unequalled attractiveness. The population of Berlin and Vienna assembled at midnight to bid her adieu; and when she last left her native city, every ship in the harbor was manned and every quay crowded to see her embark in the presence of the queen. Nor are these spontaneous tributes to be exclusively ascribed to the love of novelty and the excitement of renown. Heroes and heroines the world cannot do without, unless it lapses into frigid and selfish materialism; admiration for talent and sympathy with genius are but human instincts. It is seldom, how-presence of the beautiful, the advent of a new creaever, that these sentiments are upheld and sanctioned by reverence for worth. Therefore is it beautiful to witness the voluntary oblations which attend the great artist whose expression, however eloquent, is the true manifestation of a pure, noble and disinterested spirit. It is not Jenny Lind in her personality, but as a priestess of art, an interpreter of humanity, a gifted and loyal expositer of feelings, that lend-genius and childhood; in this tendency they grace to life and elevation to the soul, that draws the common heart toward her with such frank and ardent gratulation. Her well-known and unostentatious charities, her simplicity of life, her sympathy with her fellow-creatures, and unaffected manners, so accord with the glorious art she so rarely illustrates as to justify to reflection the impulsive admiration she excites. | of the scene, we think of it alone; and only when it has passed away do we become aware that the genius of another has, as it were, incarnated a story or a sentiment before us, through will, sympathy and talent. The process is quite as unthought of as that by which a masterpiece of painting or sculpture has been executed, when we stand before it rapt in that harmonious spell that permits no analysis and suggests no task-work, any more than the landscape of summer, or the effulgence of a star. We feel only the It is not in sublimity that Jenny Lind excels; and whatever excellence her Norma may possess, it is not of that characteristic species which renders her impersonations of La Figlia del Regimento, of Alice, of Lucia, and of Amina, so memorable. In the former character she makes innocence play through the rude habits acquired in the camp, in a way so exquisite as to enchant as by the spell of reality. In the Bride of Lammermoor, there is a melancholy beauty which haunts the listener. It is her greatest tragic part. The pathos of the third act seems re-produced from the very genius which created the romance. Her Amina is Bellini's; and this is saying all that praise can utter. We may realize her versatility by comparing the comic jealousy so archly displayed in the Noces de Figaro, with the tenderness of the sleep-walking scene in La Somnambula. It has been well observed of her that, in the former opera, "she adheres to the genius of Mozart with a modest appreciation of the genius of that master"-a commendation as high as it is rare. One of the most remarkable traits of her artistic skill is its exquisite and wonderful discrimination-a quality no description can make obvious. The peculiar charm of Jenny Lind, as an artist, is her unconsciousness. We are disposed to regard this as one of the most reliable tests of superior gifts. It at least proves the absorption of self in what is dearer a condition essential to all true greatness. The most acute observers of this beautiful vocalist fail to detect the slightest reference either to her audience or herself while engaged in a part. For the time being her very existence seems identified with the character she represents; is the afterthought, not the impression of the moment that brings us to the artist; infected by the complete realization tion, the irresistible appeal to the highest instincts of the soul. Carlyle says "the unconscious is the alone complete"-an aphorism which Jenny Lind robs of all mystery; for her superiority consists in the wholeness and unity of her effects, and this is produced by a kind of self-surrender, such as we rarely see except in two of the most genuine phases of humanity coalesce; and hence the freshness that lingers around the richly endowed nature, and the universal faith which it inspires. The secret is that such characters have never wandered far from nature; they have kept within sight of that "immortal sea that brought us hither;" they constitute an aristocracy spontaneously recognized by all; and they triumph as poets, artists, and influential social beings, not through the exercise of any rare and wonderful gift, but from obedience to the simple laws of truth-to the primal sympathies, and to a kind of innate and glorious confidence which lifts them above ignoble fear and selfish tricks. The true hero, poet, artist, the true man or woman, who seem to the multitude to be peculiarly endowed, differ from those who do them voluntary homage, chiefly in this unconsciousness of self; this capacity to be ever "nobler than their moods;" this sympathetic breadth of life that enables them to go forth with a kind of elemental power and enter into other forms of being; the principle of their existence is faith, not dexterity; sentiment, not calculation. It will be seen that we recognize a moral basis as the source of Jenny Lind's fascination; and if we were obliged to define this in a single word, perhaps the lexicon would furnish none so expressive as the homely one-truth. But we use it as significant of far more than the absence of falsehood; we mean by it candor, trust, spontaneity, directness. We believe that Jenny Lind inspires sympathy in spite of her petite figure, not altogether because she warbles enchantingly, and has amiable manners, but also on account of the faith she at once excites. We perceive that love of approbation is not her ruling impulse, although her profession might excuse it; but that she has an ideal of her own, an artistic conscience, a love of art, a musical ministry to satisfy and accomplish, and that these considerations induce a nobler ambition than co-exists with mere vanity. It is said that the remarkable novel of Consuelo, by George Sand, is founded on the character and history of Jenny Lind. Whether this be so or not, the theory of the tale, the guileless devotion to art as such, which stamps the heroine with such exalted grace, finds a parallel in this famed vocalist of the North; |mantic, exciting, impressive, and melo-dramatic as the same singleness of purpose and intact clearness the varied aptitudes, the exacting taste, and the broad, of soul, the same firm will and gentle heart are evi-experimental genius of the age. The gifts of nature, dent. Much, too, of her success is attributable to the the resources of art, the gratification of the senses, philosophy of Consuelo's maestro-that to reach the the exigencies of fashion and taste, and the wants of highest excellence in Art, the affections as well as the heart and imagination find in the Opera a most the mind must be yielded at her shrine. There is a convenient luxury. The lyrical drama has thus subtle and deep relation between feeling and expres- gradually usurped the place of tournament and thesion, and the biographies of those who have achieved atre; it is a social as well as an artistic exponent of renown in the latter, under any of its artistic forms, the day; and those who have best illustrated it are indicate that it has embodied that within them that justly regarded as public benefactors. Few, howfound no adequate response in actual life. The ever, have ministered in this temple, with the artless highest efforts of the poet and musician, are con- grace, the pure enthusiasm, the vestal glory of Jenny fessedly the result of baffled or overflowing emotion; Lind. The daughters of the South, ardent and susdisguised, perhaps, as to the form, but clearly evi- ceptible, but capricious and extravagant, heretofore dent in the tone of their productions. Mozart and won its chief honors; their triumphs have been great Raphael, Bryant and Paganini, have illustrated this but spasmodic, gained by impulse rather than nature, most emphatically. Jenny Lind seems to have kept by glorious gifts of person rather than rare graces of her better feelings alive by the habitual exercise of soul. Jenny Lind, with her fair hair and blue eyes, benevolence, and a diffusive friendliness, while her unqueenly form, and child-like simplicity, has her concentrated and earnest activity finds utter- achieved almost unparalleled success, by means quite ance in her art. Hence the sway she has gained diverse. Her one natural gift is a voice of singular over countless hearts, each absorbed in its own depth, compass, flexibility and tone. This has dream or shadowed by its own regrets, that glow been, if we may be allowed the expression, mesagain in the kindling atmosphere of song, which merized by a soul, earnest, pure and sincere; and gushes from a soul over which no overmastering thus, with the clear perception and dauntless will of passion has yet cast a gloom, and whose transparent the North has she interpreted the familiar musical waters no agitation of conflicting desires has ever dramas in a new, vivid, and original manner. One made turbid and restless. Jenny Lind has been a would imagine she had come with one bound from priestess at the shrine of Art, and therefore interprets tending her flock on the hill-side, to warble behind its oracles "as one having authority." the foot-lights; for so directly from the heart of nature springs her melody, and so beyond the reach of art is the simple grace of her air and manners, that we associate her with the Opera only through the consummate skill-the result of scientific training— manifested in her vocalism. The term warbling is thus adapted peculiarly to express the character of her style; its ease, fluency, spontaneous gush, and the total absence of every thing meretricious and exaggerated in the action and bearing that accompanies it. It is like the song of a bird, only more human. Nature in her seems to have taken Art to her bosom, and assimilated it, through love, with herself, until the identity of each is lost in the other. In this country the idea of fashion and the mere relish of amusement, have blended so exclusively with the support of the Opera, that we seldom realize its artistic relations and influence. The taste for the Italian Opera seems to have extended in the ratio of civilization; and although is, after all, an exotic among the Anglo-Saxons-a pleasure born in the "sweet South," and in its very richness of combination, suggestive of the impassioned feeling and habitual luxury of those climes-yet, on the other hand, it is typical of the complex life, wants and tendencies of modern society. The old English tragic drama, robust, fierce-hearted and unadorned, has faded before it; the theatre, as a reunion of wits, and an arena for marvelous histrionic effects, as a subject of elegant criticism, and a nucleus for universal sympathy, may be said not to exist; while the Opera has become the scene of display, elegance, and pleasure on the one hand, and of the highest triumphs on the other. The sentiment of the age has written itself in music-its wide intelligence, its keen analysis, its revolutionary spirit, its restless-there is about her a certain gentle elevation which ness, and its humanity, may be traced in the rich stamps her to every eye, as one who is consecrated and brilliant combinations of Rossini, in the grand to a high service. Her ingenuous countenance, symphonies of Beethooven, in the pleading tender- always enlivened by an active intelligence, might ness of Bellini, and in the mingled war-notes and convey, at first, chiefly the idea of good-nature and sentiment of Verdi. The demand for undisguised cleverness in the English sense; but her carriage, and free expression, characteristic of the times, finds voice, movements, and expression in the more affectalso its requisite scope in the lyrical drama. Reci- ing moments of a drama, give sympathetic assurance tation is too tame, pantomime too silent, scenic art of what we must be excused for calling-a crystal too illusive, costume too familiar, music too unpic-soul. In all her characters she transports us, at once, turesque; but all these combined are, at once, as ro- away from the commonplace and the artificial, if The union of such musical science-such thoroughly disciplined art with such artlessness and simplicity, is, perhaps, the crowning mystery of her genius. To know and to love are the conditions of triumph in all the exalted spheres of human labor; and in the musical drama, they have never been so admirably united. Her command of expression seems not so much the result of study as of inspiration; and not always into the domain of lofty idealism, into that more human and blissful domain of primal nature; and unhappy is the being who finds not the unconscious delight of childhood, or the dream of love momently renewed in that serene and unclouded air. expression owes its variety and its enchantment to unaffected truth to nature, sentiment and the principles of art. And now that Jenny Lind is hourly expected among us, let a word be ventured as to what self-respect and the love of art make appropriate for her reception. Let not so charitable a soul be mortified by a tasteless hospitality; let not this genuine artist be seized upon by the remorseless purveyors of meretricious Fashion; and, above all, let not her gentle and candid In accordance with this view of Jenny Lind's characteristics, the enthusiasm she excited in England, is alluded to by the leading critics, as singularly honest. No musical artist, indeed, was ever so fitted to win Anglo-Saxon sympathies. She has the morale of the North; and does not awaken the pre-nature be subjected to the vulgarism of the lionizing judice so common in Great Britain, and so truly described in Corinne, against the passionate temperament and tendency to extravagance that mark the children of the South. No candidate for public favor was ever so devoid of the ordinary means of attaining it. There is something absurd in making such a creature the mere nucleus of fashionable vanity, or the object of that namby-pamby criticism that busies itself with details of personal appearance and French terms of compliment. Jenny Lind is not beautiful; she does not take her audiences by storm; she exercises no intoxicating physical magnetism over their sensitive natures. She is not classic either in form or feature, or manner, or style of singing. Her loveliness as a woman, her power as an artist, her grace as a character, lies in expression; and that mania! As a priestess of Art, in its highest and sweetest form, as a fair ministrant to the spirit of Beauty, as a true musical interpreter of humanitylet the people welcome her with sincere and grateful recognition. This is the most acceptable tribute an unperverted soul can receive or bestow. It is that intelligent sympathy due from a free and educated | society, and cheering to a discriminating recipient. Far from Nature's minstrel be the critical affectation of the professed amateur, and the empty adulation of the coxcomb. Let her pure and exquisite vocalism the result of such discipline, faith, and rare gifts of heaven, find a response in the American heart unprofaned by absurd excitement, and truly indicative of a genuine and cordial appreciation of the beautiful in art, and the excellent in character. THE POET'S PRAYER. BY MRS. EMMA C. EMBURY. LEAVE me not, Love! 't was thus a poet chanted Oh, leave me not! although thy fleeting pleasures Yet leave me not-all earthly hopes have perished, But I would fain the fond illusion cherish And scaring thee too rudely from my breast; Yet leave me not!-although thy shirine be broken, IMPLORA PACE:—A VERSION. BY MRS. ELIZABETH J. EAMES. OH, Rest! serenest rest! Mild evening of the soul- The pulses of the weary-hearted- When pictures blest of days departed Our memories overcame ! Oh, Rest! serenest rest! That by the sun of Truth THE night was clear and cool and calm, The evening wind, exhaling balm From spicy Caribbean isles, The mournful sister Pleiades Arose from oriental seas; Lyra no more, as once, Serenely calm, the waning moon She seemed to walk her pilgrimage Wan August in extremis lay: BY HENRY B. HIRST. Which yawned upon him through the gloom. The summer flowers were on their wane; And silently, like one in pain, A little circle in a wood The heart of the old solitude Lay wrapped in something more than sleep- Suddenly, from a distant bell, The clouds, in horror, hurry by; The stars expire, the moon grows dim, Along the earth, among the elins And waved their arms in wild despite, The little vista of the wood From oak and elm, from beech and larch, From Asia's sultry hills and vales, And turbid Nile's eternal tide; From England's fields, from Scotland's glens, From Ireland's mosses, bogs and fens; As if the skies shed golden rain, Flashing, like streams of falling stars, Sages, whose sunken eyes had caught Mothers, within whose matron eyes Some stood alone, with drooping wings; And each one, with a sad surmise, Each seemed to wonder why that hour Where shining, ghostly, through the trees, Altars of many a mythic age, And each one seemed to ask, though not And with oracular voice and air Declare why they were summoned there— That wood which from the birth of time Came slowly toward the appointed place And as, by sacred instinct urged, And each one seemed to walk the sod, Even as they came, the distant bell Each gazed in terror on the other; A moment did the work of years; That what was youth was wrinkled age, Suddenly, on the gloom of night, And flaming on the eyes of all- Erect, while, sobbing, at his side Pale Hecătè, peering from a cloud- "The Ideal age, the lyric strain So said the king, and as he spoke Whose eyes were drowned with pitying tears. The wind arose and struck the wood; But Saturn shone as cold and stern And now the storm was at its height; While far above the tempest's plash, A hopeless shriek of fierce despair Shook earth and heaven! and all was calm- The stars came out; the moon once more I have devoured my sons," he said- ་ |