syren, in a wheedling tone, "Can you look at him, and then regard yourself in a mirror, without being convinced, that no one, who has eyes to see, or a heart to feel, could ever behold the one without disgust, or the other without admiration?"

"Oh! the cockatrice; (thought I) and this after all the flatteries she poured into my too credulous

ear."

Listeners beware, for ye are doomed never to hear good of yourselves. So certain is the crime of listening to carry its own punishment, that there is no positive probibition against it: we are commanded not to commit other sins, but this one draws down its own correction, and wo be to him who infringes it. The speech of Arabella, which I acknowledge enraged me exceedingly, had a more soothing effect upon my rival; for, I heard sundry kisses bestowed, as I hope, for propriety's sake, on the hand of the fair flatterer.

"Yes (resumed she) Lyster is a perfect fright, and so gauche, that positively he can neither sit, tand, nor walk, like any body else."

"Oh! the traitress! how often had she commended my air degagé, and the manly grace, as she styled it, of my movements. After this, who ought

ever again to believe in the honied adulation of a woman?

"Now I must disagree with you, Arabella," replied my rival, (and I felt a sudden liking to him as I listened) "Lyster is a devilish good-looking fellow; (I thought as much) one whom any woman whose affections were not previously engaged might fancy."

"Let us not talk or think of him, I entreat you," (said Arabella) "it is quite punishment enough for me to be obliged to see and hear him half the day, without your occupying the short time we are together in a conversation respecting a person so wholly uninteresting. Have I not refused Lord Henry and Sir John to please you? yet you will not be content,

do what I will!"

Oh, Arabella! how can you expect me to be otherwise than discontented, than wretched, when I reflect that your destiny depends not on me, and that another will be the master of your fate. He may be harsh, unkind; and I who love, who adore you, cannot shield you from many hours of recrimination, when he discovers, and discover he must, that in wedding him you gave not your heart with your hand." "Oh! leave all that to me to manage (said the crafty creature.) He is so vain and so bête, that it requires no artifice on my part to make him believe that I married him from motives of pure preference. He is persuaded of it; for what will not vanity like his believe."

46

"And could you think my affection so light, Arabella, (replied her lover, impatiently) as to believe that I could go to his house, and see him in possession of the only woman I ever loved? No! I am neither heartless nor philosophical enough to bear this. Such a position would drive me mad." "Then what am I to think, what am I to make of you?"

Not a villain; a mean, base villain, who betrays hospitality, and consents that the woman he loves shall pursue a conduct at once the most vile, deceitful, and dishonourable," and he positively wept. His passionate grief seemed to touch even the marble heart of his callous mistress; for she gently asked him, why he had ever appeared to agree to her weding another.

be fond of luxury and display, which, alas, my limit"Can you ask me?" replied he, "I knew you to

ed fortune could never bestow. I feared, trembled, at the idea of beholding you pining for the enjoyments I could not afford; and it seemed to me less wretched to know you in the full possession of them with another, than lamenting their privation with me. It was for you, Arabella, concious as you are how fondly, how madly I dote on you, to offer to share my poverty, and not for me to compel you to it. Had you really loved me, this course you would have pur

sued."

66

competence content you? I would have you break If you really do love me, why may not a modest off this hateful marriage, and accept love in a cottage with me. My grandmother would soon forgive our quickly learn to like her who made my happiness. stolen union; for she likes me so well that she would But, alas! even she, good and indulgent as she is, has often told me that you were as little disposed to marry a poor man, as your aunt could be to give you

to such a husband."

I have loathed his face of contentment, as I have passed him on the road, and thought that he was pri

stealth, and leave you to make room for him! I can bear this no longer, Arabella; you see me now for the last time, unless you accept me for your husband!" And so saying, he rushed from her presence, mounted his lean steed, and was heard galloping along with a speed that indicated the troubled state of his mind.

"Poor Edward!" exclaimed Arabella, Heigh ho! I wish he were rich, for I do like him better then I ever liked any one else. And he, too, is the only one of all my admirers who loves me for myself; the rest love me for my flattery. Lord Henry, Sir John, are, even this dolt who is about to wed me, all have been fascinated, not by my beauty (and for this I loathed them) but by my flattery.

I vaulted into the room! Arabella uttered a faint shriek, turned to a death-like paleness, and then be came suffused with the crimson blushes of shame,

"I have witnessed your stolen interview with my favoured rival ;-rival no longer; for here I resign all pretension to your hand!" She attempted to utter some defence, but i was not in a humour to listen to what lengths her duplicity and desire for a rich husband might lead her; so sans ceremonie, I interrupted her, by saying that what I had witnessed and heard, had produced no change in my previously formed resolution of breaking off the marriage; she sank into a chair, and even I pitied her confusion and chagrin !

*

I left Arabella to her meditations, which I dare be sworn were none of the most agreeable, and returned to the house to seek an interview with her aunt. That sapient lady met me as was her wont, with smiles on her lips, and soft words falling from them.

"Look here, dear Mr. Lyster," said she, holding out an écrin towards me, "Did you ever see any thing so beautiful as these rubies set in diamonds? Are they not the very things for our beloved Arabella? How well they would show in her dark hair; and how perfectly they would suit the rich, warm tint of her cheeks and lips. None but brilliant Brunette's should ever wear rubies!"

I mastered myself sufficiently to assent with calmness to her observations, when she immediately resumed; "Oh! I knew you would agree with me, our tastes are so exactly alike. I was sure, my dear Mr. Lyster, you would at once select this in preference to emeralds or sapphires, which suit fade blonde beauties better; but for our sparkling Arabella, rubies and diamonds are the thing! Yet how grave you look; bless me! what is the matter? Perhaps after all you do not like rubies and diamonds; and in that case, though (entres nous) I know that our darling Arabella dotes on them, I am sure she would prefer having only the ornaments which you like: for she is the most tractable creature in the world; so confess the truth, you do not admire this parure?" "Why, the truth is," said I, taking a spiteful pleasure in raising her expectations, that her disappointment might be greater; " I yesterday bought at Rundle and Brydges, a parure of rubies and diamonds, more than twice the size of the one before me; and set in the best taste.

"Ob! you dear, kind, generous creature, how good you are! How delighted our sweet Arabella will be! Have you brought it with you? I am positively dying, with impatience to see it!

"Then I fear," replied I with great sternness, "I fear Madam, you will never be gratified."

Why, what a strange humour you are in my dear Mr. Lyster-Nephew I was going to call you; but I shan't give you that affectionate appellation while you are so odd and so cross. And why am I not to see them pray? Surely you do not intend to prevent my associating with my sweet child, when she becomes your wife! No! you never could be so cruel; and the old hypocrite laid her hand on my arm, in the most fawning manner.

"I have no intention, Madam, of separating two persons who seem so peculiarly formed for each other."

Lyster,? It is cruel thus to try my feelings; I—I— am far from well!" Her changing hue denoted the truth of the assertion.

"Let it suffice, Madam, that I last evening heard Lord Henry, and Sir John, declare the extraordinary confidence you had reposed in them."

"How base; how unworthy of Lord Henry and Sir John, said Mrs. Spencer, forgetting all her usual craft, in the surprise and irritation caused by this information. Never was there such shameful conduct."

You are right, Madam, replied I, the conduct practised on this occasion has indeed been shameful; luckily for me the discovery of it has not been too late."

"If you are so dishonourable as not to fulfil your engagement, said the old Lady, her cheeks glowing with anger, and her eyes flashing fury, be assured I will instruct my lawyer to commence proceedings for a breach of promise of marriage-for I have no notion of letting my injured neice, sit quietly down, a victim to such monstrous conduct."

"I leave you, Madam," answered I, "to pursue whatever plan you deem most fitting, to redress her grievances, and blazon forth to the world, your own delicate part in the Comedy of Errors; the denouement of which is not precisely what you could have wished." Bowing low to my intended aunt, I left her presence for ever; and returned to London with a sense of redeemed freedom that gave a lightness to my spirits to which they had been a stranger ever since the ill-omened hour of my proposal to Arabella.

Lord Henry and Sir John fought a duel the day after their altercation at the club, in which the first was mortally wounded, and the latter consequently compelled to fly to the Continent.

In a week from the period of my last interview with Arabella and her aunt, the newspapers were filled with accounts of the elopement of the beautiful and fashionable Miss Wilton, with Lieutenant Rodney of the Guards.

Two years after her union, Arabella eloped with a young nobleman, remarkable for weak intellect and large fortune; leaving her betrayed husband deeply embarassed by her extravagance, and with an infant danghter, to bear through life the stigma entailed on her by a mother's guilt. This unprinci

pled woman was soon deserted by her lover for some fairer face; and having dragged on a miserable existence of sin and shame, for a few years, died unmourned, in poverty and disgrace.

MALIBRAN.

MEMORY OF MADAME MALIBRAN DE BERIOT, WITH ANECDOTES, &c.

BY J. NATHAN.

Joseph Thomas, Finch Lane.
THE MUSICAL WORLD, No. 31.

J. A. Novello, Dean-street, Soho. contralto that ever appeared in this country has To say that the demise of the most wonderful caused a complete void in the musical profession is no hyperbole. As a singer the public bewail her loss, because of the many charming moments of unalloyed pleasure Death has robbed them of-as a woman all who ever saw her in private life and heard her speak five words must experience those feelings of bereavement consequent upon being

deprived of some "sweet familiar friend"--such an union of genius, beauty, and sweetness of manner and temper has seldom visited this sphere of human failing.

The "Memoirs" of Malibran, put forth by Mr Nathan, consist of little more than what is already known to the public, with the exception perhaps of a few musical compositions of his own, which he takes the opportunity to advertise in various parts of the book. The work is a kind of " sop" to the manyheaded jackall,-gossip, comprising extracts of criticism from various periodicals, mixed up with a few green-room anecdotes, &c.,-a long array of grandiloquence from the compiler's own penindulged in chiefly, as we believe, to let his readers into the secret of his own erudition, and puzzle them to discover the aptitude of his Greek and Latin quotations. Mr. Nathan's promptitude, however, has, no doubt, met its reward-the work has most likely been bought with avidity by anecdote-mongers and theatrical hangers-on, because it came into the market early. On the 23rd of September the unfortunate lady died by had doctoring-in less than a fortnight this new "life" was announced by Mr. Nathan.

There is one point, however, upon which we are willing to award the author some praise. In a work-the few numbers of which we have seen were devoted to the most stupid tirades against order and civilized society-was published a short essay on the Death of Malibran, written in a manner quite worthy of the ignorance and bad taste pervading the rest of the publication. As most of our readers very likely never heard of the periodical we will name it, the "Monthly Repository." Mr. Nathan has ably refuted the remarks referred to, and, for that, every lover of justice and hater of contemptible heartlessness must praise him.

We notice the "Musical World" on account

De Beriot herself look so lovely, or dressed more tastefully and magnificently: yet she was in such great pain, that when she sang, she was obliged to lean for support on the piano-forte, and her feet were so clay cold, that I held them for hours in my lap, and chafed them with my hands, to impart some small portion of warmth to them. Braham, Knyvett, and Lablache, frequently entered the room, and endeavoured to amuse her; for excessive gaiety was usual with her in the ante-room.

On Wednesday morning she was full of pain, yet never sang more beautifully. Could it be suspected by those who were listening to her deep full tones in Pergolesi's 'Lord have mercy,' that to keep herself from falling, she held by the front of the orchestra?-unless, like me, they had felt that her own faileth me.' But in the beautiful duet of Marcello, had breathed forth in the words, My strength agony Qual anelante,' she was all energy and fire. She had set her mind upon its producing a great effect, and when she arranged with Clara Novello the cadence they were to introduce, she refused to write it down, sizing in her kind tone of encouragement, "You wi follow me; I am quite sure of you, and "The effect was indeed as if of its being encored. both singers had been inspired, and when requested to repeat it, Maliban exclaimed, "I will sing it fifty times; and as to Clara, she is a good-natured little thing, and will do any thing you require of her." Just before they began it a second time, her eye caught mine, and she whispered Clara, "How pleased mamma looks." Could it be believed that this noble creature, whose energies thus overcame the bitterness of pain, was so near death!-that the same evening she sang her last. My opinion would perhaps have had little weight with the medical men : but as an elderly woman, and the mother of a large family I should certainly have stated my objection to bleeding.

"What a number of rings you have!" I observed. 'They are most of them presents from friends," she replied. "You cannot possibly remember the names of all the donors," was my answer. "Indeed I do," she exclaimed with vivacity. "There is not one but I remember. They even recal names and dates which would otherwise escape my memory. This ring was

husband presented me this set on our marriagethese were given at Lucca-but I have nothing half so valuable as many singers. My trinkets are principally endeared to me from circumstances."

We may take this opportunity of remarking that the general contents of the "Musical World" are such as will be found highly useful and entertaining to all who feel an interest in the science.