THE OPERA, WITH ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE GOLD

CURTAINS.

TRUST not to the words of vain rumour, close your ears to the voice of empty prediction, as Ulysses rendered his auricular organs impervious to the song of the Syrens. You will, perchance, hear that the curtains that decorate the opera boxes are going to be dyed-but expect nothing of the kind. Even as gold-actual gold-the gold whereof, say our spelling books, "guineas and half-guineas are made,"-asserts its superiority over all other metals; so shall the seeming gold of the curtains, proudly triumph over every rebellious hue that would interfere with its dominion. Red, deeply blushing at its own presumption, shall slink from the field; green, though it surveys the gold with jealous eyes, shall avoid the contest, white shall remain pallid in the back ground; blue, looking itself—that is looking blue-shall not attempt to dispute the supremacy. Black of course would never think of raising a question about the matter; and as for all the hybrid shades that arise from the intermarriage of the rebellious colours, they shall retire with their respective parents.

For, indeed, why should the gold curtains be displaced? To gold, as we have hinted, belongs the supremacy of natural right. If you want an impartial judge, catch an alchemist (poor Kellermann is dead) and ask him. Pindar sang:

Αριστον μὲν ὕδωρ, ὁ δε χρυσὸς ἀιθόμενον πῦρ

ἅτε διαπρέπει νυκτὶ μελάνορος ἔξοχα πλουτου.

Whereby he signified that (soda) water was an excellent thing in the height of the opera season-particularly if the day had been preceded by a champagne supper-and that an opera box with gold curtains, was as conspicuous among other indications of a large income, as the opera chandelier when it is lighted up at night. The house, newly decorated, is the most splendid theatre in the world, and, therefore, is consistently adorned with the most lordly colour in the world-a colour, which at the same time delicately symbolises the ready cash, that has been expended in the improvement.

But, say some, will not the gold curtains counteract the effect which the ladies ought to produce, by the joint efforts of their loveliness and their dress-makers? We are not sure that we ought to condescend to answer this objection, seeing that we set forth in our very last number that the gold curtains were to be considered as so many frames, enclosing a number of beautiful pictures. Nevertheless, we will not content ourselves with a reference to the April New Monthly, but will bring forward a new strong authority, no other than the goddess Aurora herself. Homer tells us :

Ἠὼς—κροκόπεπλος ἐκίδνατο πᾶσαν ἐπ' α ἶα,

that Eos (Aurora) clad in saffron-colored peplus was diffused on all the earth, and do our readers suppose that the said Aurora, at whose bidding all flowers resume their hue, who is the first to make the earth wear a variegated garment, was such a wretched judge of colours, that she picked out the most unbecoming of them all? Did she wish to look

The Opera, with especial reference to the Gold Curtains. 111

especially faded in the eyes of that Tithonus, whom she had begged Zeus to immortalise?-No!-If she had, Tithonus, in his cricket-form would not now be singing to her praises on the winter's hearth. As for any objection that saffron-colour may not be precisely the same as bouton d'or, we dismiss it as hair-splitting and frivolous.

Again, when the troop of satyrs were all made slaves to Polyphemus, and mourned after their lawful sovereign, Bacchus, the very first peculiarity in that beloved deity that occurred to their minds was his "yellow hair." Thus, according to Euripides, did they sing:

Ω φίλος, ὦ φίλε Βακχεῖε,

πᾶι οἰοπολεις,

ξανθὰν χαίταν σείων;

Which is admirably rendered by Shelley,

Bacchus, oh beloved, where

Shaking wide thy yellow hair,
Wand'rest thou alone, afar?

Now Bacchus, as we all know, was the early conqueror of India, a kind of foreshadowing of the East India Company; and do we suppose that in the very land of dyes, where blue and black divinities are in fashion, and where the people think it marvellous proper to stain their hands and feet with henna, he would have allowed his hair to retain its pristine yellowness, had he not been convinced that no other hue was so becoming to his complexion? Therefore, oh! inhabitants of the boxes, cease to dread the effect of the bouton d'or curtains. Let Guido's picture over the stage remind you of Aurora, and Lucile Grahn's pas de Bacchante, (if she dances it,) remind you of Bacchus-to say nothing of authorities in the shape of amber-coloured boudoirs, &c.

Supposing the case, that to certain dull habiliments, the curtains are unfavourable—is it necessary that the sombre attire should remain in fashion for an entire season? Berlin guardsmen had portraits of Fanny Elssler painted on their pipes, French ladies of the revolutionary period wore chapeaux à la guillotine, a certain sort of fans, used in the days of Mazurier, the famous jocko, recorded his triumphs by exhibiting the various colours of the ape. What has not set a fashion? And now, it would surely be worth while, for dress-makers to set their heads together, and excogitate colours that may stand in relief against the gold curtains. There is an old proverb about Mahomet going to the mountain, when the mountain would not come to Mahomet.

Turn we to the physical world. Whence did experimentalists derive their first knowledge of the electric fluid? Why, they found that amber when warm, had a power of attracting light substances. This was the first revelation; and from the Greek word ekтpov, is the word "electricity" derived. Here is a whole department of science founded on the attractive powers of amber. And shall the amber curtains that so vividly represent the hue of the mineral, prove repulsive to the hearts of the habitué-which being hearts free from care, are light substances par excellence. After a while, to be sure, the bits of feather, &c., being fully electrified, were found to start back from the amber. But these curtains are new, friends, these curtains are new, and the period of satiety cannot yet have approached. At present, therefore, they must attract, or a physical absurdity will be symbolised.

May.-VOL. LXXVII. NO. CCCV.

I

112 The Opera, with especial reference to the Gold Curtains.

Moreover what colour could be substituted? An ancient metaphysician proved that any thing that is not something, must be something else, and hence the curtains if they be not gold colour, must be of some colour which is not like gold. Hang up your boxes with red, and make the whole interior of the opera-house look like Judge Jeffreys' court during the "Red Assize," and nothing will be more heavy. Blue will be cold and cheerless. Green will be as unpleasant to the eyes, as its superabundance in the pictures of an unskilful landscape painter. Run over the list of colours, and you will find you must return to the theory of the paintings in the gilt frames, and allow the bouton d'or to maintain its place.

Therefore to go back to the point whence we started, heed no rumours about chromatic transformations, but resist them as an obstinate player on the horn proverbially resists the conductor of an orchestra. The bouton d'or is firmly fixed, and neither Atlas who carried the world on his shoulders, nor the monkey Hanuman who carried a rock on the tip of his tail can remove it from its place.

Easter has passed, and there is every indication of the season having fairly set in. The fair Castellan was, as it were, the harbinger, as she came out shortly before Passion Week. Her voice is as sweet as ever, and in style, in neatness of execution, and in the finish of her fioriture, she has greatly improved. Then as an actress she has moved forward wonderfully. We write under the immediate impression of her Sonnambula, and her very delicate and natural representation of the character is flitting before us yet. There is a charm in the manner of this lady, which does not startle and take by storm, but which grows upon you more and more. Her version of a character will bear investigating, you may watch her countenance, her by-play, and you will find "all right."

Now the great "stars" crowd upon the boards. Grisi returns with her voice in admirable condition, and again delights the town as Elvira. Mario sings Il mio tesoro to perfection, coming free from the huskiness which sometimes has adhered to him, like Sinbad's old man of the sea. Lablache brings the hugeness of his voice and the hugeness of his figure, and people scarcely know which delights them the most. Now, too, the "Long Thursdays" begin to exhibit their wondrous extent, the number of hours being symbolised by the height of bill at the doors.

"Puritani," "Giovanni," "Sonnambula," "Barbiere," are pressing upon each other's heels, and habitués see from their stalls the spectacles which they have witnessed scores of times before, and which please them as much as ever. Leaving our readers to be carried along by the stream, we take leave of them for the present.

No!-Stop one single instant, while we cry after you just as some luckless wight who has missed the train, bawls in senseless despair after the vanishing engine,-for does not the "season," with its operas, its balls, its etceteras, convey you along just as though it were a vehicle? One fact more? the Queen has been to the opera-nay, she has been twice.

LITERATURE.

EMILIA WYNDHAM.*

EMILIA WYNDHAM, a paragon of goodness and beauty, loves, and is beloved by Colonel Lennox, one of those supercilious specimens of modern chivalry who profess not to know a wood anemone, despise a garden terrace because it has not an esplanade a thousand feet high breasting the ocean, and looks upon all men of business as a class to be avoided. The character of Emilia's father will be best described by an extract.

"I was promised some grouse for supper to-night, and here is only an odious roast fowl."

"Why, I am very sorry you should be disappointed, Mr. Wyndham," was the reply, "but when the man asked half-a-guinea a brace for them, I really felt inclined to be shabby, and send him away without his reckoning."

"Every thing one particularly likes is always half-a-guinea a brace with women, and then turning round, "What have you there before

you, ma'am?"
"Sweetbreads."

"Humph! Emilia, is that an apricot tart?" "No, papa-cherry, I think."

"Are apricots, too, madam, half-a-guinea a half-dozen; because I rather expressed a wish for some, I think, yesterday?"

This exhibition of domestic fretfulness and tyranny occurs in the presence of Colonel Lennox and of Mr. Danby, a London solicitor, who has arrived at the Oaks, to avert a catastrophe which Mr. Wyndham's thoughtless, dissatisfied nature, and his habitual extravagance, pandered to by a rascally attorney, is rapidly bringing about. Mr. Danby is described as a thin, spare man, whose clothes rather hung upon than dressed him, and with hair either rusted or grizzled, yet a man of superior abilities and deep feelings-feelings which Emilia first called forth from their hidden depths to infuse a new and life-breathing warmth into that heart, which before, was as dry as the parchment upon which he endorsed his conveyances.

Emilia has a bosom friend, Lisa Hesketh, daughter of Sir Thomas and Lady Maria. She is petite, exquisitely beautiful, and undisciplined, "the most beautiful heap of elegant and soft-looking things, and the sweetest little face among them all, that could well be imagined." An extract from one of Lisa Hesketh's characteristic letters to Emilia will convey the best idea of her disposition. It is written on the occasion of her father's appointment as ambassador to the Court of St. Petersburg.

"Oh, I'll make mischief among them all at St. Petersburg-see if I don't—and I'll marry some grand Russian prince-Prince Ruffamuffapuffaslowsky. Don't you see the princess coming walking up to you in a grand London party-you'll only be poor little Mrs. Colonel Len. . . -don't beat me-hanging on your husband's arm, with, may be, a paltry bit of a red ribbon just peeping at his button-hole, and a paltry Sir as a handle to his name; and I shall come up to you with my grandee

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* Emilia Wyndham. By the Author of "Two Old Men's Tales." Mount Sorel," &c. 3 vols. Henry Colburn.

all sorts of sheep-skins, and two-necked eagles, and dragons, and Georges and Michaels, and monsters, adorning his breast, and covered from head to foot with stars and garters; and you'll look so humble and so afraid, and I shall be so sweetly condescending."

It will scarcely be anticipated after these juvenile confidences, that Lisa Hesketh weds Colonel Lennox, and the good and beautiful Emilia is married to the man of red tapes and rusty black suit. Yet such events are quickly brought about by the ruin and sickness of Mr. Wyndham, the death of his lady, and the selfishness and harshness of an uncle. Colonel Lennox has joined his regiment without explaining himself-it was too much trouble to do so-and to procure a shelter for her father, sunk under misfortune to a fretful drivelling lunatic, and a home for herself, Emilia at length accepts that offered to her in Chancery-lane! while Lennox, on his return from the Peninsula, disgusted with what he considers to be her want of faith, marries the pretty, but thoughtless, Lisa.

Unlike most novels of which matrimony is the climax, in the present instance, it is only the stepping-stone to the mature development of the characters we have so slightly sketched. The friends, although moving in such different spheres of life, continue faithful to one another; while, as might be expected, the ill-assorted unions they have made, are productive at first of any thing but happiness. Lisa's want of character and principle, conduct her to the very verge of guilt, but Emilia, resolved to save her, toils in her career of love and goodness with unequalled nobleness and depth of purpose. An Iago of a mother unfortunately rouses distrust and jealousy during these proceedings in Mr. Danby's bosom, and his life is a life of doubt and misery, till one great catastrophe averted in time-an elopement prevented by Emilia-places all parties in their proper light, and restores husbands and wives to love and duty.

It is difficult to imagine any thing better told or more carefully and skilfully wrought out, than this wedded relationship of Mr. Danby and Emilia Wyndham; and we are fully prepared to agree with the author, that it was much better that these pairs once united, should have remained united, and have learned to love one another, than that they should have changed partners, and found mutual failings, and mutual discontent, and fresh reason for changing again in every new form of married life they might have tried!

Lisa Hesketh and Emilia Wyndham, are characters modelled by no extraordinary coincidence upon the same plan as Eveleen and her better principled sister in "The Confessions of a Pretty Woman." Lisa's mother is like Eveleen's mother-"a dressy, vain, coquette, violent-tempered mother," whom she could neither love nor respect; but the development of the characters is managed with superior skill, told with infinitely more power, and wrought out without a blemish in the important points of taste and feeling. There is actually nothing to mar an admirable picture of manners, and a very striking story of every-day fashionable life. There is no aristocratic slang, no violation of decency, no forced hot-bed sentimentality. Every thing is natural and well told. There are passages that speak worlds as to the sex of the author, as man is born, bred, reared, dyed, double dyed in jealousy-it is the universal passion." And again, "if husbands now and then received a lesson in their turn, and learned