21 MAY 1831, Page 16

PAGANINI.

A CONTROVERSY of no mean importance—for it concerns the supplies—has sprung up during the week respecting this famous fiddler. He has been in the habit of receiving very large remu- neration for his performances on the Continent ; and when he came to wealthy England, it seems to have been imagined by his advisers and friends, that he had only to ask in order to receive, and that the more he asked the more certain he was of receiving. These people had forgotten, that among other effects of the Re- form Bill, it has made John Bull a thinker. PAGANINI probably does not understand a word of our language, and he is wholly at the mercy of his interested informants : he had had double prices in several places on the Continent, and therefore he might easily believe that double prices here would not be objected to. The fol- lowing was the scale intended to be charged by this wonderful me- chanist for a single concert in the largest theatre in England, the Opera-house,—Stalls 2 guineas ; Orchestra, 1.!! ; Pit, 1 guinea; Gallery, half a guinea ; Boxes, from 10 to 4 guineas. Had the theatre filled at these prices, the gross receipts would have amounted to somewhere about 3,750/. ; of which PAGANINE was to receive 2,5001., and LAPORTE, after deducting 250/. for the expenses of the house, 1,000/.,—being at the moderate rate, for the one, of 782,5001., and for the other of 313,000/. per annum, for scraping on a bit of catgut and lighting up a chandelier! PAGA* NINI has, in all probability, been deceived by the persons about him. How LAPORTE could be deceived—for he surely has had a pretty good trial of what John Bull can do and suffer—is not so easily accounted for. Both the fiddler and the lessee, however, are now at their wits' end. Up to last night, not a dozen of the boxes were taken, and at prices, says the Times, very inferior to those at first demanded. Signor PAGANINI has issued a note to the "respect- able people," to state, that "in consequence of his being rather indisposed," the concert, advertised for this evening, will not take place : this note was last night distributed very generally at the Opera. We shall not call his silly proposals an attempt at imposi- tion—for the Italian may of' course charge any price be please ; but they argue so contemptible an opinion of John Bull's understand- ing, that we should not be surprised if it make PAGANINI'S Visit to England a profitless one. People will be apt to refuse even a moderate sum for that which was at first so extravagantly valued, in the same way as we refuse to purchase a trinket from a Jew at any price, precisely because his first price was ridiculously high.