behind with the back torn from a large music-book. When managers had such slaves responding to their behests, like the genius to the lamp of Aladdin, they might easily live and rule like sultans, with a Mahomet's paradise upon earth. Thus it was with Barbaja. With the assistance of the great alchymist Rossini, who turned so readily "notes into gold," he thought he knew and mostly had secured all the talent available to his theatre that existed in Europe. In those days not only a northern cantatrice was not dreamt of, but it was thought that the South alone could produce a great singer for the Italian lyrical stage.

When he arrived at Vienna, such was, however, the report of the fame of young Sontag, that the great sybarite of the day condescended at last to visit the German opera, even at the sacrifice of having his ears, accustomed to the melodious "lingua Toscana," torn by the guttural discordance of the Teutonic tongue. On hearing Henriette Sontag sing, Barbaja was overcome with astonishment. To this feeling succeeded dismay, when, having immediately applied to her parents, he found in them a polite but most unquestionable abhorrence for the Italian stage, which they were afraid would lead their daughter to the land of moral laxity, of Cicisbei and Patiti, of

In vain he tempted them with an El Dorado in perspective—the conscientious Germans would not concede, at first, a single iota of his wishes. The world, to whom she has imparted so much pure enjoyment,—and, fortunately, will now impart so much more in time to come—was near never hearing the great vocalist sing in an euphonious language, in that which made her fame universal, and led her to visit England and France.

At last, however, after repeated efforts, some concession was made, although Barbaja's fate was like that of the hero of the classical poet—the gods vouchsafed but half his prayer. Henriette Sontag was allowed to appear at the Italian Opera at Vienna. But she alone, of all the great singers of those days, never visited Italy. Many an evening the good-natured Neapolitan Impresario, a still greater epicure in gastronomy than in music, after enjoying a dinner such as Lucullus was wont to degustate nearly on the same spot, as he walked on his Palace terrace and looked down across the inlet to San Carlo, would grow moody when he thought of what he lost by the rooted aversion of Sontag's parents; and then he would anathematize the Maledetti Tedeschi, the born enemies of his country, with an energy, if not with a poetry, worthy of the patriotic Filicaja—for they, like all the other invaders of Italy, "never gave her anything but blows and slavery, and always took away everything they could, not leaving even an Iron Crown, or a funeral urn to preserve the ashes of past greatness."

The important change for the musical world at large was, however, effected. The next season Henriette Sontag was engaged to sing in Italian at Vienna, and removed to the Carinthia, having for her colleagues vocalists of such a calibre, that one of them, "il buon Rubini," has never been surpassed; whilst all those who have enjoyed the talents of the other, Lablache, feel that not only he has never been, but cannot imagine that he ever will be equalled.

Amongst the company at the Carinthia, there was another exquisite artist, who was destined, as a model of style, to exert a great influence on the career of Sontag, who has now risen so much higher in the world's estimation than her fair predecessor has ever attained, eminent as she was. As soon as the young Sontag, the most conscientious of artists (no slight portion of her success being due to her severity of judgment on herself), had heard Madame Fodor, a new light broke upon her; with tears in her eyes she threw her arms round her mother's neck, conjured her to take her home, and give her a piano. Her wish accomplished, she sat at her piano, working night and day at improving herself, and never leaving her home but when there was a rehearsal for Fodor, when she would hide herself in a corner of the house, and her ears would drink up with enthusiasm every note that dropped from the great prima donna, who has left a memory still enduring with the old habitués of Her Majesty's Theatre. Madame Fodor, on the other hand, hearing the young inexperienced prima donna sing for the first time, exclaimed, "Had I her voice, I should hold the whole world at my feet!"

The Prussian dilettanti employed every means to bring Henriette Sontag to their capital. At the end of the Italian Opera season at Vienna, she was persuaded to come to Berlin, to support by her attraction the Kœnigstadt Theatre, just opened. There she was joined by distinguished German lyrists, such as Jäger, Wächter, Sager, and Spitzeder. She was obliged to sing the translations of the operas of Rossini and of the French répertoire, then all the fashion at Berlin. Her success, however, was immense. Every seat in the house was taken, in anticipation, long before the days of performance; and we remember well, being there at the time, that the foreigners of rank who arrived in Berlin, finding it impossible to purchase a seat at any price, were obliged to apply to Count de Bruhl, the minister of the "Menus plaisirs du roi," to obtain an obscure seat at the back of the Court, or of the diplomatic box.

M. de Talleyrand used to boast, as one of the brightest diplomatic tricks of his tricksy career, that in the settlement of limits of respective dominions at the Congress of Vienna, he had procured that Ferney should be included in the area of France, which made Voltaire a Frenchman post mortem. On the same principle, the Prussians having recently secured, at the same Congress, the forced allegiance of Sontag's birth-place, Coblentz, added to the admiration which she commanded wherever she went, a feeling of pride at her being their countrywoman. Hence their enthusiasm knew no bounds.

The love as well as admiration excited by Mdlle. Sontag during her residence at Berlin, gave rise to many singular incidents. Not allowed to approach the object of their idolatry, her adorers had recourse to the most eccentric expedients to express their devotion. It is related that a young man of rank was so desperately enamored of her, as to resort to the romantic expedient of hiring himself as a servant in her family, to have the pleasure of constantly seeing her; nor was the truth suspected by the object of his adoration, or any one else, until the gentleman's own relations discovered him, and removed him from the vicinity of the attraction.

That wise and excellent monarch, the late King of Prussia, heartily joined in the enthusiasm of his subjects; and that he entertained as much esteem as admiration for Madlle. Sontag will be proved in the most signal manner by a circumstance we shall have presently to relate.

Whilst at the Berlin theatre, overtures were made to Mdlle. Sontag from the Italian Opera in Paris—then belonging to the Crown, and under the control of Vicomte Sosthene de la Rochefoucault, who for many years ruled, under the Restoration, the theatres of France, and endeavored, with rather dubious success, to apply the "Maxims" of his witty ancestor to the government of stage affairs. As M. Sosthene had for negotiator in this treaty the great Rossini, who had made Mdlle. Sontag's acquaintance in Vienna, his wishes, amongst the offers made from all quarters, prevailed. Madlle. Sontag made her first appearance in Paris at the beginning of the season. She arrived in Paris at the close of the year 1827, after a triumphal "Progress" through Holland and the Rhenane provinces, in which she gathered abundantly both those