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When she was taken to the general's house she was in great dejection, and her face had a look of ennui and despair. She was thin and worn, and her eyes only told of the struggle going on between life and death. "What is her name?" asked the resident doctor. "Noreen Balfe," was the reply of the ship's doctor. "A good old Irish name, though you can see she comes of the lower ranks of life."
A solo of Beethoven's would be as much out of place in some circles as a comic song at a quakers' meeting. To those who only care for the light popularities of the season, give Balfe and Verdi, Glover and Julien. To connoisseurs, if you perform well enough to venture, give such music as will be likely to meet the exigencies of a fine taste.
As the curtain falls, the old song of the gypsies is heard again as they disappear in the distance with Devilshoof at their head. Many of the operas of Balfe, like other ballad operas, have become unfashionable; but it is doubtful whether "The Bohemian Girl" will ever lose its attraction for those who delight in song-melody, charming orchestration, and sparkling, animated choruses.
Crampton was recalled and received a diplomatic promotion, going to St. Petersburg as Sir John Crampton. While there, in 1861, he married a young daughter of Balfe, who afterward procured a divorce, after a curious suit at law, tried before "a jury of matrons." England was forced to admit that Mr. Crampton's conduct was "notoriously at war with the rights of neutrality and national honor."
Scott, Burns, Carlyle and Macaulay were Scots of Celtic extraction. Tom Moore, Brinsley Sheridan and Edmund Burke were Irishmen, as are Balfe and Sullivan, the musical composers. Disraeli was a Jew. The genealogy of Pope and Tennyson remain to be traced. That the original Duke of Marlborough was an Englishman by birth and breeding "goes without saying." He acted like one.
The next morning, Sunday, Edwin came downstairs late, to the sound of singing. In his soft carpet-slippers he stopped at the foot of the stairs and tapped the weather-glass, after the manner of his father; and listened. It was a duet for female voices that was being sung, composed by Balfe to the words of the good Longfellow's "Excelsior."
With this he also produced a magnificent panorama of Killarney, to illustrate which he wrote the well-known song of "Killarney" which, with the music of Balfe, our Irish composer, at once became very popular, as it ever since has been. Madame Anna Whitty, the distinguished vocalist, who first sang "Killarney," was a daughter of Michael James Whitty, of whom I have spoken elsewhere.
He therefore most wisely left "well alone." May we not ask what became of all the instances of tyranny which were brought to light by "the committee of grievances" of the Association? why were they burked now, "when they might legitimately be used?" why go back for a quarter of a century, when the atrocities reported and disseminated by Mr Balfe, might have served him as an unanswerable justification for the adoption by his followers of the "wild justice of revenge?"
We shall therefore be happy to receive and file at the office of this Journal, the testimonials in the foregoing terms of Dr. Sterndale Bennett, Mr. Balfe, Mr. Macfarren, Mr. Benedict, Mr. Vincent Wallace, Signor Costa, M. Auber, M. Gounod, Signor Rossini, and Signor Verdi. We shall also feel obliged to Mr.
Balfe led the orchestra, and its popularity caused the basso Lablache to write the following epigram: The "Tempest" of Halévy Differs from other tempests. These rain hail, That rains gold.
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