful inteincluded in the show. Burckhardt, Laborde, rest.

Linant, and Robinson had been prevented After giving a very disheartening account VOL. XIV. No. IV.

36

of the progress of the Protestant mission at tive Here was it restored under Ezra, and fortiJerusalem, and the paucity and low charac-fied round, when the people worked at the wall, ter of the converts, arising from impediments with arms in their girdles, and by their sides; and here, when all had been again laid waste, did in the very nature of the enterprize, and not Herod raise the structure that was so glorious, from want of qualifications in the Bishop, or that the Jews were as proud as the Mahommedans of sincerity of his clergy, Miss Martineau now before my eyes, and mocked at the saying, ascends the mission church, which presents that it should ever be overthrown."-vol. iii. p. the following prospect of the city.

116.

"The extent and handsome appearance of Jerusalem surprized us. The population is said, not to exceed 15,000; but the city covers a great extent of ground, from the courts which are enclosed by eastern houses, and the large unoccupied spaces DISINTERESTED AND UNEXAMPLED GENEROSITY. which lie within the walls. The massive stone -Mr. Warren, the author of "Ten Thousand a walls, and substantial character of the buildings, Year," the " Diary of a Physician," and last, though remove every appearance of sordidness, when the by no means least memorable, the dramatic narraplace is seen from a height and the clearness of tive "Now and Then," in the course of a lecture dethe atmosphere, and the hue of the building ma-livered in the hall of the Law Society, in Chanceryterial give a clean and cheerful air to the whole, lane, "On the Moral, Social, and Professional Duwhich accords little with the traveller's preconcep- ties of Attorneys and Solicitors," recounted the foltion of the fallen state of Jerusalem. The envi-lowing beautiful incident:-"A short time ago," rons look fertile and flourishing, except where the Moab mountains rise lofty and bare, but adorned with the heavenly hues belonging to the glorious climate. The minarets glittered against the clear sky; and the arches, marble platform, and splendid variegated buildings of the mosque of Omar, crowning the heights of Moriah, were very beautiful."-vol. iii. p. 115.

said Mr. Warren, "a gentleman of large fortune, a man, in fact, worth his £40,000, was indignant with his only child, a daughter, for marrying against his wishes. He quarrelled with her-he disinherited her-he left his whole property of £40,000 to his attorney, and to two other gentlemen, all of whom were residing in Yorkshire. What did the attorney do? He went to his two co-legatees, got them to sign their respective claims over to himself, and then made over every sixpence of the £40,000 wo

The mosque of Omar occupies the site of the daughter and her children. When I mentioned the Temple of Jerusalem.

this circumstance, this very morning, to a friend of mine, one of the most distinguished men at the bar, he exclaimed, 'God bless that man!" The above "No Jew or Christian can pass the threshold gratifying circumstance is literally true. The genof the outermost courts without certain and imme-tleman of fortune was a manufacturer in a town diate death, by stoning or beating. It requires celebrated for its linen manufactures within the dissome little resolution for those who dislike being trict of the circulation of this paper, and the disinhated, to approach this threshold, so abominable terested attorney is one of the brightest ornaments of his profession in the West Riding of Yorkshire, are the insults offered to strangers. A boy began enjoying the fruits of an ample fortune realized by immediately to spit at us. We presently obtained his own industry and talents.-Doncaster Chronicle. a better view of this usurping temple from the city wall, which we climbed for the purpose. COTTON IN MAURITIUS.-A person who lately sufFrom hence the enclosure was spread out beneath fered shipwreck on the Island of Rodriguez, near us, as in a map, and we could perceive the pro- the Mauritius, and who for nearly two months was portion it bore to the rest of the city, and observe detained there, gives the following description of the how much lower mount Moriah was than Zion. wild cotton found on that uncultivated place. His The Mosque was very beautiful, with its vast letter states that the island is about fifteen miles dome, and its walls of variegated marbles, and its long by six broad, spontaneously producing a cousinoble marble platform, with its flights of steps and derable quantity of cotton, of which he easily could light arcades; and the green lawn which sloped have gathered from four to five hundred pounds away all round, and the cypress trees, under weight. The shrubs which appear to have been those of a perennial, flock-seeded cotton, grow abunwhich a row of worshippers were at their prayers. dantly on the lowlands at the mouths of the rivulets It was the Mahommedan Sabbath: and troops of with which the island is intersected; and they might, children were at play on the grass; and par- no doubt, be cultivated in other localities. The ties of women in white, Mahommedan nuns,- sample which he brought with him and sent to the were sitting near them: and the whole scene was Commercial Association is very fine in staple, reproud and joyous. But with all this before my sembling the fine Bourbon cotton formerly imported eyes, my mind was with the past. It seemed as to some extent into this country, but apparently a if the past were more truly before me than what little stronger. The writer, states that the Island of I saw. Here was the ground chosen by David, Rodriguez is uninhabited, except by a few black and levelled by Solomon, to receive the temple of fishermen, though it is fertile, the climate excellent, and the natural productions valuable, including the Jehovah. Here it was that the great king lavished sugar-cane, oranges, lemons, plantains, bananas, his wealth; and hither came the sun-worshippers &c.; and it would no doubt yield all the usual tropifrom the East, to lay hands on the treasure, and cal productions in abundance. But laborers would level the walls, and carry the people away cap-have to be procured from India.

From Bentley's Miscellany.

GAETANO DONIZETTI.

THE good town of Bergamo, incomparable | Signor Pilotti, another professor there, was among the picturesque cities of northern early able to produce" overtures, violin Italy, in right of the view across the plain quartettes (flimsy enough it may be prefrom its upper town, liveliest, too, among sumed), cantatas, and church music." For the markets of Lombardy, in right of its again, it may be observed, that the sound great fairs; holds, also, a distinguished tenets of old musical instruction in compoplace in the records of operatic art. It has sition, professed to enable the tyro to turn given to the Italian theatre some of its his hand to anything. The subdivision of most famous personages. Not to speak of occupation, which is comparatively of a Harlequin (type and prototype of the Sca- modern date, must be taken, wheresoever it pins and Figaros since introduced in modern occurs, as a sign of incompleteness or imcomedy), who was a Bergamask, this same perfect training. magnificent town, though remarkable for The boy's estro is from the first said to the cacophony of its dialect and the harsh have been fluent rather than brilliant or tones of voice in which its inhabitants bar- characteristic; to have shown itself in congain or scold, has been fruitful of great struction more signally than in invention. singers. As the last and greatest among A French journal tells us that shortly after these we may name Rubini, whose intense his return from Bologna to Bergamo, in feeling and profound skill have founded a 1816, the young Donizetti was "taken for school and a tradition among artists, no a soldier," and was only able to deliver less than created a passing frenzy among himself from military thraldom by gaining the European public. From Bergamo, too, a success in his own vocation, This he accomes Signor Piatti, one of the best con- complished in 1818, by the production of his temporary violoncellists. But insomuch as first Opera, "Enrico di Borgogna," at Vethe creative faculty exercises a longer-lived nice. His biographers, however, assure us, and a wider influence than any executive that, of the nineteen (?) operas which Doniperfection, the musical illustration, by which zetti produced within the next ten years, Bergamo will, perhaps, be the longest known, is to be found in the operas of Gaetano Donizetti:—who was born there in the year 1797, and whose body died there on the 8th of April last. His mind had died within the body some years earlier.

A

only one, "Zoraide in Granata," sung at Rome in 1822 by Donzelli, and the sisters Mombelli, was admitted to have made “a hit." There is no need, then, to enumerate them; enough to say that scattered pieces from "Olivo e Pasquale," have been No very precise record has reached us of formerly sung in our concert rooms. Donizetti's parentage. His education be- somewhat washy duet, "Senza tanti comgan at the Lyceum of Bergamo, under the plimenti," from "Il Borgomastro di Saarguidance of Simon Mayer. This master, dam," is still in request among our mediwho is best recollected as the composer of ocre singers of Italian. Moreover, a year Medea," because Pasta sang in that or two since, "L'Ajo nell Imbarrazzo" opera, was possessed of little genius, being was tried at her Majesty's Theatre; but precisely one of those eclectic writers whose the music was not original enough to inappearance neither forwards nor retards the progress of Art. But he must have been valuable as a teacher, from the unimpeachable correctness which marks all that bears his signature and this very absence of It might have seemed, then, that after individuality. An Albrechtsberger "turns ten years' experiment Donizetti's place was out" much better pupils than a Beethoven; irretrievably fixed among the mediocrities a Reicha than a Rossini. And we are ac- who manufacture poor music for the second cordingly told, that the young Donizetti, rate theatres of Italy-to meet the popular who passed from the hands of Mayer into the craving for perpetual variety, good, bad, or no less estimable ones of Padre Mattei, of indifferent. Such, however, was not the Bologna (a learned contrapuntist), and case. Something like originality and indi

duce the public to endure a story full of the most puerile buffooneries, in spite of the best efforts of Lablache to give them life and character.

viduality (marking that he had come to Tasso," and "Belisario," none of which years of musical discretion), broke out in stand beyond a chance of being revived by his twenty-first Opera, "L'Esule di Roma," the dramatic singers of the new school. which was given at Naples in the year 1828, With them also may be mentioned "Gemwith Mlle. Tosi, MM. Winter and La- ma di Vergy," "Roberto Devereux," and blache, in the principal parts. Some of our (of a later date) "Maria de Rohan,"-the amateurs may recollect it as the work with last never to be forgotten in England, bewhich Mr. Monck Mason opened his disas- cause of the magnificent tragic acting of trous, but enterprising one season of opera Ronconi. Better music than in any of the management, that of 1832. Such will re- above will be found in "Lucrezia Borgia," call the terzetto, in which a certain novelty and a more taking story. One rich conof structure is evident. The next work in certed piece and a notable finale for the order which has made " any stand" (as the tenor in the "Lucia di Lammermoor," have phrase runs in the green-room) was the won for this Opera the most universal popuRegina di Golconda," an Opera contain- larity gained by any of its master's works. ing no music to compare with Berton's According to our own fancy, Donizetti has sprightly melodies to the original "Aline," never written anything of a higher order, but to which such cantatrici of Italy as have as regards originality and picturesqueness, a touch of the Dugazon in them still recur, than the night scene in Venice, which makes from time to time. And that the maestro up the second act of "Marino Faliero," was looked to as promising is evident by his being commissioned to write for Pasta :for whom his thirty-second Opera, the "Anna Bolena," was produced at Milan,

in 1831.

including the Barcarolle and the grand aria which no singer has dared to touch since Rubini laid it down. We there find, for the first time, an entire emancipation from those forms and humors originated by RosThe work is performed still, when any sini (or, to be exact, perfected by him from prima donna appears who is strong enough indications given by Paër), by the imitation to contend for Pasta's succession. Though of which all the modern Italians (save Belit is not clear of the usual amount of plati- lini) have commenced their career as dratude warranted, nay, courted, by Italian matic composers.

audiences; though it be full of the rhythms "Marino Faliero" was written expressly of Rossini, it has still touches which assert for that incomparable company, including the individuality of its composer; and Mademoiselle Grisi, Signori Rubini, Tam these, it may be noted, occur in the critical burini, Lablache, and Ivanhoff, which was places. The duet, in the second act, be- assembled in 1835 in Paris. For the same twixt the Queen and her rival, may be men- year, and the same artists, Bellini's "I tioned in proof; as also the final bravura Puritani" was composed: and since it is a "Coppia iniqua,"-which, though merely certain theatrical law, that two great stage written as an air of display, is still full of successes cannot come together; and since deep tragical dramatic passion; the last the latter work made the furore, the forfrenzy of a breaking heart! mer was, by mathematical necessity, sure From this time forward the place of to be comparatively disregarded. But after Donizetti was assured as next in favor to poor Bellini's untimely death, which folthat of the more sympathetic Bellini, and lowed hard upon his triumph, it became superior to that held by the less impulsive evident to the impresarii, that there was no and more scholastic Mercadante. Thirty- Italian composer who could please (most three Operas followed the "Anna Bolena," especially on our side of the Alps) so cerand they gradually became better in staple, tainly as Donizetti. Accordingly he was more original, and more popular. To name called to Vienna, and there wrote the them one by one would be tedious. It will Linda di Chamouny," which became so suffice to touch lightly upon those which popular that its composer was rewarded by still live in the Opera Houses of Europe. being nominated to a lucrative court apThere is "L'Elisir, "-from the first to pointment. The management of the Grand the last note a spontaneous utterance of Opera of Paris, too, disappointed of a new pretty music, weakest where Rossini would work by Meyerbeer, and in distress for have been strongest, in the part in the char- music more vocal and pleasing than the latan, Dr. Dulcamara, whose grand aria, clever head combinations of M. Halevy,— even a Lablache cannot rescue from insipi- invited the universal maestro to write for dity. There are "Parisina," "Torquato that magnificent theatre. Unlike most of

his predecessors, Donizetti seems neither to ber compositions, &c., unnumbered and unhave hesitated, nor to have taken any ex- cared for,) could not be thrown off without traordinary amount of pains or prepara a heavy score being run up against him; tion on the occasion. He came as request- and to this the strain and drain of a life of ed, but after his appearance in Paris in Parisian gallantry and dissipation added a 1840, we find his name within a curiously momentous item.

short space of time to "Les Martyrs," and It is four or five years since his health "Dom Sebastian,"-two grand five-act began to give way in the most painful form Operas, both of which failed-(though still of illness, loss of memory and intellect. given in Germany and Italy); and to "La Life was spent, and there was no calling it Favorite," a four-act Opera, (written for back. Retreat and rest were tried, at first Madame Stoltz, MM. Duprez and Baroil- by his own will and pleasure, but, ere long, het) which may be regarded as his best se- by the necessary supervision of the maestro's rious work; to La Fille du Regiment," relatives. It was too late-the composer for L'Opera Comique, in which Mademoi- sunk into imbecile and hopeless melancholy. selle Borghese made her début. The last For a time he was retained in a maison de opera and the lady were found wanting by santé at Paris, without the slightest remisthat most fastidious company of judges, a sion of any painful symptom; thence he Parisian audience. Every where else, how- was transferred, in the course of last year, ever, the gaiety of the music (containing to his native town, in the hope that a more the most fresh and gaillard of Donizetti's genial climate and the presence of familiar sprightly inspirations) has placed it in the objects might work the charm of revival. first rank of favor among comic Operas. But this expedient also failed; life was We surely need not remind the Londoner spent, and, as has been said, expired not how it has furnished her most delightful many weeks since. It is idle, perhaps, to and characteristic personation to the most say that, under a wiser ordinance of his famous vocalist of our day-Mademoiselle life and energies, the composer might have Jenny Lind.

pursued his career of invention, popularity, and enjoyment for another score of years.

A good deal of foolish criticism and wholesale contempt have been thrown on the Operas of Donizetti by those who, by way of vindicating their knowledge, think it incumbent on them to mistrust all popularity, and to frown upon everything that does not "smell of the lamp."

It might have been fancied that the calls on the maestro's invention from every corner of Europe, would appear to have distanced the powers of the most fa presto writer. But Donizetti seems to have been almost fabulously industrious, and ready to the moment. Apocryphal tales are told of his having scored an Opera in thirty hours, -of his having at an earlier period, com- Generally, indeed, imperfect reasoning posed a "Rosamunda" in a single night, and foolish assumption have been more under the pressure of banditti, by whom he liberally based and vented on nothing than was captured. But these are, probably, the subject of "fertility." Cavillers have mere tales. We believe it is more certain too pedantically assumed that, by restricthat "Don Pasquale," one of the blithest tion, concentration, and similar trammelas well as one of the last of his works, was ling processes, creative genius could be commenced and completed for the Italians forced into becoming something far more in Paris within three weeks. This, in it-precious than it may have originally been. self, would be amazing enough: but Doni- Facility" doomed by the epithet zetti spared himself in no respect He fat al-has been too largely confounded seems never to have retired from the world with "feebleness." Now, in Music at to work. On the contrary, being a cheer- least, this is a huge and untenable falful, fascinating man, he not only chose to lacy. Dangerous though it seem to afwrite music as fast as other men can talk ford encouragement to idleness, to preabout it, but to fill up every leisure second sumption, to invention by chance, to a with all the wasting pleasures of a viveur To these, it is understood, he addicted himself with as much impetuosity as to the supply of the theatres of Europe.

There is, however, a limit to fertility and revelry, even so long and joyously main tained as bis: Donizetti's sixty-five Operas (to say nothing of masses, misereres, cham

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spirit of money-making cupidity, the perpetuation of falsehood is yet more dangerous :-and there are few falsehoods more complete than the reproach conveyed in the above assertions. With very few exceptions, all the great musical composers have been fertile when once taught,--and capable of writing with as much rapidity as ease.