borders, from Sta. Prassede, Rome; SS. John, Andrew, and James, from the same church; figure of Isaiah of the twelfth century, from the basilica of San Clemente, the Birth of the Virgin, by Pietro Cavallini in the fourteenth century; and a most curious medallion representing Christ seated between two captives, one of whom is a negro, with the inscription "Signum ordinis sanctae Trinitatis et captivorum," executed by Jacobus Cosmato and his son on the gateway of the Monastery of the Trinity, Rome.

There have been several attempts made of late years to revive the almost lost art of mosaic.

South Kensington has for some time employed its pupils in this mode of decoration, and a school of mosaic has recently been established at Sèvres; but we imagine that the process is too tedious to prove attractive to many workers in this impatient age. The wonderful preservation of the examples reproduced at South Kensington might well, however, tempt some of our artists to lay aside the "fleeting" art of painting, and work in mosaic "for eternity."

THE South Kensington Museum has lately received from the French Government a magnificent porcelain vase or wine-cooler, 3 ft. 4 in. in length, and 1 ft. 6 in. high, from the Sèvres manufactory. The body of this cistern is of a lapis-lazuli colour; on one side is a white oval plaque, with a representation in very low relief of a wild boar attacked by dogs; and on the other side is a similar plaque, with a deer-hunt. The handles are formed of Pan's heads with enormous rams' horns. This fine vase was chosen for the Museum by M. du Sommerard.

THE New Forest Defence Association is carrying forward its work in gallant style. Besides the promised exhibition of works of art (which will comprise an illustrative series of remarkable drawings of New Forest scenery by W. Kümpel, and a set of large photographs by Vernon Heath, both executed expressly for the occasion), we hear of the organisation of a formidable array of petitions for the preservation of the Forest, to be signed by artists, art-school students, botanists, ornithologists, entomologists, and other scientific bodies. The New Forest is said to be rich in several peculiar breeds of moths and other insects; and contains also an unique series of fossil shells but little known to conchologists.

THE fine chronological collection of lace exhibited last year at the International Exhibition by M. Dupont-Auberville will not leave the country, having just been purchased by a private individual, with the view of presenting it to the Lace Museum at Nottingham.

THE sale of Mr. Bohn's English china will soon be followed by that of his collection of Wedgwood.

ILLUMINATIVE Art has lost one of its most skilful and experienced exponents in the late Mr. C. W. Wing, known during the last thirty years at the British Museum as the "best fac-simile copyist" of ancient illuminations, and we may also say one of its best authorities, historical and theoretical. Among other valuable work he contributed to the books of Noel Humphreys and Timbs. Under the late Sir A. Panizzi he assisted in the eatalogue work of the British Museum. In 1851 he made drawings on wood from the Great Exhibition for the Illustrated London News. For the Exhibition of 1862, he executed drawings for publication by Messrs. Day and Son. In 1870 Mr. Wing was employed on illuminative work for the South Kensington Museum; and some hundreds of drawings on vellum made by him from illuminated manuscripts, included in the sale of the late Mr. J. B. Jarman's valuable collection, Will be well remembered by collectors. The mortal disease of the heart under which he laboured years past precluded the accomplishment of et more important works. His son, the late Mr. Villiam Wing, F.L.S., was for some time honorary

fo

secretary to the Entomological Society, and a wellknown naturalist. He leaves two daughters to mourn the loss of the tenderest and kindest of fathers. Mr. Wing completed his long life of unwearied industry on the 18th of last month, after a few hours' illness, at Windsor, in the seventyfifth year of his age, having survived his wife two years and one month.

THE death of the veteran English painter, Mr. H. W. Pickersgill, has been followed by that of M. de Waldeck, the doyen of French painters and travellers, in his 110th year. After spending almost an ordinary lifetime in African exploration, military service by land and sea, and study in the ateliers of Prud'hon and David, M. Waldeck devoted twelve years to archaeological explorations in Central America, making a special study of the Toltec and Aztec ruins and antiquities, and of the flora and fauna of the country. In 1837 he published his Voyage archéologique et pittoresque dans le Yucatan, and in 1863 began the publication of the Ruins of Palenque. In 1869 he sent to the Salon two subjects of Aztec archaeology, playfully styled "Loisir du Centenaire."

The Temps observes that M. Waldeck had a genius for the restoration of old engravings, and reminds us that during his travels in Central America he discovered in a monastery the unique copy of the illustrations drawn by Julius Romanus and engraved by Marcantonio for a work of Aretine, which caused the banishment of the painter and engraver, and all the other copies of which were burned by order of the Pope.

MR. HENRY WALLIS and some other artists have had the series of splendid Mantegnas at Hampton Court photographed and printed in permanent pigments, for a certain number of subscribers, at two guineas each set. Having accomplished their task they think it is a pity that persons who may not have heard of the enterprise, or been personally applied to, should not have a chance of possessing this truly admirable set of prints, nine in number, twenty inches square. The secretary, therefore, desires to say that the hon. treasurer to the fund, Joseph Dixon, Esq., Barrister-at-law, 5 Brick Court, Temple, will receive further subscriptions, and that a set will be forwarded to any gentleman sending the amount to him by post-office order on Fleet Street Post-office. That the photographs are permanent makes a great difference in their value, and the charge is literally the cost of production of so many impressions on so large a scale.

M. DE SAINT-MARTIN continues and concludes in the April number of the Revue Archéologique an article begun in the March number on the "Site of Troy." It has nothing to do with Schliemann's recent discoveries except to say that however valuable they may be for archaeology they have no bearing whatever on the site of the Homeric Troy. Le Chevalier, he contends, when he pointed out in 1785 Bunarbashi as the site of the Troy of Homer, settled the question for good. Nowhere else in the district was to be found such a combination of natural features corresponding to those referred to in the Iliad. The strength of this argument Schliemann tried to override chiefly by constant reference to the objects found by him in Ilium Novum, but then he entirely failed to convince anyone that these objects furnished the smallest illustration of the pages of the poet. We observe also that in a short notice of Schliemann's book in Im Neuen Reich (1875, No. 18, p. 716), the writer speaks of "Schliemann's not Homer's Troy."

A CORRESPONDENT of the Revue Archéologique (April, p. 265) gives a very depreciatory account of the marble statute of Venus lately found in excavations on the Esquiline at Rome. Though the type differs from the known types of Venus, or of any other personage, he yet believes the work to be a Roman copy of some Greek original.

M. BERTRAND has a very strong opinion-and considering the opposition it will meet it had need be strong that the conical bronze helmet found in 1872 in a tomb at Berru (Marne), and engraved pll. 9-10 of the April number of the Revue Archéologique, is of Oriental, that is, Assyrian origin. Neither in form, he says, nor in the pattern with which it is ornamented, can it be compared with the Gaulic, Roman, Etruscan, or Greek helmets hitherto found, whereas helmets of this form are to be seen on Assyrian reliefs. But conical helmets certainly occur on Greek painted vases, as may be seen by reference to the vases from Cyrene in the British Museum, and in this case the helmet is worn not by an Oriental but by a Greek figure. As to the ornamentation, the Berru helmet looks very much like Etruscan, though he assures us it is not so. In the same tomb with this helmet were the usual series of objects in bronze and iron belonging to the accoutrements of a warrior and of the type which is assigned to somewhere between B.C. 600-200. The tenant of this tomb had been buried not only with his armour but also with his war chariot, fragments of which were found-apparently not an uncommon proceeding in ancient Gaul.'

THE Duchess Colonna (Marcello), so well known for her works in painting and sculpture, is engaged on a large picture, and has just sent to the Salon three magnificent busts-a Christ expressive of dignity and suffering, bearing the character of the Spanish school; a Roman woman, with all the haughty cruelty of a daughter of the Caesars; and a third bust called Phoebe, a Parisian type full of artistic grace, with the delicate modelling of a Clodion.

THE Japanese Government has appropriated 200,000 dollars for expenses connected with the coming Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition.

MUNICH has lost one of its well-known portrait and genre painters by the sudden death, a few days since, of P. Koerle, at the age of fifty-one. În Vienna, where he lived for some years before he finally settled at Munich, he was esteemed as one of the most successful portrait painters of his day; and the genre pictures of the time of Louis XV., which he had latterly made his special forte, were generally regarded as the very best of their kind by German art critics.

THE Athens correspondent of the Kölnische Zeitung announces that the buildings which are to form the focus of the great works of exploration at Athens will be ready for use by the middle of May, when the German directors of the undertaking will enter upon their new quarters. The road from the coast to the plain of Olympia will also, it is hoped, be speedily completed, and it is, therefore, anticipated that the work of excavation may be systematically organised as soon as the summer heats are over.

M. CADART, the well-known art publisher in Paris, died last week, aged only forty-five years. He will be remembered as having largely contributed to the revival of an interest in the art of etching. For some years he and a partner devoted themselves entirely to the business of publishing modern eaux-fortes. The enterprise did not succeed commercially, but some friends of the movement in France, recognising M. Cadart's aptitude, energy and enthusiasm, started him afresh, and after a while he succeeded not only in bringing etching into fashion as a substitute for wood engraving in book illustration, but in interesting very many artists and amateurs in the serious pursuit of the art he loved. His albums and many series of etchings by living artists are well known in France, and are not unknown in England. We have had occasion to review in these columns different works issuing from M. Cadart's house.

A SUBSCRIPTION has been opened at Paris and Nevers for the erection of a bust in honour of Aligny, the well-known painter of the Nièvre.

M. J. Gautherin, a young sculptor of the province, who has gained some distinction in recent Salons, has been commissioned to execute the likeness of his compatriot in marble.

THE International Exhibition at the Hague will open on the 16th instant.

THE Society "Arti et Amicitiae " of Amsterdam has organised a loan exhibition of the works of contemporary artists. It includes more than 300 paintings, most of them of high class, from the cabinets of Belgian collectors. The French is perhaps the best represented of the modern schools. THE death is announced of M. F. Florimond Boulanger, a French architect of some distinction, and an ardent disciple of Fourier.

THE Burlington Fine Arts Club has now on exhibition the sketch models of the most important works executed in marble and bronze by the late Mr. J. H. Foley, R.A.

FROM the first days of May onwards, a general exhibition of the works of Corot will be held at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, in the large and lofty room called the Salle Meipomène. As a preliminary measure it was necessary to obtain a promise of countenance from the Director of the BeauxArts, and then the consent of the Director of the

Nor under this mask did they fail to show that while Paris was dancing Augereau's soldiers were waiting their opportunity, and the chorus of the streets was singing that with Barras for king and Lange for queen it was scarcely worth while to have changed the government.

So the victories which Madame Angot is said to have won between the Market of the Innocents and the Seraglio of Constantinople were revived in the person of her daughter, and in consideration of this success the Parisian journalists bestowed on M. Lecocq the style and dignities of a Maestro and, when Girofle-Girofla was produced, sang paeans in his praise which darkly hinted at the deposition of Auber from the throne of comic opera. This second piece, however, proves no more than that M. Lecocq would have been a very elegant composer for the spinet or clavecin, and can write detached melodies of considerable grace. He is allied by his refinement to the masters of French comic opera, but entirely lacks their command of resources and the masculine vigour by which they were able to put life into the most wooden of the figures that came from M. Scribe's manufactory. Yet he has infinitely less in common with the riotous school of M. Offenbach. M. Offenbach's airs smell of wine and tobacco, M. Lecocq's music is daintily perfumed. M. Offenbach's Muse is a disorderly baggage, M. Lecocq's Euterpe is a sprightly old The fairy godmother who may be assumed to preside over the fortunes of opera bouffe seems to have awarded the clown's motley to M. Offenbach, the pantaloon's crutch to M. Hervé, the columbine's wand to M. Vasseur, and the baton of harlequin to M. Lecocq; and as the harlequin's office is one of some dignity and authority it is unaccountable that a musician of taste should associate his talent with the stupid ribaldry of Giroflé-Girofla. M. Offenbach is a licensed jester and may do as he pleases; the extravagant and erring spirit of his humour may drive him from one grossness to another, till Mdme. Judic's eyes can wink no more, and Mdlle. Schneider's leg is dislocated with excessive gymnastics; but as M. Lecocq has no humour, his coarseness is altogether tedious and absurd.

THE STAGE.

"GIROFLÉ-GIR OFLA" AT THE CRITERION THEATRE. FREDERICK BERAT wrote a song that went round the world, but since the days of Ma Normandie no piece of light music has met with a popularity so universal as La Fille de Madame Angot. Its colossal success was generally attributed to the melodies of M. Charles Lecocq, and every new work of this agreeable composer has in consequence attracted at least as much attention as a Requiem by Verdi or an operatic trilogy by Wagner. But the play had merits of a kind quite distinct from the daintiness of its music, being a marvellously exact picture of the inner life of the Directory, and reproducing with singular fidelity the extravagances of the silliest age that the world has ever known. The authors had lifted a corner of the cloak that covered this dead and well-nigh forgotten period; they introduced us once more to the salons where a Mdme. de Staël or a Mdme. Tallien had ruled despotically, showed us the crowds making obeisance to the Five Kings of the Luxembourg and saluting the reigning Citizen Directress, the dancers in the Victims' Ball who had been duly qualified by the loss of a relative on the scaffold, the proverb-actors in one drawingroom, the drinkers of aesthetic tea in a second, and the periwigged conspirators in a third. They brought upon the scene the whole carnival of grotesque fashions-fops with their corkscrew canes, their serpentine curls, their muslin cravats and their boots à la Souwarow: ladies trying to revive the modes of ancient Greece in a simple cambric chemise and a tight muslin gown; dark women in fair wigs that had cost some 10,000 francs in assignats; Muscadins with their dog'sear lappets, and all the fools and follies of the day.

The English version of this play which was produced at the Criterion Theatre on Saturday is chiefly remarkable for the skill with which the conductor has marshalled his forces, and for the refined singing of Mdme. Pauline Rita. Mdme. Lecocq as the aforesaid actresses are suited to the Rita is as naturally fitted to the music of M. music of the more facetious composer. Hard work has not left her voice quite unimpaired, but her vocalisation is still most artistic and she skims like flight. The play has been pruned into proover the shallows of the music with a pretty birdPriety by the combined exertions of two writers

with a result that does more credit to their sense

of decency than to their sense of wit. The light is massed with insufficient skill, and so much depends upon colour in this kind of performance that we do not suppose Giroflé-Girofle will be half so successful as the little mock-pastoral piece Les Près St. Gervais.

"LA BOULE AT THE OPÉRA COMIQUE THEATRE. La Boule is the tale of a certain hotwater bottle and has some little resemblance to the tale of a certain tub. MM. Meilhac and Halévy have never before written satire so racy, which is all the more effective because the moral is not pointed in the little set homilies that are dear to M. Sardou, but is wholly to be drawn from the action. The play is disfigured by one pantomimic scene contrived to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh, but for the rest there is such shrewd and trenchant observation in it as is not often heard within the walls of the Palais Royal. Moreover, it was perfectly played by four of the six best actors of that famous company. The grotesque caricature of a Recorder which M. Lheritier drew from the Palais

de Justice was needed to set in relief the stern truth of M. Gil-Pérès, who gave a picture of senile depravity that recalled Otway's Senator or the Philocleon of Aristophanes. In the performance of the excellent M. Geoffroy there was no sign of waning power, though he has been playing on the Paris stage for forty years; and M. Lassouche was able to show such a mastery of his art as makes it doubtful if he be not ripening for the Théatre Français.

The valet that M. Lassouche represented is the Iago of this domestic tragedy. In the good old days when M. Paturel was a bachelor, Modest Belamy had indulged his little habits and made himself tolerably comfortable until his master, at forty-five, was seized with the freak of marrying a giddy young thing of eighteen. Modeste, having graciously suffered the marriage to take place, felt it his duty to make the house insupportable for the wife, and being unaided by the presence of a mother-in-law was forced to use such means as engaging Italian musicians to play at six in the morning, changing the dinner-napkins, opening the windows, having the eggs boiled hard, speaking with fond regret of the happy past, and being especially careful to vary from night to night the temperature of the hot-water bottle which was supposed to warm his mistress's bed. These operations were so skilfully conducted, that at the end of four months Mdme. Paturel declared her life to be that of a human being fastened in a sack with a malignant ape. Yet he was not a monster, this valet; he was merely a person who objected to interference with his little habits. The men of law were sent for, and the married pair having separately expounded their grievances the musi cians, napkins, windows, eggs, and hot-water bottle-were given to understand that a separation could not take place without at least one violent scene, and at least one respectable witness.

The witness was found in the Baron de la Musar

dière, an elderly gentleman who came to enrage rooms on behalf of Mdlle. Mariette, of the Folies Amoureuses, and whose respectability was proved beyond a doubt by the fact that he refused to be seen in public with any other woman than his lawful wife and to be thought capable of deceiv ing Mariette. He was now the poodle of this pretty creature, whose letters from St. Petersburg, costumes from Worth, carriages, grooms, jewellery and bouquets were the envy of her theatre. "Ah," sighed the concierge, who had herself been an actress, "we were not in such force at the ancient Renaissance: we had a trifle more heart, and here am I in the porter's lodge." To which Mariet made reply that it was the march of civilisation.

So the Paturels came into court and found that the balance of the judicial mind was disturbed a domestic occurrence. The judge was alread the father of seven girls, his wife was on the and the possibility of an eighth girl was th point of becoming a mother for the eighth ting. cause of much prejudice to the hearing of the case. The witnesses included the valet, who had committed his evidence to writing; the musicians, who were persuaded that it was an enquiry in the legality of their licence; Mdlle. Mariette, wh had come to say that the Baron had been nothir. more to her than a guide, a counsellor and father; the baron's wife, who had promised friend Mdme. Paturel to state explicitly that M. Paturel was an abominable person; and the bar who was divided between his conflicting duties as a man of family and a man of pleasure, be tween the presence of his wife on the one han and the offensive statement made by Mile Mariette on the other. Mdme. Paturel's counse was speedily captivated by the actress, M. Paturel's counsel drew caricatures of his client, and when news was brought that the judge's family was increased by the birth of two girls the trial came to an untimely end, the Paturels being reconciled and the Baron being led to forgive his wife by the consideration that he should find nobody else to console him for the treatment he received from

other women. The result was simply that when Mdlle. Léontine, the new flame of the Baron, made application for the rooms that should have been occupied by her predecessor, M. Paturel felt bound to raise the rent to indemnify himself for the expenses of the suit. And the authors have pried no further into the little miseries of conjugal life. This outline may scarcely show the play to be better than the common French farces, but it gets a peculiar flavour from a thousand passing witticisms of which a rapid sketch can take no notice. The buffoonery of human baseness has seldom been painted more vividly than in the person of this Baron de la Musardière, and the other characters are marked out with no mean skill.

The

well. They establish a school of brutal derision; their grimaces disfigure every grandeur and every virtue. Contempt no longer suffices for these scurvy jests; a burst of indignation and protest of outraged taste can alone do justice upon them." This is well said, though it comes somewhat tardily; but the pruriency of a Parisian audience is not to be extinguished by an article of M. de Saint-Victor or M. Albert Wolff. Yet the appearance of such an article is matter for congratulation.

M. JOHANN STRAUSS has obtained a great success at the Théâtre de la Renaissance with La Reine Indigo; the Théâtre du Palais Royal has revived Le plus Heureux des Trois, and ceased to play La Boule; but the theatrical productions of past two weeks at Paris have been singularly

company WALTER MACLEANE.

WITH the production of Il Gladiatore at Drury Lane it is to be hoped that the Salvini fever will abate, and dramatic criticism will resume its ordinary calm. The reputation of the eminent Italian actor is too firmly established to be weakened by detraction, or strengthened by unmeaning adulation. It was inevitable that a foreign actor of Shakspere should meet with opposition, for most educated Englishmen feel it their duty to make independent research for the two or three points which they believe to be essential to Hamlet's or Othello's soul, and are usually aggrieved to find that others have been

afield before them with widely different results. And it was inevitable that the merely physical effort of representing a Titanic passion should serve as effectually to obscure delicate beauties as it might hide grave defects. M. Soumet's tragedy will be considered with less prejudice. He and his daughter wrote it some thirty years ago, and produced it on the boards of the Comédie Française. The actors esteemed it so little that more than one distinguished tragedian refused to appear in it; but, when the play came to be performed, the elevation of its thought, the purity of its language, and the stir and movement of its events bore down all opposition, and this work of ten years' study was placed by acclamation among the finest works of the French stage. And, in truth, M. Soumet was the only one of their writers who could wear the Roman toga with dignity. We will speak next week of Signor Salvini's perfor

mance.

ON Thursday the Strand Theatre produced a comedy by Mr. Byron, called Weak Woman.

TO-NIGHT Mr. Blanchard produces a little farce for the Vokes family at the Adelphi ; on Monday M. Hervé's Chilpéric is to be revived at the AÏhambra Theatre, and to have the advantage of being put on the stage by Mr. Alfred Thompson; and on Saturday next the Charing Cross Theatre will produce a comedy by Mr. Herman called Jeanne Dubarry, and a comic opera by Messrs. Clay and Reece, entitled Cattarina.

M. VICTORIEN SARDOU is engaged upon a new piece, in which Mdlle. Delaporte will make her re-appearance at the Gymnase Theatre. She is engaged for two years from next autumn. The theatre will lose Mdlle. Pierson, who is going to join the company of the Vaudeville.

Or M. Hervé's new burlesque, which is called Alice de Nevers, and has been produced at the Theatre des Folies Dramatiques, the celebrated critic of the Moniteur Universel writes:-"It makes one think of strait-waistcoats and of those chuckling imbecile laughs that one hears in the yard of a lunatic asylum. The public failed in their duty when they saw to an end this monStrous farce that Bedlam would have hooted and Charenton hissed. They should have executed it in the presence of its author. For such specacles are not only ignominious; they corrupt as

few.

MUSIC.

ALEXANDRA PALACE.

THE destruction by fire of the former Alexandra Palace, on June 9, 1873, will be fresh in the memory of most of our readers, nor will they probably need to be reminded that the directors with praiseworthy courage resolved, almost while the ruins were yet smoking, that the structure should be rebuilt. Within two years from the catastrophe a new palace has arisen on the site of the former one, and it was opened to the public on Saturday last.

The object of the present article being rather to speak of the new building from a musical point of view than to give any general description of its contents, many of which if noticed in this paper would belong to the Fine Art rather than to the Musical department, it will suffice to say here with respect to its general construction that it differs materially from the former palace, consisting rather of three buildings connected by

corridors than of one large hall. This form has been adopted as furnishing additional security against fire; but, as was clearly proved on Saturday, it certainly does not facilitate locomotion on occasions when a large crowd is collected.

As in the former building, and also as at the Crystal Palace, the central transept of the new palace forms an enormous music-hall, the length and breadth of which are stated in the official programme to be 386 feet and 184 feet respectively. It has one great advantage over the central transept of the Crystal Palace in being more completely enclosed, and therefore better fitted for musical performances. It will seat 12,000 visitors, and the orchestra at the north end will accommodate 2,000 performers. Of its acoustic properties it is hazardous to speak positively after a single hearing, especially as the effect of the music, as in most very large buildings, will probably vary more or less according to the position of the listener. My own experience was decidedly favourable. Seated to the left of the orchestra, and at a distance of perhaps 80 to 100 feet, I could hear distinctly every note of the solos, and the Those softer passages of the accompaniments. who were at a greater distance were less fortunate; but this may probably be partially, if not wholly, accounted for by the noise made by the crowd moving about at the end of the hall in vain endeavours

to find seats.

An important feature in the orchestra is the monster organ, with the exception of that in the Albert Hall the largest instrument in London. Of this, however, it is impossible as yet to speak, simply because it is at present in a most discreditable state of incompleteness; on Saturday only twenty-two stops were ready for use out of eighty-nine which the instrument will contain when finished. Those who remember Mr. Willis's previous achievements in the matter of unpunctuality-notably in the case of the Albert Hall organ, which was not completed till some three months after the opening of the hall-will be by

no means surprised at a similar failure on the present occasion.

In addition to the large Central Hall, there is on the north-west side of the Palace a very elegant and commodious concert room, which will hold 3,500 people, and in a corresponding position on the north-east side is a theatre which will seat 3,000. No opportunity was afforded on Saturday of forming an opinion as to the acoustic properties of either of these buildings; all that can be said is that so far as may be judged from appearances they seem well adapted to their respective objects.

The opening musical festival needs but little comment. A band and chorus of 1,500 performers was marshalled under the bâton of Sir Michael

Costa, and Mdlle. Titiens, Mdme. Trebelli-Bettini, Signor Campanini, and Herr Behrens, were engaged as soloists. The most noticeable point in the programme was the entire absence of any English name. Not only were all the artists engaged foreigners, but the concert consisted exclusively (with the exception, of course, of "God save the Queen") of German and Italian music. Whoever was responsible for this, it is earnestly to be hoped that it is not to be considered an indication of any non-recognition of English music in the new building; nor perhaps is there much real ground for apprehension. The conductor of the company's band, Mr. Weist Hill, is himself an Englishman, and it is only reasonable to believe that he will show himself at least as ready to give a hearing to his fellow-countrymen as Mr. Manns (though a foreigner) has ever been at Sydenham. The total omission of English music at the inaugural ceremony was, nevertheless, unfortunate, to say the least of it, and should not be allowed to pass without protest. Apart from this point the programme left little to desire. The instrumental pieces given were the overtures to L'Etoile du Nord and La Gazza Ladra, and the marches from Le Prophète and Eli. Mdlle. Titiens sang with Stabat Mater and the Finale to Loreley, and the the chorus the "Inflammatus" from Rossini's other vocalists, whose names have already been given, each contributed a song, the four being heard together in Costa's quartett "Ecco quel fiero istante." As is always the case in very large spaces, the higher voices were heard to more effect than the contralto and bass. The concert conIcluded with the well-known Prayer from Mose in

Egitto. With regard to the execution it is only necessary to say that it was excellent throughout. In spite of the worst possible weather, the directors of the new Palace may be credited with a completely successful opening. Should the promises of the prospectus be faithfully carried out, much good may be effected for art, and it is to be hoped that in musical matters Muswell Hill may prove a worthy rival of Sydenham.

EBENEZER PROUT.

THE annual performance of the Messiah in aid of the funds of the Royal Society of Musicians took place at St. James's Hall last night, under the direction of Mr. W. G. Cusins.

THE Welsh Choral Union gave their first concert for the present (their fifth) season at St. James's Hall on Monday evening last, when Bennett's May Queen and a miscellaneous selection, consisting chiefly of Welsh national melodies, were performed.

MR. RIDLEY PRENTICE gave a piano recital at St. George's Hall last Wednesday, assisted by Herr Straus and Miss Georgina Maudsley. The chief items of the very interesting programme were Rubinstein's Sonata in A minor, Op. 19, for piano or violin, Schubert's Rondo in B minor for the same instruments, Beethoven's "Sonata Pathétique" and smaller solos by Mendelssohn, Bennett, Scarlatti, and Hird, and Bach's prelude and fugue in G minor for violin solo.

THE long-expected production of Lohengrin is at length definitely fixed for this evening, unless (as occasionally happens with new works) a

New Edition, now ready, in 2 vols. 8vo, price 24s. cloth.

cast advertised is the following:-Elsa, Mdlle. Albani; Ortrud, Mdlle. d'Angeri; Telramund, M. Maurel; Herald, Signor Capponi; King Henry, Herr Seidemann (his first appearance in England); and Lohengrin, Signor Nicolini. The opera will be conducted by Signor Vianesi, who has been taking immense trouble with the rehearsals in order to secure an adequate performance of this very difficult work. We understand that the mise-en-scène will be of extraordinary magnificence even for Covent Garden, which is famous for the splendour of its theatrical appointments.

JOHANN STRAUSS' opera-bouffe Indigo was produced on the 27th ult. at the Théâtre de la Renaissance, Paris. The Revue et Gazette Musicale characterises the work in the following terms:"M. Johann Strauss is a musician of a delicate and careful style, his harmony is interesting, his orchestration sonorous and full of colour; his melodies are not generally distinguished by great originality, but they are pleasing and graceful, and if they sometimes happen to be commonplace, at least they are never vulgar."

THERE seems to be no end to the number of books written in Germany on Wagner's Bayreuth scheme. A new prize-essay by Dr. Ernst Koch has just been published by C. F. Kahnt of Leipzig. It bears the title "Richard Wagner's Bühnenfestspiel Der Ring des Nibelungen' in seinem Verhältniss zur alten Sage wie zur modernen Nibelungendichtung betrachtet."

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

AN INQUIRY INTO THE REALITY OF DIVINE REVELATION.
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EPOCHS OF HISTORY, by the Rev. C. W. BOASE

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1. "Supernatural Religion." By Professor LIGHTFOOT. IV. Polycarp of Smyrna.

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8. Review of Onjections to "Literature and Dogma." MATTHEW ARNOLD. V.

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