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who have voices highly cultivated, and are possessed of uncom mon powers of embellishing sound, and of rendering music something more than vox pretereaque nihil, why should they be denied the opportunity of displaying their abilities, and the lovers and judges of music of receiving delight from their exertions? There is nothing immoral in sound, if it is even connected with vice. and immorality; it is by keeping bad company, and embellishing the ribaldry and nonsense of another art.

The Ballet is attached to the Opera.

The Greeks were the first inventors of this species of amusement as merely an accessary to tragedy and comedy. The Romans copied after them; and it was carried to great perfection by the surprising exertions of Pylades and Bathylus, wherein the performer is both actor and dancer. Pylades succeeded wonderfully by the dance alone in representing strong and pathetic situations. Hence this style of dancing is known to us by the name of grave or serious pantomime.

Bathylus, an Alexandrian, and a freed-man of Macenia, attempted to represent by dancing lively subjects.

He was handsome in his person, and Perrius and Juneval speak of him as the gallant of every woman in Rome.

The women had at first no share in the ballet. At least they do not appear to have had till the year 1681, when, on the 21st of January the Princess and other ladies of the court of Louis XIV. performed a ballet with the opera called the The Triumph of Love. This was an enlivening and brilliant improvement, so much that the ballet has ever since continued to be the principal support of the opera, and more particularly in Paris. A wit there being asked one day what must be done to keep up an opera threatened with damnation, answered, "lengthen the dances, and shorten the petticoats." This, however, would have incurred the indignation of a Right Rev. Bishop, who some years ago anathamatized the shortness of the petticoats, and discovered, and not without some reason, a pandora box of evils

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evils in the quick rotatory motion which brought them parallel with the zones of the opera girls.

Monsieur Noverre and Vestris have given to this art an eminent degree of perfection. The former published a scientific work upon the subject, in which he has ingeniously and elegantly delineated all its enchanting attributes.

The opera on its first introduction into England divided the wits, literati, and musicians of the age. By those esteemed the best judges, the English language was thought too rough and inharmonious for the music of the opera; and by men of common sense a drama in a foreign and unknown tongue was considered very absurd. However, Addison, who opposed the Italian opera on the London stage, wrote the English of Rosamond, which seemed an attempt to reconcile the discordant opinions. But this, though a beautiful poem, is said, by Dr. Burney, to have shewn Addison's total ignorance of the first principles of music.

The French opera has always been admired as a drama by persons of a liberal education; but how the Italian drama should be admired by persons ignorant of that language is a matter of astonishment aud ridicule. It is like the admission of a devotee, who, when she had lost her hearing so as not to understand the minister, still attended church, and when once asked why she could bear to stay while the old parson delivered a sermon of an hour long, replied, " She knew his matter was good." The music of an opera may be admired, and the action of the fingers suited to the subject represented; but of this the majority of the audience are no judges.

Even when the lauguage is understood, much depends upon the choice of a subject to afford rational pleasure; for it is merely ridiculous to have persons of all ranks, and on every occasion, perpetually accompanied with the regular responses of symphony. To hear Cæsar, Scipio, or Macbeth, when forming plans to ensure victory, or plotting treason and murder, talking in recitative, and keeping tune with fiddles, must disgust all whose

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sense is not lost in sound. When the subject naturally admits of music in real life, to persons of taste the opera must unquestionably be a refined and exquisite entertainment. *

Before I mention one or two public collections of pictures, &c. in Pall Mall, it will be proper to attempt a description of CARLTON HOUSE, the palace of His Royal Highness the Prince Regent. Let me bespeak the candour and indulgence of the reader: the difficulty of free access to a royal palace like this, is easily conceived; and without a loug, laborious, and constant personal investigation, it is impossible to do that justice to the description, which such a building necessarily demands. With the aid of Mr. Malcolm, and two personal visits to the palace, I have endeavoured to give the reader all the information I have been able to collect.

The front of Carlton House is too low, and consequently affords but one range of spacious apartments, recently connected by large folding doors, and thus opening to an enriched Gothic conservatory; but it allows of nothing more than a diminutive attic, with very small windows.

The façade has a centre and two wings, rusticated, without pilasters, an entablature, and balustrade which conceal the roof. The portico consists of six Composite columns, and a pediment with an enriched frieze, and a tympan, crowned with the prince's arms; but all the windows are without pediments, except two in the wings.

The screen ought to be removed; though the architect has selected the Ionic order with judgment, as next to that of the palace. On the centre of the entablature of this handsome colonnade is a very neat military trophy, between the royal supporters. The capitals and cornices are modelled from clumsy and imperfect remains of antiquity, in preference to those imitated by Inigo Joues at the Banqueting house. Besides this error he has made his basement high enough for a wall; indeed, it effectually screens the palace even from the opposite pavement,

• Geut. Mag. En, Brit. and Rees's Cyclopedia.

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