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lows the general tendency of his country's literature.

-The present year's issue of the Almanach für Freunde der Schauspielkunst, (Almanac for Friends of the Dramatic Art), has a variety of interesting facts with regard to the drama in Germany. It gives a complete list of the various theatres, with a catalogue of the personnel in each, the name of every individual of any importance, from the manager down, being printed at length, with the function he discharges. It appears that including several establishments in Switzerland, there are 159 theatres where the German drama is performed, and that they employ 5,400 managers, actors, and prompters; and that adding musicians, supernumeraries, choristers, dancers, and machinists, the whole force is swollen to some 20,000 persons. The largest establishment is the Vienna Burg Theatre; the Court Theatre of Berlin is next in importance, and after these the capitals of Saxony, Bavaria, and Wirtemberg boast the pre-eminence. In all, there are about ten leading houses, where new plays must pass an independent ordeal before their success is complete. The pay of the first actors in Germany does not exceed 1,000 thalers, or about $725 a month. The pay of authors varies considerably: at Vienna, Berlin, and Munich, when a single play fills the whole evening's performance, the author receives 10 per cent. of the gross receipts, and shorter pieces are paid in proportion; this continues during the author's life, and sometimes, by special understanding, his heirs receive it after his death. The other chief theatres pay fixed sums, varying from $15 to $75 for each performance of a play, and the smaller establishments still less. Special agencies facilitate the relations between authors and managers. In the large cities there are establishments which take charge of new plays, procure their performance throughout Germany, and receive and pay over the author's income, deducting from 10 to 16 per cent. by way of com

mission.

-Beiträge zu einer Aesthetik der Pflanzenwelt (Contributions to the Aesthetics of the Vegetable Kingdom), by F. T. BRATRANEK, is an attempt to exhibit the influence of that department of nature upon man, as evinced in religion, art, literature, and national peculiarities. Its plan is derived from the beautiful and suggestive discussion in Humboldt's Cosmos, upon the influence of nature in general, and its method is similar to that. author writes from enthusiastic affection for his subject, and has at his command rich stores of knowledge, literary as well

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as scientific. Sometimes an affluence of quotations from the poets, wears the appearance of pedantry, and sometimes there seems to be a want of accuracy and completeness; but on the whole the book is delightful and instructive reading.

-Ritter BUNSEN is the Prussian Ambassador at London, and holds a respectable rank as a diplomatist and man of letters, his particular forte being antiquarian subjects. He has now gained a new distinction, however: the University of Göttingen has conferred on him the diploma of D.D.

JOSEF RANK, a clever enough novelist, has two new books, Florian und Geschichten armer Leute (Tales of Poor Folks). The latter consists of exactly eleven stories, all of them pleasant though not astonishing reading.

-A work indispensable in every complete library, is Dr. NAGLER'S Neues Allgemeines Kunst-Lexikon (New Universal Dictionary of Art). Its publication was completed last year, having been begun in 1835. It is in 22 volumes, and costs, in Germany, $36 00.

-Those who seek to understand the bearings of European politics may find their profit in reading a pamphlet on the French Army, and its Relation to the Emperor Louis Napoleon, published at Leipzic, from the pen of a German officer. The writer shows that the French army is one of the most powerful and effective in Europe, and that the late reductions in its numbers, about which so much has been said, really do not diminish its power as compared with any force that the German States could bring against it. The pamphlet is particularly intended for Germany, but it is interesting even on this side of the Atlantic.

-The present condition of Greece is not exhibited in a very flattering light by HERMANN HETTMER, in his Griechische Reiseskizzen (Sketches of Greek Travel). The agriculture of the country is the poorest and most primitive possible, being confined almost exclusively to the pasturing of sheep and goats. Commerce and manufactures are unknown, and all the attempts to establish colonies from Germany have proved futile. There are but three roads in the whole country: namely, that from the Piræus to Athens, that from Athens to Thebes, and that from Nauplia to Argo, and these were made mostly by Capo d'Istria. The population is less than one million, and for the past twelve years at least, has been decreasing. The wages of a good workman at Athens are about 62 cents a day. There is a powerful party, which constantly gains in number and influence, who desire annexa

tion to Russia. Whatever may be the exactness of Mr. Hettmer's conclusions, his book is a lively and readable one, at the same time that it may be consulted with profit by artists and antiquaries.

-A new series of illustrations to Shakspeare are announced as in preparation, from the pencil of the illustrious Kaulbach. They are to be in crayon.

-Reise und Lebensbilder (Pictures of Travel and Life), narrates the adventures and observations of a young German in New-Holland, New-Zealand, and California.

MUSIC.

A month ago we expressed the hope that the disastrous fortunes of the commencement of Alboni's opera might be retrieved. But it was doomed. Despite the

combined" attraction, and the " unprecedented" something that always figures in operatic promises, and despite, also, the very genuine and hearty success of many evenings, the opera languished and closed. Lucrezia Borgia was produced in fine style. Maffeo Orsini was Alboni, and Salvi Gennavro. Madame De Vries, a singer of the French school, with a hard, sharp voice, but with striking dramatic action, sang the superb Lucrezia. It was fairly done. Madame De Vries pleased us quite as much as Parodi ever did. The audience was large : we hope it was remunerative. But it is no longer possible to know whether a full house implies a full purse or not. Alboni's Maffeo was easy to forecast. It was simply folly. Even when she rushes for the knife in the banquet scene, and throws herself upon the spy, it was done so archly and with such a magnetic smile, that even censorious critics, like ourselves, would have gladly been so assaulted. It is an unmeaning rôle, but its pleasant music was delightfully sung. After a week of suspense, Don Giovanni was presented for the manager's benefit. A full house greeted it. As it is the best of operas, so it requires the very best presentation. It was fairly done (again); but Italian singers are always too unjust to German music to allow us to enjoy a complete satisfaction. Signor Salvi evidently cared little for the music, and little for his own reputation as an artist. For he was very slovenly in all the music, except il mio tesoro, and that he sang with the interpolation of Italian cadences and phrases, so totally inharmonious with the character of the melody, that the effect was entirely lost. He was loudly applauded; and Mrs. Grundy declared that it was " perfect." We, therefore, say no more.

Don Giovanni is ar opera written by

the greatest of melodists in the interests of art, and not of any "world-renowned" artist. The music of the opera requires as true a feeling for art upon the part of the singers, as was upon that of the composer. But it is hard for a petted favorite to sing for any thing but personal applause. Consequently, the greatest of operas is not a favorite with the artists; and despite the great admiration it must always extort from an audience, it is quite sure to drag a little and seem tedious.

Alboni's Zerlina was exquisite. It was by far the best we have ever seen. Bosio, who is the only Zerlina we have had since Malibran, was too much the fine lady. She was the same in this rôle as Sontag in Amina. It was a pretty pastoral-a saintly masque. But Alboni, whose highest tragical expression is looking sorry, and who has not the je ne sais quoi of the genuine Duchess, is incomparable in pure rustic parts. Nothing could be more archly naire than her actions while she sings Bati, bati. It was maidenly and peasant-like, and beautiful as a rustic vase, which is still perfect in its way, although it is not Greek. She had unabated freshness and sweetness, and we could not speculate upon the reason of the very different operatic success in the two seasons of Sontag and Alboni. Undoubtedly Dwight's Journal of Music hits the truth, in saying that there is more unity in Sontag's. She has a greater regard for the success of the work as a whole. We are far from thinking that Alboni prefers her individual triumph to the effect of the opera, but she is careless about that effect. She sings away with her great, rich, rollicking voice, and smiles in the thunders of applause that follow. If Salvi, and Beneventano, and Marini, and Rovere, can draw down similar thunders, it is all very agreeable to the Prima Donna. That is their own affair; and as for the general effect of the opera, the blithe Bacchus in ample skirts knows nothing about it.

The new Opera House will be built, it appears, and thirteen energetic men have been made Directors. The universal failure of operatic experiments in this country, and the plain proof that in other countries music is a pure luxury, which must be paid for, and does not pay, does not deter an unusual effort. It is, at least, refreshing to behold this unwearied determination. To sew up gold in a bag, and drop it off the Battery, would seem to be as promising an investment as opera-house stock. But here are two hundred shares readily taken at a thousand dollars each; the lot is secured; the President of the

Board of Directors, James Phalen, Esq. (whose efforts in this matter deserve especial praise), has measurements and drawings from all the great European operahouses; nothing remains for the stockholders but to have the house built, and to take care that it pays six per cent. at the very least, and nothing remains for us critics but to insist upon all kinds of impossibilities, and skilfully find fault with all the arrangements; proffer the most ample advice, and accept the most eligible seats, gratis.

First of all, it is our business to instruct the committee what kind of house must be built, and then, what kind of performance will insure the six per cent. aforesaid.

Remember then, O Committee! that New-York is an American, and not an English, nor a French, nor a Russian, nor an Italian city. Let the building be large and convenient. Have doors and windows without end. Achieve the impossibility of perfect ventilation, and a sense of personal security in the breasts of the audience. Have some boxes in the rear of a balcony as at Astor Place and at the Royal Opera in Berlin, if you choose; but, in any case, have some boxes. Let the acoustic arrangements be more successful than we understand they are in the province of Massachusetts Bay, at the new Music Hall in Boston. The prices should be moderate, ranging from two shillings to eight. The leap beyond into the uncertain realm of "two and three dollar seats" is dangerous. Let the exterior of the building be comely, and an ornament to the broad and beautiful street upon which it stands. May the Muses avert a Grecian temple, or a Gothic Cathedral, or a renaissance palace, from the corner of Irving Place and Fourteenth-street! A covered entrance is de rigueur. Remember the San Carlo at Naples, and the London Haymarket and Covent Garden. And a foyer, for our gregarious American race-for the single gentlemen who visit the opera not only to see the queens upon the stage, but the princesses offwill be not only a most attractive novelty, but, of itself, an attraction. Unparalleled splendor of scenery, that, in assisting at the spectacle of Le Prophète and Robert le Diable, we may not regret Paris,-and a corps-de-ballet indispensable to the great Meyerbeer ('tis true, 'tis pity),— cannot well be omitted. O Committee! there must be munificent regardlessness of expense, and always constellations, never single stars, and roomy seats, each separated by arms from its neighbor, and brilliant lights, not in chandeliers, which spoil the view from the best half of the

second tier, and not around the balconies blinding the eyes,-but somehow disposed that every thing may be seen, except lights.

The performance must be the best possible, not the best attainable, in the world. Why should it not be made the interest of all great singers to sing in New-York, as it is now in St. Petersburgh? Discriminating editors in elbow chairs complain that the great singers demand impossible prices. But the complaint lies against the giver, not the taker. We all ask the highest possible sum for our silks and sugars. We should vend gloves at twenty dollars a pair, if there were purchasers at that rate. Why should we suppose that the "celebrated cantatrice" Giulia Grisi, or the great tenor Mario, or the eminent and aspiring soprano Cruvelli, will ask ten thousand dollars a month when they can get twenty thousand? If, however, Paris, or London, or St. Petersburgh will pay ten thousand, New-York will not secure the prize for less than twelve thousand. If New-York cannot pay the twelve thousand, then the corner lot had better be used for a hotel or a hospital.

If the stockholding mind is infested with the idea of founding a national school of music, and the undertaking is to be affected by that idea, it might, in that case also, be as well to consider the propriety of leaving the lot vacant. To teach the science of music is not the province of an opera-house. But, by the best performance of the best works to cultivate a taste for the art, is a laudable aim, and essential to success. If we truly understand the present effort, it is not to form an institution to educate singers and composers, but to secure a place in which, with a fair profit to those who have risked money, the public may hear the finest operas sung in the finest style. The rest may follow. If there be the germs of an original musical taste in our people, academies will necessarily follow. But it is unnecessary to exaggerate the scope of the present intention, and, surely, very foolish not to eat good cake because it is not frosted. There are but two schools of music, properly speaking; the Italian and the German. The French is but a modification of the Italian. The Royal operas in Berlin, St. Petersburgh, Madrid, and Vienna are Italian. Sometimes, as is de rigueur in Berlin, and occasional at the French Opera in Paris, there is a translation of the Libretto into the vernacular. It is the praise of Viardot Garcia that she sings the music of many operas in the vernacular of four countries. Our New-York opera at the corner must be, like every thing

else, American, eclectic. Good German, and Italian, and French works must all be produced; only there must not be a Signor Salvi for primo tenore, who will respect only one kind of music. Der Freischütz must not be committed to Italian minds and mouths, except under very rigid training. There is no doubt that the Italian method of singing is much superior to the German; but there is equally no doubt that the Italian method of conceiving German music is to despise it. In which case Mozart, Beethoven, and Weber, the three composers who have written the three finest of all operas, will be mangled in their music, and their lovers with them. The language in which a work is sung is of small importance; at least until Herr Wagner, the musical revolutionist in Germany, shall have made manifest that the words are as essential to an opera as the music. When his ideas have been more developed, and begin to affect musical composition, it will be time for us critics to take the field in favor, or against. But meanwhile, in our present cimmerian state, we hope to be spared Still so gentlys, and Ah! don't mingles!

Grisi and Mario are announced (not, however, by their impresario, Mr. Hackett), as the probable inaugurators of the new house. Twenty-five years ago excited Poets wrote sonnets to Grisi, and she has now, superb that she is!-reached the period at which critics say she is "still" great. Ah! treacherous "still!" Grisi is past her prime. Sontag is a G-dm-th-r! We fear that public expectation feeding upon the fame of Grisi will be disappointed. If it wavered a moment, in the beginning about Jenny Lind, now in the dazzling zenith of her genius, and (if Malibran was as great; then, the other) greatest singer that has ever lived, it may inore than waver, if it forgets that Grisi is a mortal woman,-that her instrument is only the human voice, and that woman and voice obey the eternal laws that regulate the summer and its flowers. Mario, too, yet a young man, is an uncertain singer. Undoubtedly he is the first of living and singing tenors, but Rubini and Duprez, sing no more. We must have Cruvelli and Tamberlik, and Ronconi, and Formes, and Staudigl. We must have every body and every thing at the corner.

Apropos of musical teaching, a Normal Musical Institute has just been established by several of the most thoroughly trained musicians, and Richard Storrs Willis, the Editor of the Musical World, has delivered an introductory lecture upon Harmony. It is simple and learned, full of true taste and good feeling, and if the lectures are all to be as earnest and intelligent, there

will be no lack of the best musical instruction.

We look for Jullien, and his colossal orchestra, which, it seems to us, in Crystal Palace and no opera times (unless Sontag sing at Castle Garden), must have a great

success.

FINE ARTS.

But

The Twenty-eighth Annual Exhibition of the National Academy of Design was opened last month, with its customary number of works of art. It oddly happens that there are always just about 450 "works" of one kind and another to exhibit; rarely less, and never more. the number of pictures and sculptures which ought to have been exhibited among those to be found in the rooms of the Academy, is smaller this year than it has been in several years past. An inspection of the catalogue and a walk through the galleries of the Academy do not excite the highest state of enthusiasm in the lover of "high art," but produce quite a contrary effect. It is a sad truth, but it cannot be helped. Every thing in the New World appears to be progressive; but the art which, by common consent, is called "fine." That, it cannot be denied, is antiprogressive. If it takes no rapid strides backwards, it at least stands still. It is an instructive fact that, on this Twentyeighth Anniversary of the National Academy of Design, there are no greater promises of progress than there were on the first opening of the Academy in Chambersstreet, in the small chamber above the bath-house, which is now a theatre. The city has more than quadrupled in population, wealth, and refinement, since then; millions of dollars have been expended on artistic productions; a revolution has been effected in our social habits; innumerable "first rate notices" of our artists have been written in the daily papers; hundreds of young painters have been sent to Europe; Art Unionism has grown up and declined; merchants' houses have expanded into brown-stone palaces; ocean steam - navigation has been perfected, clipper ships invented, Gothic architecture has been revived, the Croton aqueduct constructed, the railroad system introduced, fresco painting, and painted windows have come into fashion once more, the Italian opera has become a permanent institution, penny papers have sprung into existence, "pictorials" have become common, the electric telegraph has been discovered, and all the arts that embellish life and add to the pleasures of Christians have been marvellously expanded among us, but the National Academy of Design has stood still while the rest of the world

has been rushing forward with breakneck rapidity. It exhibits hardly more, or better "works now than it did twenty years ago.

It has designed nothing. It has given us no architects; the splendid mansions which have grown up all around us, with their richly sculptured fronts and decorated walls, were not designed by "academicians," nor were our Gothic churches with their painted windows hatched in this eccaleobion. It was the first president of the Academy, to be sure, that invented the electric telegraph, but that was not a design which the institution had in view when it was founded. Looking upon the progress of the country in true art, upon its splendid achievements and rapid growth, we cannot detect the influence of our National Academy upon the brilliant period in which it has existed. Among its members are some very clever painters of landscapes and portraits, but the works it has produced have been mere toys in private houses-family portraits and pleasing little landscapes, which are hung up as ornaments in darkened parlors, and with which the nation has no more to do than Patagonia or New Zealand. The Academy, we cannot avoid thinking. is an injury rather than an aid to art; it deludes amiable young men of talent with false theories of "high art," and leads them away from profitable and honest employments, to a sad and wearisome waste of life in the vain attempt to do things which the age does not require, and they have not the ability to accomplish. The days of the pre-Raphaelites may return, but the days of Raphael never. If Raphael and Michael Angelo were now alive-and, for that matter, there is never a lack of Raphaels and Michael Angelos-they would not devote their lives to painting pictures and hewing statues. They would compose operas, write books, edit newspapers, or build ships and houses. They would not give themselves up to a work which nobody would reward, and then go about whining because they were neglected. Raphaels and Michael Angelos never are neglected.

But there are good fellows among our academicians, and their supper on their opening night was a much better one than ever Rome saw in the days of Leo X. The old masters never served up such an entertainment to their patrons and the "gentlemen of the press," in the palmy days of high art.

We had no idea, when we begun, of discussing the prospects of Art, or the influences of the Academy; all that we intended was to notice the pictures. But

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on casting our eye over the catalogue, the strange fact suggested itself that this exhibition was like all the other exhibitions of the Academy; there are the same names, the same subjects, the same number of works, and the same sameness of style. We only miss the "portrait of lady-Ingham." Why has not Ingham a portrait of a lady in the Exhibition? "Does he think it time to quit, after Exhibiting twenty-seven years." But why? there is still the "Landscape-Durand." The same birch tree, the same yellow sky, the same amiable cattle, the same mild 'trees and quiet water. What a mild, quiet, and amiable world is this to Durand! It would be a curious study to examine all the catalogues of the Academy, and see how nearly the whole of the twenty-eight pamphlets are alike. The only change we notice is in the list of honorary members. The progressive movement of the Academy in adding to this ornamental part of our National Institution of Design, is in very marked contrast to the other parts of their annual pamphlet. There are now four full pages of honorary names. Among the 442 works exhibited 48 are portraits of "a lady;" 66 are portraits of "a gentleman;" 17 are portraits of "a child;" 3 are portraits of "a boy;" 3 of " a girl;" 3 are portraits of "children;" 2 are portraits of "a horse;" and 1 of "a terrier and rat;" ""a celebrated racer;" and a "dog and game;" besides some "families," from which it will be seen that the department of portraiture is well filled; and, in truth, it is in this practical department that our artists, much to their credit, exhibit their strength. Portrait painting and bust making are better rewarded than any other kind of art, and consequently it is in these branches that we excel. There are some as good portraits in this present Exhibition, as England, France, or Germany could produce, and a marble bust of a lady, by Palmer of Albany, that might be placed by the side of any piece of antique sculpture that Time has preserved for us. Our landscape artists, too, give us views of our scenery on their canvas, that are like reflections in a mirror. They knew nothing of such landscapes as those of Church, Kensett, and Durand in the days of Michael Angelo, for then Art worked in a higher province than that of the mere ornamentalist. Pictures were then painted for the masses, and the artist was the instructor of the people. He embodied upon his canvas, and in his marble, great religious ideas, and made popular the legends of the Church. Our artists cannot do such things. We have no legends, and, what

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