There was an awfully-guilty silence. Esther turned her hot face away towards the window; David caught himself fast by the cuff of his sleeve in one of his own fishhooks, and blushed like a girl.

'In love with Mr. Oliver Carew. I don't say that she has made any confidences on the subject to you, whatever I may think'-dire visions of lonely days to come rose before David at the emphasis of that one word-but I am just going to tell you both the result of such dreams on a girl like Esther. You are not really in love with the man, child.' Esther turned round quickly, and with an indignant denial half bursting from her lips. • If you were, I should speak differently. You think you care for him wonderfully because he's the first man you have ever spoken to; and if you were to go on dreaming and loitering away your life, and reading sentimental poetry, and making confidences with David here, you might become so in truth. What is the result? You will have to battle with life, will enter upon it weary-hearted, dull, spiritless-all that young women are who have gone through the disappointment of a first foolish passion.'

'But, Joan

'I know what you would say, Esther, that Carew may return and hold to whatever idle word now stands between you. I hope, he will do so, if he is a man of honourable feeling and has sufficient money to maintain you. But your remaining fooling away your time here at Countisbury can have no influence, that I know of, over the young man's fidelity. He has gone to Malta; you say he is to go to India. Well, India is a great way off, and a great many things may happen there.'

'Oh, cousin!'

'I am not thinking of death, my dear. Mr. Carew did not look to me at all like one of those whom the gods love. I am thinking of all the temptation to change which must beset a young, light-hearted, and, I should say, not over strongheaded lad like this abroad. A lad, moreover, who is only bound by

the most flimsy and nominal engagement to any one at home.'

Esther's eyes glowed with a fire that Joan understood thoroughly; but the poor child was forced either to be silent or to betray her own secret; and so Miss Engleheart stood master of the field. David, paralyzed, as usual, by the suddenness of the onset, had never attempted to speak since Joan entered the room. As he listened to her opinion of the likely stability of Esther's love it did occur to him too that his cousin's decisions, harsh and unfeeling though they seemed, were not altogether irrational. If the girl's absence from Countisbury were, in truth, to uproot her fancy for Oliver, David felt that he could bring himself to bear it, even though he had, single-handed, to parry his cousin's attentions till her return.

Joan read something of what was passing through his mind upon his face. I really think you might try to open your lips, David,' she cried harshly. It does look so foolish for you, a man forty-two years of age, to sit blushing and fidgeting like a school-girl when these things are talked of. Do you, or do you not, think that Esther should waste her life among us old people, and dreaming dreams of folly, when she has a chance of mixing with the world and improving herself? Have the goodness, for once, to give a straightforward opinion.'

'I-I don't think Esther ought⚫ to offend Mrs. Tudor,' said David; but he felt the baseness of his own motives too keenly to look in Esther's eyes as he spoke. 'You might have planned her visit less suddenly, Joan, but I can't be so selfish as to wish her not to go.' 'Do you hear David's opinion, Esther?'

'And you will travel in your lilac muslin ?"

'If you please.'

'Aunt Tudor would be sure to make some unpleasant remark if you arrived in cotton, and, as you've worn it already, you may as well travel in your muslin as in another. Lend me your watch, David, if you please. I must go and see to the hard-boiled eggs at once.'

'Poor David is fast bound,' said Esther, coming up kindly to his side. Cousin, what in the world have you been doing with your flies? All our beautiful green drakes and hackles wound up into a tight little ball, and two hooks imbedded fast in your sleeve! Oh, you absent old David!'

'I was not absent, child,' he whispered, when Miss Joan had left them. I was '-David did not tell stories well-'I was feeling for you, Esther. It must be a grief to you to leave all the places that remind you of your short happiness.'

'And yet you advised me to go.'

I couldn't find it in my conscience to say that you should run any risk of offending Mrs. Tudor; besides, it is better for you to have change and occupation than remain here.'

'Yes, I know it. Oliver would say so too: that is why I have brought myself to go so suddenly. He may be away for years. I must do other things than dream and regret and look back during all that time. I must improve myself, and see more of life, and grow wiser and stronger for his sake.'

'Yes.'

'And, you know, David,' (she said this with exceeding deliberation and certainty,) 'it is childish in the extreme to care so much for places: no change of scene or people can really have any influence on one's feelings when they are very true and deep like mine. Oliver will be quite as much with me wherever I go as he is here at Countisbury.'

And quite late that night, when Miss Joan had released her from her packing, and when all the house was still, Esther stole away through the dim woods to the foot of that sycamore where she had parted from Carew, and cried beneath it, and apostrophized it, and, I think, pressed her lips upon its bark with warmth much more creditable to her eighteen years than to her philosophy.

My love is only a foolish dream that time will wake me from! Change of scene will bring me to be untrue to one word that I have promised! Oh, Oliver! are you thinking of me now? Oliver, I never knew before how much I loved you!'

At that particular moment Mr. Carew was looking in the face of the prettiest girl in Valetta, and assuring her that he had never before danced with any one whose step, both in the waltz and the polka-mazurka, suited his own so exactly. To a superficial observer of human happiness it would sometimes seem rather a matter for rejoicing than regret that one half of the world can never know, with minute and circumstantial accuracy, what the other half does.

CHAPTER I.

in their ears would have sounded the notes of those wonderful instru

SHAKSPEARE AND MUSICAL SANDWICHCAMBERT ARRIVES LOCKE'S MUSICAL DRAMAS-THOMAS CLAYTON APPEARSSIR JOHN VANBRUGH AND THE FINE THEATRE WHERE PEOPLE COULD NOT HEAR-OWEN M'SWINEY-AARON HILL -HEIDEGGER THE UGLY-HANDEL THE SINGERS' COMPANY-THE STARS OF THE PERIOD, ANASTASIA ROBINSON, SENESINO, CUZZONI, AND FAUSTINA-A COLLAPSE-HANDEL'S TOUR IN ITALYSUCCESS OF FARINELLI-FATAL RESULT

OF HANDEL'S MANAGEMENT. [17051740.]

VAUXHALL, with its thousand lights, velvet lawns, and shady avenues; York Buildings, with its smart vocalists and admiring crowds; the Folly on the Thames, offering its smoking-rooms, elegant music-hall, and ceaseless round of pleasure; Marybone Gardens, with its bowling-green, bowers, and lamps; the Duke's Theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, with its exciting comedies, brilliant concerts, and pleasant musical interludes; Drury Lane, with its Shakspearian attractions;— all these places of fashionable resort were in their meridian glory when the Royal Italian Opera was but a struggling neophyte. Music, it is true, had not yet arrived at that degree of perfection which rendered it worthy of being discussed_by patched and powdered Pretty Fellows, who confined their fastidious attention and artistic aspirations to sewing and knitting of garters, knotting of fringe, the artful disposition of China jars, and the nice conduct of a clouded cane. Young belles, spending their days lounging in India-houses, buying ivory fans and Japan cabinets, talking scandal and meditating fresh frolics, dreamt not of Opera boxes, Crystal Palace Opera Concerts, or of packets of illuminated songs from the last new opera. As yet unknown to fame were big lorgnettes, black or white; unknown were snowy cravats, 'bones,' neat broughams, white and gold bournouses, and Covent Garden bouquets. Unfamiliar in the mouths of the amateurs was the language of the cognoscenti; strange

names whereof demands talent of no ordinary nature. The Opera was as yet a thing of the future; and Tatlers, Spectators, Commentators, and Guardians had not yet the opportunity of exercising their cutting wit and biting sarcasm on basso, tenor, and chorus: coffeehouse wits and Hell-fire Clubbists had no prima donna or ballerina to criticise or to adore.

In the time of the First Charles, London Society, wanting opera, testified its longing by patronizing Shakspearian tragedies interspersed with tender melodies, and by applauding musical interludes of an exceedingly mild description. The singers, however, were deplorably bad; and there were no concerts or public places to give employment to even these vocalists. The companies at the theatres were small, and composed of inferior actors; and those who were foolish enough to depend upon their vocal abilities for a livelihood had little to rely on besides the royal household and chapel establishments, the liberality of the sovereign, and the patronage of the great. Nothing was known of opera but the name, which the dramatists sometimes used.

Charles II., albeit he starved his singers, liked music, and once wrote a song himself. He had a slight knowledge of music, understood the notes, and could sing a plump bass. Admiring everything French, he brought with him a taste for French music, and was quite pleased when Cambert-organist of the church of St. Honoré, in Paris, and the first French musician who tried to set operas-quitted France in a huff at being displaced from the management of the Opera in favour of Lully, and came to London. His merry Majesty had his band of twenty-four violins in imitation of the band of King Louis, and he immediately installed Cambert at their head. The Frenchman made many efforts to persuade the English to like his operas, but at last he broke his heart at the indifference with which he and his works

were treated, and died nine years after his arrival. Yet attempts at operatic music were now becoming greatly the fashion. Pepys, in 1667 -the year Cambert died-' went with my Lord Brouncke to his house, there to hear some Italian music,' with which the genial old gossip was 'mightily pleased.' The witty, dashing Tom Killigrew, King Charles's jester, who was present on that occasion, had already visited Rome eight or ten times for the sake of hearing good music, and was very anxious to bring forward Italian pieces.

When it was discovered that his newly-restored Majesty was fond of music, composers speedily started into being. Matthew Locke-most peevish of geniuses-brought out the Tempest' in 1673 at the theatre which had been opened in Lincoln's Inn Fields two years before by the son and the widow of Sir William D'Avenant. The expensive decorations of scenery and dresses, the singing and dancing, and the fine music, made this piece extraordinarily popular. The public were delighted. Everybody ran to see the new work, and its success induced D'Avenant to produce other musical dramas by Locke. The directors of Drury Lane were alarmed at the repeated successes achieved at the Duke's Theatre, and employed a miserable writer of bad farces to parody Locke's pieces; but the Duke's Theatre continued to be thronged. Two years later, Purcell, most original of composers and irregular of bons vivants, then a lad of nineteen, composed a musical drama, which created a great excitement in private circles. D'Ave nant, hearing of its merits, proposed to bring it forward in public, to which young Purcell joyfully agreed. It succeeded; and D'Avenant brought out several pieces by Purcell, which were all received with the utmost approbation by the public.

Musical dramas, not always of the liveliest nature, became the rage, and the performers therein sought after celebrities. Moll Davies captivated King Charles by her birdlike notes; pleasant Miss Shore played to such good purpose on the

harpsichord that she stole the heart of Colley Cibber, who enthusiastically threw his hand, heart, and seventy-five pounds a year at her feet. Miss Campion sang so enchantingly that the aged Duke of Devonshire took her off the stage.

However, musical dramas are not operas, and the world of fashion wanted real opera. A great crisis invariably brings forth a great man. The great man who undertook the task of supplying the fashionable world with grand opera was Thomas Clayton. He was a miserable pretender, though he was in King William's band; he was utterly devoid of genius, or even talent; but he had a great deal of tact, he was specious and plausible, and just the man to successfully impose on the unsuspecting. He went to Italy, to improve himself by study, and having there heard the opera, thought what a fine thing it would be to have the credit of introducing it into England, and that it might be a money-making speculation. He by some means possessed himself of a bundle of songs, and with these returned to London.

There were only two theatres open then-Drury Lane and Lincoln's Inn Fields'. Sir John Vanbrugh, with the aid of a subscription of thirty thousand pounds, given by persons of quality,' was building the Queen's Theatre, but it was not finished. Clayton commenced his campaign by taking Drury Lane, and engaging the best company in London, headed by the lovely Mrs. Tofts, and the 'tawny Tuscan,' Margarita de l'Epine, both prodigious favourites, and by Leveridge, a most popular singer. Then he produced his opera of Arsinoe, Queen of Cyprus.' The pit and boxes were reserved for the subscribers; the rest of the house was open, as usual at the subscription music.

The public were surprised, delighted, with this new species of amusement; though the critics who wrote of the music call it 'worthless,' ' execrable,'' contemptible,'' miserable,' trash.' Clayton had succeeded in inventing a novelty; and although his opera, both music and