with painted dragons spitting wildfire, enchanted chariots drawn by Flanders mares, and real cascades. in artificial landscapes? A little skill and criticism would inform us that shadows and realities ought not to be mixed together in the same piece, and that scenes which are designed as the representations of nature should be filled with resemblances, and not with the things themselves. If one would represent a wide champaign country filled with herds and flocks, it would be ridiculous to draw the country only upon the scenes, and to crowd several parts of the stage with sheep and oxen. This is joining together inconsistencies, and making the decoration partly real and partly imaginary. I would recommend what I have here said to the directors as well as to the admirers of our modern opera. As I was walking in the streets about a fortnight ago, I saw an ordinary fellow carrying a cage full of little birds upon his shoulder; and, as I was wondering with myself what use he would put them to, he was met very luckily by an acquaintance, who had the same curiosity. Upon his asking him what he had upon his shoulder, he told him that he had been buying sparrows for the opera. Sparrows for the opera,' says his friend, licking his lips; what, are they to be roasted?' 'No, no,' says the other, 'they are to enter towards the end of the first act, and to fly about the stage.' This strange dialogue awakened my curiosity so far that I immediately bought the opera, by which means I perceived that the sparrows were to act the part of singing-birds in a delightful grove; though upon a nearer inquiry I found the sparrows put the same trick upon the audience that Sir Martin Mar-all practised upon his mistress; for, though they flew in sight, the music proceeded from a consort of flageolets and bird-calls which was planted behind the scenes. At the same time I made this discovery, I found by the discourse of the actors that there were great designs on foot for the improvement of the opera; that it had been proposed to break down a part of the wall, and to surprise the audience with a party of an hundred horse, and that there was actually a project of bringing the New River into the house, to be employed in jetteaus and waterworks. This project, as I have since heard, is postponed until the summer season; when it is thought the coolness that proceeds from fountains and cascades will be more acceptable and refreshing to people of quality. In the meantime, to find out a more agreeable entertainment for the winter season, the opera of Rinaldo' 2 is filled with thunder and lightning, illuminations and fireworks; which the audience may look upon without catching cold, and, indeed, without much danger of being burnt; for there are several engines filled with water, and ready to play at a minute's warning, in case any such accident should happen. However, as I have a very great friendship for the owner of 1 In the last act of Dryden's Sir Martin Mar-all' (1666), Sir Martin made his man Warner play and sing under Millicent's window, while he himself stood with a lute, on which he pretended to produce the music. Unfortunately, he continued to open his mouth and finger the lute for some time after Warner had finished the song, whereupon Millicent jestingly urged him to sing louder. 2 Handel came to England from Hanover in 1710, and on February 24, 1711, his opera Rinaldo' was produced at the Haymarket Theatre. The opera was arranged by Aaron Hill, and the Italian words were by G. Rossi. The story of Rinaldo and Armida was taken from Jasso's Jerusalem Delivered.' this theatre, I hope that he has been wise enough to insure his house before he would let this opera be acted in it. It is no wonder that those scenes should be very surprising, which were contrived by two poets of different nations, and raised by two magicians of different sexes. Armida (as we are told in the argument) was an Amazonian enchantress, and poor Signior Cassani1 (as we learn from the persons represented), a Christian conjurer (Mago Christiano). I must confess I am very much puzzled to find how an Amazon should be versed in the black art, or how a good Christian, for such is the part of the magician, should deal with the devil. To consider the poets after the conjurers, I shall give you a taste of the Italian from the first lines. of his Preface. Eccoti, benigno Lettore, un parto di poche sere, che se ben nato di Notte, non è però aborto di Tenebre, mà si farà conoscere figlio d' Apollo con qualche raggio di Parnasso. Behold, gentle reader, the birth of a few evenings, which, though it be the offspring of the night, is not the abortive of darkness, but will make itself known to be the son of Apollo, with a certain ray of Parnassus.' He afterwards proceeds to call Minheer Hendel the Orpheus of our age, and to acquaint us, in the same sublimity of style, that he composed this opera in a fortnight. Such are the wits to whose tastes we so ambitiously conform ourselves. The truth of it is, the finest writers among the modern Italians express themselves in such a florid form of words, and such tedious circumlocutions, as are used 1 Signior Cassani came to London from Italy in February 1708, and first appeared in the part of Mitius in 'Camilla' (Burney's 'History of Music,' iv. 206). by none but pedants in our own country; and at the same time fill their writings with such poor imaginations and conceits, as our youths are ashamed of before they have been two years at the University. Some may be apt to think that it is the difference of genius which produces this difference in the works of the two nations; but to show there is nothing in this, if we look into the writings of the old Italians, such as Cicero and Virgil, we shall find that the English writers, in their way of thinking and expressing themselves, resemble those authors much more than the modern Italians pretend to do. And as for the poet himself, from whom the dreams of this opera are taken, I must entirely agree with Monsieur Boileau,' that one verse in Virgil is worth all the clinquant, or tinsel, of Tasso. But to return to the sparrows. There have been so many flights of them let loose in this opera that it is feared the house will never get rid of them, and. that in other plays they may make their entrance in very wrong and improper scenes, so as to be seen flying in a lady's bed-chamber, or perching upon a king's throne, besides the inconveniences which the heads of the audience may sometimes suffer from them. I am credibly informed that there was once a design of casting into an opera the story of Whittington and his cat, and that in order to it there had been got together a great quantity of mice; but Mr. Rich, the proprietor of the playhouse, very prudently considered that it would be impossible for the cat to kill them all, and that consequently the princes of his stage might be as 1 Satire ix. 2 2 Christopher Rich, manager of Drury Lane Theatre, died in 1714. much infested with mice as the prince of the island was before the cat's arrival upon it; for which reason he would not permit it to be acted in his house. And indeed I cannot blame him, for, as he said very well upon that occasion, I do not hear that any of the performers in our opera pretend to equal the famous Pied Piper,' who made all the mice of a great town in Germany follow his music, and by that means cleared the place of those little noxious animals. Before I dismiss this paper, I must inform my reader that I hear there is a treaty on foot with London and Wise (who will be appointed gardeners of the play-house) to furnish the opera of 'Rinaldo and Armida' with an orange grove, and that the next time it is acted the singing-birds will be personated by tom-tits, the undertakers being resolved to spare neither pains nor money for the gratification of the audience. C. No. 6. Wednesday, March 7, 1711 I [STEELE. Credebant hoc grande nefas, et morte piandum, —Juv., Sat. xiii. 54. abuse of the understanding, and yet there is no one vice more common. It has diffused itself through both sexes and all qualities of mankind, 1 The Pied Piper of Hamelin, now best known through Browning's poem. 2 Evelyn, writing in 1701, says that the nursery of Messrs. London and Wise, which exceeded one hundred acres in extent, |