a passion to tatters, as in domestic squabbles, at the bar, at political meetings, and sometimes, but not often, in the pulpit;-but we never heard, did we? of men and women in private life, in any part of the world, acting farce, comedy, or tragedy, to the regular or irregular scraping of cat-gut, and the mixed sounds of as many instruments, as the finances of an operatic company would justify the manager in engaging. You may tell me that the world of music differs from our every-day world, and that its creations are to be treated by different laws, and I will agree with you: but nothing that you can say, I fear, will ever fully reconcile me to the absurdity of the whole affair. The every-day world, let us say, is Prose, the world of music, Poetry. The one the Real, the other the Ideal. Now in my way of thinking, only in my way, mind, there can be no successful blending, no happy intermarriage between the two. They are as antagonistic to each other as oil and water. Oil is very good in its way: it was better, till gas came into fashion: and water, too, is very good in its way; in navigation,-in connexion with soap, on washing days, and mixed with a due proportion of whiskey; but oil and water together, poetry and prose, the real and the ideal, music and the every day world, will not do, as the modern Greeks say, "at-all, at-all." But if I do not love the opera much, many of its surroundings and absurdities are very amusing, and I always love to see the musicians emerge from their dens, under the stage, prior to its commencement. First comes an oldish gentleman, with bald head and sandy whiskers, then a thin man with spectacles, then one in a very seedy coat, then a couple with incipient mustaches, then, again, another oldish man, and so on, till the last has taken his seat. But that den under the stage what kind of a place is it, and what were they doing down there all the while? Who knows anything of "that bourne from which the orchestra return?" As soon as the entire band have squeezed themselves into the smallest possible space, and it is wonderful how closely they can be packed, and yet have elbow-room to play in, they begin to tune their various instruments. The fiddler, I beg pardon,-Messieur, the violinist, rosins his horse-hair, and tightens up his cat-gut, the flute-player sets the joints of his flute, the bugler joins the stems of his bugle, the man who clashes the cymbals, tinkles them to see that they are in tune, and all, from end to end, endeavour, by this "prologue to the swelling act," to give some idea of what they intend doing when they really begin their evening's work. They never think of beginning without these preliminaries. In fact, so indispensable are they deemed, that I fully believe, if the whole band only whistled, they could not begin without making faces, screwing up their mouths, or wetting their whistles. The air of conscious importance, impressed upon the face of the leader, I beg pardon again, the maestro, when he taps the music-book as a signal to begin, is diverting enough to me, who have but little intimate acquaintance with notes of any kind, except those ycleped promissory. The signal is given, and they launch out at once into a sea of sound. The violinists saw their bows rapidly, and struggle to give one an idea of perpetual motion; the bugler swells his cheeks out until they threaten to split and explode; the flute players finger their stops as if they were beating the devil's tattoo; the miscellaneous part of the band are not behind, and the maestro all the while beats time with the regularity of clockwork. And what curves and angles he describes with his bow. Is he ciphering out some unknown quantity in musical algebra, squaring a musical circle, or trying to write his harmonious name (German always, and unpronounceable by English tongues), legibly on nothing? Hark! to the screeching of the agonized violins, the blare of the trumpets, and the thick rough cannonade of the drums. Heaven and earth seem coming together. The din dies off slowly, and nothing now is heard but the softest and sweetest of sounds. If the music would only say so, "It would not melt, but only deepen Sleep Into diviner Death!" Showers of melody, softer and brighter than dew, are rained into the soul; threads of sounds, silken and golden, are interwoven with one's being; memory and hope, the Janus faces of the heart, "look before and after, and sigh for what is not." But the tide of stormy sound, laid for a moment, rises tumultuously again, and the harsh, loud, and discordant instruments, unable longer to keep silence, make up for lost time, and have it all their own way, growling, and grumbling, and rumbling, and thundering, to the end. Like most melo-dramas, the opera generally opens with a chorus, either of bear-hunters (who needn't go far, to find what they are after), or soldiers, banditti, and palace lacqueys, or groups of country girls, and maids of honour, in waiting upon the prima donna, the queen, or princess, or priestess of the evening, who enters, when her turn comes, by a large door, always open in the flat. Those who read the libretto of the opera, are under the impression that they distinguish what the chorus are singing, but to the uninitiated and ignorant part of the house, it is all Greek. It must be hard work to be a chorus-singer, for they all strain themselves very much, and look very red in the face; and it seems necessary, also, to understand something of posturing, for they all stand in a peculiar manner, and gesticulate in a peculiar style, not taught by modern elocutionists. The gentlemen always point off the stage, in one direction, and the ladies in another. It will never do to describe Hogarth's curve line of beauty,→→→→ at least no chorus-singer was ever known to do it, so their gestures are always at right angles, and somewhat jerky in their development. By and by the hero or heroine of the piece makes his or her appearance, and is greeted with a faint round of applause; faint, because it is not in order to stamp at the opera, and because a hearty clapping of hands is dangerous to white kids, to say nothing of the vulgarity of any violent demonstrations of delight. After this is duly acknowledged by a stiff bow (for your favourite singers, to use an equestrian phrase, “feel their oats"), they go at their work in good earnest. Nobody knows what they are saying or doing, or what it is all about, save those who read the libretto, and few of those are familiar enough with Italian, to know it when they hear it; so it might as well be high Dutch, for all the wiser we are likely to be. Most singers, it has always seemed to me, have a great desire to go to heaven or somewhere else, while singing, for they move their arms as if they fancied them wings, and pitch their bodies forward as if they wanted to make a "fell swoop" into the parquet, and were only prevented from doing it from the difficulty they find in lifting their heavy boots from the floor. Did they possess the lightness and agility of the ballet, they would succeed to a certainty. One can always tell when a pathetic passage is coming, for they all lift their arms at its commencement, and continue to elevate them till the climax, when they throw themselves onward and upward, like the pictures of the flying Mercury, poised on tiptoe. After a solo or duet, as the case may be, the recitative begins. The recitative is a kind of measured monologue, half talking and half singing, but the last has always the "lion's share,”—a sort of Vanity Fair, devil's mass, in which the singer tells what he or she has done, or is about to do, with what they can't and won't do to please anybody, with other matters of importance to them, but of none to us. The first idea that always strikes an unmusical spectator, at a first visit to the opera, is, that everybody is trying to sing everybody else down, and that they come near enough to it to create a second Babel, in which no one would desire to be confounded a second time. If there is a challenge given, it is not written, or delivered orally, but sung to an accompaniment of the orchestra. If there is a letter to be read, it must be sung. If there is love to be made, no matter how secretly, it must be sung, though it should be heard in the next street. A heart, to be given away properly, must be given away with music. There is no lack at the opera, of "Girls who give to song, What gold could never buy." (Only the last item is somewhat doubtful.) And if any gentleman or lady is killed, and feels inclined to die, he or she must be killed, and must die to 66 tune,"-never faster, or slower,-and while they are dying, the music in front, pats their voices on the head, and they die like swans, "And their sweetest songs-are the last they sing." But, to return to the stage again-for I find it impossible to be serious, or to keep my temper at the absurdities of the opera. As some of my readers may hereafter desire to write a play, it will not, I hope, be deemed impertinent in me, to give them a few easy rules, which, strictly adhered to, will be certain to insure success. In the first place then, I would advise you, by all means, to make the acquaintance of all the actors and managers, neither of whom were ever known to make any decidedly serious objections to woodcock and champagne suppers. After doing this, which will create a large vacuum in your pockets, you had better beg, buy, or steal, as many plays of all sorts as you can lay your hands on. (If you read French, you may translate, and with impunity pass off a thousand French dramas for your own home manufacture.) When you are ready to write your play, have a dozen of those you have begged, bought, or stolen, open before you. Take an old joke from one, a double entendre from another, a whole speech from a third, a scene or situation from a fourth, and so on, ad libitum, until you have enough to make a play. Then dovetail the heterogeneous materials to some sort of a plot,-you may steal that too, if you please-no matter how sketchy it may be, only do it smartly, and make your dramatu persona declaim well, tag on some political, les, or patriotic allusions, "to bring the house down' and you will become a successful dramatic writer Never mind probability or nature. Both, on the the stage, are antiquated and exploded ideas. Nor need you mind character either; that can always be found ready made. If you want an old man, and no play can be complete without one, there is the father in ditress, who always wears a wig of white horsehair, and shakes it with the stage palsy. The old guardian and uncle, who has, before the first act begins, robbed the juvenile tragedian, his nephew, of the paternal estate The harsh and crabbed landlord, who turns everybody out of doors. (How all authors do hate landlords!) Tɔc crusty old bachelor who growls at the womer and children, and isn't to be humbugged at any price. (N.B. He always marries a widow in the last scene.) The old steward, with a consump tive cough of fifty years' standing, and a tendency to babble family secrets. The old pensioner wounded in the Peninsular. The old admiral cr commodore, who always has a gouty leg bound in white flannel, and a large nose studded wri vinous rubies, besides a pair of marine epaulets. and a volley of oaths. Then there is the ca! sailor, and farmer, and tinker, and highwaymar, and pauper, and general old Methusaleh of the drama. Young men are as plentiful as old ones. A you must put love in your play, you want a yourz lover. He must always wear the miniature, or, at least, the daguerreotype, of his beloved over his heart, and must stand in awe of her guardian. her hand on his own son, or nephew,—in such who means to marry her himself, or to bestow cases a great booby and rake. The lover must have a friend, to help him to an idea when bo him with a rope-ladder, if necessary, and, abone wants one (which is quite often), and to fura:st. all, to assure him that a post-chaise is in waiting at the end of the lane. Jeremy Diddler is always at your service on this occasion. (Of course, the lover lends him money, and rescues him from the bailiffs.) He will make love, if needful to carry on the plot, to the old aunt or antiquated maiden sister; and, if she has something bandsome in the four-per-cents, he is ready-rash man!-to promise marriage. I am not over fond of juvenile tragedy; so I will not recommend the ambitious youngster to your notice. Use your own discretion with the ladies; but stipulate, if possible, that they shal be pretty, and favourites with the public. See that the heroine dresses in white satin, and ber confidante in white muslin; for Mr. Puff, in The Critic," assures us that this rule, especially in insane cases, must never be departed frown. The maid must be pert, and full of inventions for outwitting the old people, and always mercenary When she carries or fetches a letter, the lover must give her a kiss and a sovereign-but the sovereign first; and her mistress must give her thimbles, caps, and her cast-off dresses of the last season. When you want servants, you may take the stock Yorkshire clod, or the stage Irishman,-fe whom in private life you might search the world in vain. Make them stupid, or smart, as you see fit, but always impudent. They must always get everybody into difficulties, and extricate them to the satisfaction of the audience. This is their business. They are engaged for this, and for the breaking of innumerable tea-sets and breakfastdishes, which they contrive to spill from the stage waiter. You must have footmen in powdered liveries, whose business shall be to announce the carriage at the door, and to bear off the lap-dog. They may flourish a duster of peacock's feathers in the opening scene, but nothing lower than that in the way of manual employ ment. No respectable footman would condescend to go below the duster. Even that must be expensive. Don't forget the modest gentleman who announces dinner, which is supposed to be ready, off the right wing. Nor the postboy, who wants to be "remembered." (As if anybody who had ever travelled with a post-boy could forget him!) Nor the "boots," in his waistcoat ("boots" are never known to wear coats). Nor the bailiff who comes down from London, or Bath, to arrest the young hero. Nor the old uncle from India, with no liver, but lots of money. Nor the indigent but virtuous nephew, whose debts he always pays. Nor the young lady who has a brother in the Guards. Nor the libertines that reform at the end of the play,after all their schemes have failed. Nor the interesting damsels who always marry men whom "their souls abhor," to save their papas from the King's Bench. Nor the landlord, who wears a napkin for an apron. Nor his daughter, the bar-maid, who wears a Swiss skirt with a black bodice, and brings on the wine in a black waiter. Nor the captain of the soldiers who are looking for some notorious ruffian, generally a bandit. Nor the young lord who tucks the landlady under the chin, and calls her "a fine lass," whereat she makes a courtesy, and takes hold of the corners of her apron, looking very prim and virginal. Nor the bandits, who wear sugar-loaf hats, tied up in red, blue, and yellow ribands. Nor the old gents who wear powdered wigs of Louis the Fourteenth's time, antediluvian coats, and tinsel knee-buckles, and are always " shaky" on their legs, and trembling in their hands, especially when in a rage, to which failing they have a natural tendency. Nor the jolly, red-faced old fathers, who always end a farce or comedy with "Take her, you dog!" "Take him, you baggage!" or, "God bless you, my children!" With this powerful cast before you, and whatever else your imagination, if you have any, can suggest, and a strict adherence to the rules above-mentioned, you must infallibly become a great dramatic author, and your plays will be read when Shakspeare's are forgotten(aside) but not before! In the mean time, let us be thankful for what we have, and let us enjoy the drama as it is, without looking the gift-horse too closely in the mouth. Success to the Stage! THE FORSAKEN. BY MATTIE GRIFFITH. Yet they outlived thy vain and fickle love. FAREWELL, thou false and perjured one! farewell! | In many a lovely wreath, are withered now; I madly strive to quell the tears that start The raging torrent;-but the task is vain. At twilight, with clasped hands, we've loved to Abroad, and list to Nature's evening song; And then I've felt, and thou hast seemed to feel, Joys all unknown amid the world's gay throng. Oft have we sat and looked upon our star, Our own sweet love-star in the rosy West,Whose pure and holy radiance from afar Shone on my brow, close nestled to thy breast; I've scauned the old Chaldean's blazing scroll, Thy false hands twined, 'mid yonder beauteous 33 'Tis past for ever! Love's brief dream is flowni Has been by heartless perjury profaned. Thy letters I have given to the flame; I would not read again each breathing word; The sad remembrance of a love unblest, The gloomy ruins of Love's once bright dream, The rich and softly-blushing sunset cloud, The gentle vesper-star, so pure and bright, Can bring but anguish to a spirit bowed Beneath the shadows of the soul's deep night. Farewell! my heart its suffering must hide; Here will I nerve my soul with stern, deep pride, C. SCHUESSELE. BY GEORGE W. DEWEY. THIS distinguished Genre artis: was born in 1824, at GUEBWEILER, in the department of ALSACE, in France. At the age of sixteen, he left his native town for the city of Strasburg, and placed himself under instruction with M. GUERIN, professor of drawing in the Strasburg Academy. After a very successful course of study, for two years, under this master, a dream of ambition, and a desire for adventure, turned his thoughts towards PARIS. Full of the enthusiasm which always accompanies genius, he was restless with desire. He longed to see those men who had given to the world such evidences of genius, as artists. He wished to see, and know such men as Delaroche, Sheffer, Couture, Lecurrieux, and Vernet! His purpose being once fixed, all his energies were directed to its accomplishment. In a few weeks he found himself in Paris-in that great metropolis-a stranger! Letters which he had brought with him from Strasburg, however, soon gave him the entree to the society of the leading artists. Good fortune, or good taste threw him in frequent contact with Paul Delaroche, and he immediately placed himself under this celebrated master for a course of studies. It now became necessary to use his knowledge of drawing and designing to some advantage-to use his pencil for a maintenance. This was easily accomplished. The publishing house of ENGELMANN & GRAF employed him, and paid him liberally for a series of various chromo-lithographic designs, for illustrations of illuminated works. Some of these designs were executed in the very highest style of this beautiful art. In this department, Mr. Schuessele seemed to have reached almost unrivalled excellence. After having been thus, for some time, employed as an artist, and occupied as a student, by turns, he formed an intimacy with YVON, also previously a student of Delaroche. This intimacy gave him the privilege of Yvon's atelier, where he now commenced, with renewed vigour, his studies. About six months after this, Louis Philippe conceived the design of having all the pictures in the gallery at Versailles, copied, and published in the very richest and most elaborate manner of chromolithographic art. M. GAVARD, superintendent of such matters, made the contract for the execution of the drawings with Mr. Schuessele. The revolution of 1848, prevented the success of this design, and defeated the whole matter. At this time, brilliant offers and inducements, turned his attention to the United States. His destination was soon chosen, and Philadelphia became the city of his adoption. Here he soon became lucratively employed in his old profession of chromo-lithography. For two years he remained comparatively unknown. At least unknown among our own artists. But a genius, and a knowledge of art, such as he possessed, would not remain long in obscurity. It is now that we can speak of Mr. Schuessele from our own knowledge and observation. In the spring of 1851, quite a sensation was created among our artists and connoisseurs, by a cabinet picture, "THE ARTIST'S RECREATION," which was placed in the annual exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. This unpretending little picture attracted the attention of the best critics, and was pronounced to be a most successful hit, in expression, feeling, manipulation, and colour. It was now that attention was called to the painter. Every person was astonished to learn that we had an artist of such strength and merit among us, without having had other evidences of his genius. But the matter was soon explained. Mr. Schuessele had been continually engaged at his regular profession of chromo-lithography, and this little picture in oil, was only a "by-play," a thing thrown off at leisure. And it was not the less astonishing, that this picture was the first attempt in oil he had made in this country. This picture was sold the very first day it was placed on exhibition. Mr. Charles Macalester, a gentleman of acknowledged taste in the fine arts, selected it for a friend, Mr. J. Lisle Smith, of Chicago, Illinois, as a prize to which he was entitled, as a certificate-holder in the annual distribution of the ART UNION OF PHILADELPHIA. Many persons, particularly artists, were now anxious to make the acquaintance of this new luminary in their bright circle. It was not long before he produced another fine picture, now on exhibition at the gallery of the Art Union. The subject is the interior of a "Lager Beer Saloon." The composition is original and graceful. The drawing is vigorous and bold. The grouping is highly artistic, and well managed. The scene embraces some fourteen figures-all possessing great individuality and strong character. The time is night, and the "Beer-room," though dense with tobacco smoke, is brilliantly illuminated with the gas-lights which shine through the radiating atmosphere of pipe and segar smoke! This picture has been pronounced to be one of the best, if not the very best picture of its class, that has ever been produced in this country. It is totally different in its manner, from the pictures of MOUNT, BINGHAM, RANNEY, or EDMONDS. There is a management, a knowledge of effect, and beauty of modelling about the figures, unusually fine-particularly in a picture of this class. It has been the frequently expressed wish of the friends and admirers of Mr. Schuessele, that he would turn his talent to the production of pictures of a higher, more exalted range in art. The third picture in oil-colours painted by Mr. Schuessele, since he became a resident among us, is the subject entitled "A Reminiscence of the Opera," which has been engraved by Mr. Sartain in mezzotinto. The treatment is original and peculiar; and, although far inferior in scope and pretension to the " Lager-Beer Saloon," already mentioned, it is still an admirable work, and affords a tolerable opportunity to judge of his masterly style of execution, and the freedom and playfulness of his fancy. In this picture, circumscribed as it is, we obtain a glimpse of characters behind the scenes, as well as a full and characteristic representation of the stage-box portion of a fashionable audience. It is sufficiently apparent that the operatic performer whose person is so far protruded over the footlights, is intended by the painter as a semi-burlesque delineation, similar in vein to the excellent satiric "Paper on the Stage," by Stoddard, which it is made to illustrate. We are glad to learn that this artist is now preparing studies for a series of Genre pictures, on canvasses of larger dimensions than any he has heretofore produced. And we are also happy to say, that he will soon make an effort in Scriptural History, on a canvass of the size known as " Kit-cat." This painting he intends as his donation picture to the ART UNION OF PHILADELPHIA, according to the resolutions of the artists, in aid of that institution, as has been already made public, through the daily press of this city. The last picture from his easel was purchased, as soon as finished, by Mr. James L. Claghorn, of this city, a well-known and liberal patron of the Fine Arts. The subject is what the boys call "COASTING." It is a composition of some dozen or more schoolboys, actively engaged in the sport of "sledding down hill." One sled, on which three boys are mounted, in high glee, has run against another, upsetting the party into the snow, to the evident chagrin of the discomfited "coasters." This incident gives an opportunity for the display of the various feelings and passions of the boys under the excitement of the moment. One party seems to enjoy the fun with the best nature of the triumph, while the other boys are doubling their fists, and threatening a conflict, as they tumble over. The landscape is excellently managed, and gives a real wintry aspect and feeling to the picture. The grouping is admirable. The boys look careless and light-hearted-like boys at play always are. In closing this brief biographical notice of Mr. Schuessele, the writer uses that freedom which friendship and intimacy allow so far as to say of his private character, as a gentleman, that he is in every respect worthy the esteem of his fellow-artists, and the confidence of the public. Review the painful Past: perhaps thy memory may? Thy cold heart-never: else why did thy frown With withering lightning, blight the blossoming buds Of love and life, sinking me down, down, down Into illimitable and funereal floods, Whence I gaze up, like Dives, aghast, aghastGaze on that heaven which I can never win, Haunted by spectres pointing from the past To thee-to what I was to what I might have been. To what I might have been! O, lucid thought, Falling, like rays from heaven, on my night Of dense despair: fancy, by passion wrought, My feeble eyes sink, blinded, in thy light: Yet in their wane a dim and shadowy gleam Of household scenes-with thee, and at thy feet Offspring as fair as thee, around me streamsWhy, loved one, did we part?-why did we ever meet? I see thee, as I saw thee last, thy face ful glance, Thy sister's looks of pride, I see with sighsWhat do I weep? I wake: I was-am in a trance! We never shall meet more: I may not gaze And worship still, adoring from afar- star! |