son's words, and I don't see how I can put others, keeping the same idea, ('of seven squalling brats, etc.') in which the whole affair lies. However, I shall be glad of the notes, with Reinold's part, if it is possible, as I mentioned '. "I have literally and really not had time to write the words of any thing more first and then send them to you, and this obliges me to use this apparently awkward way. * * * * * * * * My father was astonishingly well received on Saturday night in Cato: I think it will not be many days before we are reconciled. 66 The inclosed are the words for 'Wind, gentle evergreen; ' a passionate song for Mattocks, and another for Miss Brown 3, which solicit to be clothed with melody by you, and are all I want. Mattocks's I could wish to be a broken, passionate affair, and the first two lines may be recitative, or what you please, uncommon. Miss Brown sings hers in a joyful mood: we want her to show in it as much execution as she is capable of, which is prette well; and for variety, we want Mr. Simpson's hautboy to cut a figure, with replying passages, etc., in the way of Fisher's 'M'ami, il bel idol mio,' to abet which I have lugged in Echo,' who is always allowed to play her part. I have not a moment more. Yours ever sincerely." The next and last extract I shall give at present is from a letter, dated Nov. 2, 1775, about three weeks before the first representation of the opera. "Our music is now all finished and rehearsing, but we are greatly impatient to see you. We hold your coming to be necessary beyond conception. You say you are at our service after Tuesday next; then ‘I conjure you by that you do possess,' in which I include all the powers that preside over harmony, to come next Thursday night (this day se'nnight), and we will fix a rehearsal for Friday morning. From what I see of their rehearsing at present, I am become still more anxious to see you. "We have received all your songs, and are vastly pleased with them. You misunderstood me as to the hautboy song; I had not the least intention to fix on ' Bel idol mio.' However, I think it is particularly well adapted, and, I doubt not, will have a great effect." * * * * An allusion which occurs in these letters to the prospect of a reconciliation with his father gives me an opportunity of mentioning a circumstance, connected with their difference, for the knowledge This idea was afterwards relinquished. 2 The words of this song, in composing which the directions here given were exactly followed, are to be found in scarce any of the editions of the Duenna. They are as follows:: Sharp is the woe, that wounds the jealous mind, When treachery two fond hearts would rend; But oh! how keener far the pang to find That traitor in a bosom friend. 3 "Adien, thou dreary pile." of which I am indebted to one of the persons most interested in remembering it, and which, as a proof of the natural tendency of Sheridan's heart to let all its sensibilities flow in the right channel, ought not to be forgotten. During the run of one of his pieces, having received information from an old family servant that his father (who still refused to have any intercourse with him) meant to attend, with his daughters, at the representation of the piece, Sheridan took up his station by one of the side scenes, opposite to the box where they sat, and there continued, unobserved, to look at them during the greater part of the night. On his return home, he was so affected by the various recollections that came upon him, that he burst into tears, and, being questioned as to the cause of his agitation by Mrs. Sheridan, to whom it was new to see him returning thus saddened from the scene of his triumph, he owned how deeply it had gone to his heart" to think that there sat his father and his sisters before him, and yet that he alone was not permitted to go near them or speak to them." On the 21st of November, 1775, The Duenna was performed at Covent-Garden, and the following is the original cast of the characters, as given in the collection of Mr. Sheridan's Dramatic Works : Don Ferdinand Isaac Mendoza Donna Louisa The Duenna Mr. Mattocks. Mr. Fox. Mr. Baker. Mrs. Mattocks. Mrs. Cargill'. The run of this opera has, I believe, no parallel in the annals of the drama. Sixty-three nights was the career of the Beggar's Opera; but the Duenna was acted no less than seventy-five times during the season, the only intermissions being a few days at Christmas, and the Fridays in every week ;—the latter on account of Leoni, who, being a Jew, could not act on those nights. In order to counteract this great success of the rival house, Garrick found it necessary to bring forward all the weight of his own best characters; and 'even had recourse to the expedient of playing off This is incorrect: it was Miss Brown that played Donna Clara for the first few nights. the mother against the son, by reviving Mrs. Frances Sheridan's comedy of The Discovery, and acting the principal part in it himself. In allusion to the increased fatigue which this competition with The Duenna brought upon Garrick, who was then entering on his sixtieth year, it was said, by an actor of the day, that "the old woman would be the death of the old man." The Duenna is one of the very few operas in our language, which combine the merits of legitimate comedy with the attractions of poetry and song;—that divorce between sense and sound, to which Dr. Brown and others trace the cessation of the early miracles of music, being no where more remarkable than in the operas of the English stage. The "Sovereign of the willing soul" (as Gray calls Music) always loses by being made exclusive sovereign, -and the division of her empire with poetry and wit, as in the instance of The Duenna, doubles her real power. The intrigue of this piece (which is mainly founded upon an incident borrowed from the "Country Wife" of Wycherley) is constructed and managed with considerable adroitness, having just material enough to be wound out into three acts, without being encumbered by too much intricacy, or weakened by too much extension. It does not appear, from the rough copy in my possession, that any material change was made in the plan of the work, as it proceeded. Carlos was originally meant to be a Jew, and is called "Cousin Moses" by Isaac in the first sketch of the dialogue; but, possibly from the consideration that this would apply too personally to Leoni, who was to perform the character, its designation was altered. The scene in the second act, where Carlos is introduced by Isaac to the Duenna, stood, in its original state, as follows: "Isaac. Moses, sweet coz, I thrive, I prosper. "Moses. Where is your mistress? "Isaac. There, you booby, there she stands. "Moses. Why she's damn'd ugly. "Isaac. Hush! (stops his mouth.) "Duenna. What is your friend saying, Don? "Isaac. Oh, Ma'am, he's expressing his raptures at such charms as he never saw before. Sir, "Moses. Aye, such as I never saw before indeed ( aside ). “Duenna. You are very obliging, gentlemen; but, I dare say, your friend is no stranger to the influence of beauty, I doubt not but he is a lover himself. "Moses. Alas! Madam, there is now but one woman living, whom I have any love for, and truly, Ma'am, you resemble her wonderfully. "Duenna. Well, Sir, I wish she may give you her hand as speedily as I shall mine to your friend, "Moses. Me her hand!-O Lord, Ma'am-she is the last woman in the world I could think of marrying. "Duenna. What then, Sir, are you comparing me to some wantonsome courtezan? "Isaac. Zounds! he durstn't. "Moses. O not I, upon my soul. "Duenna. Yes, he meant some young harlot-so -some "Moses. Oh, dear Madam, no-it was my mother I meant, as I hope to be saved. "Isaac. Oh the blundering villain! (aside.) "Duenna. How, Sir-am I so like your mother? "Isaac. Stay, dear Madam-my friend meant-that you put him in mind of what his mother was when a girl-didn't you, Moses? “Moses. Oh yes, Madam, my mother was formerly a great beauty, a great toast, I assure you;—and when she married my father about thirty years ago, as you may perhaps remember, Ma'am “Duenna. I, Sir! I remember thirty years ago! "Isaac. Oh, to be sure not, Ma'am-thirty years! no, no-it was thirty months he said, Maʼam—wasn't it, Moses? "Moses. Yes, yes, Ma'am-thirty months ago, on her marriage with my father, she was, as I was saying, a great beauty;-but catching cold, year afterwards, in child-bed of your humble servant the "Duenna. Of you, Sir!-and married within these thirty months! "Isaac. Oh the devil! he has made himself out but a year old!Come, Moses, hold your tongue.-You must excuse him, Ma'am-he means to be civil-but he is a poor, simple fellow-an't you, Moses? "Moses. 'Tis true, indeed, Ma'am," etc. etc. etc. The greater part of the humour of Moses here was afterwards transferred to the character of Isaac, and it will be perceived that a few of the points are still retained by him. The wit of the dialogue, except in one or two instances, is of that accessible kind which lies near the surface-which may be enjoyed without wonder, and rather plays than shines. He had not yet searched his fancy for those curious fossils of thought, which make The School for Scandal such a rich museum of wit. Of this precious kind, however, is the description of Isaac's neutrality in religion-" like the blank leaf between the Old and New Testament." As an instance, too, of the occasional abuse of this research, which led him to mistake laboured conceits for fancies, may be mentioned the far-fetched comparison of serenaders to Egyptian embalmers" extracting the brain through the ears." For this, however, his taste, not his invention, is responsible, as we have already seen that the thought was borrowed from a letter of his friend Halhed. In the speech of Lopez, the servant, with which the opera opens, there are, in the original copy, some humorous points, which appear to have fallen under the pruning knife, but which are not unworthy of being gathered up here :— "A plague on these haughty damsels, say I :—when they play their airs on their whining gallants, they ought to consider that we are the chief sufferers, -we have all their ill-humours at second-hand. Donna Louisa's cruelty to my master usually converts itself into blows, by the time it gets to me :-she can frown me black and blue at any time, and I shall carry the marks of the last box on the ear she gave him to my grave. Nay, if she smiles on any one else, I am the sufferer for it :—if she says a civil word to a rival, I am a rogue and a scoundrel; and, if she sends him a letter, my back is sure to pay the postage." In the scene between Ferdinand and Jerome (act. ii. scene 3.) the following lively speech of the latter was, I know not why, left out: "Ferdin.... but he has never sullied his honour, which, with his title, has outlived his means. "Jerome. Have they? More shame for them!-What business have honour or titles to survive, when property is extinct? Nobility is but as a helpmate to a good fortune, and like a Japanese wife, should perish on the funeral pile of the estate!" In the first act, too, (scene 3.) where Jerome abuses the Duenna, there is an equally unaccountable omission of a sentence, in which he compares the old lady's face to "parchment, on which Time and Deformity have engrossed their titles." Though some of the poetry of this opera is not much above that ordinary kind, to which music is so often doomed to be weddedmaking up by her own sweetness for the dulness of her helpmateby far the greater number of the songs are full of beauty, and some of them may rank among the best models of lyric writing. The verses, “Had I a heart for falsehood framed," notwithstanding the stiffness of this word "framed," and one or two other slight blemishes, are not unworthy of living in recollection with the matchless air to which they are adapted. There is another song, less known, from being connected with less popular music, which, for deep, impassioned feeling, and natural eloquence, has not, perhaps, its rival, through the whole range of lyric poetry. As these verses, though contained in the common editions of The Duenna, are not to be found in the opera, as printed in the British Theatre, and still more strangely, are omitted in the late Collection of Mr. Sheridan's Works 1, 1, I should feel myself abundantly authorized in citing them here, even if their beauty were not a sufficient excuse for recalling them, under any circumstances, to the recollection of the reader : For this Edition of his Works I am no further responsible than in having communicated to it a few prefatory pages, to account and apologize for the delay of the Life. |