"Neglected and slighted, different. tools.
And to such stuff as this, English audiences are compelled to into which, of course, half the volume of sound ascended ; of the listen, while operas written by DRYDEN, GAY, and SHERIDAN, remainder, some escaped into the Choir, immediately behind the with music every way worthy of them, are deliberately rejected ; orchestra, some into the transepts, which flank it ; and the au- that is, "compelled," if they wish to patronize the theatre or to dience had the enjoyment of what was left. The effect of the partake of theatrical entertainments; but the fact is, that the band on the eye was magnificent—you anticipated from the majority even of playgoers stay away, and "the crowded and over- array of six hundred voices and instruments a corresponding dis- Bowing houses" which the play-bills boast, exist only in those play of power ; but when heard, the surprise was that of disap- veracious documents, and are created solely by the printer's ink. pointment, not of admiration. The strength of the band at which "When things get to the worst, they must mend," says the proverb; you looked, was really double that which you heard ; and hence, and we congratulate the present managers of the Lyceum, that the effect of a band of two-thirds the strength, at Birmingham having now arrived at the lowest point of declination, they must, if and Norwich, was really more powerful than that at York,—for the proverb be true, now pursue the upward course. The existence in the halls of those towns nothing escapes. The simple ex- of No Plot without Danger will be brief. pedient of placing the orchestra in front of the West window, The performers were ill at ease in their parts ; GIUBILEI ex- and the erection of a temporary organ, as at the Abbey, would cepted, who proved himself fully able to develop all the beauties have allowed the band to realize to the ear what it displayed to and graces that are to be found in MERCADANTE's opera. A Mr. the eye. The change in the arrangement of the orchestra con- S7RETTON made his appearance in Claudio. This gentleman has sisted in bringing the entire chorus in front of the instrumental what, in common courtesy, is called a bass voice,—that is, a voice band, instead of their flanking the instruments as before. This of limited compass upward and less downward. We heard but experiment was tried at Birmingham; and the ill effects of such little of it except in a few second-hand TAMBURINI cadences, an arrangement were so evident then, that it was scarcely possible although he appeared to be singing at full stretch. But it is to conceive it would have been repeated. Yet at York it was re- hardly fair to judge of any singer's powers when tested by such peated ; and the faults of the Birmingham orchestra were not
MUSIC as that of MERCADANTE. only copied, but augmented,—in fact, it was an orchestra turned
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