The first event of 1859 was sad enough.—The death of Madame Bosio, made a vacancy in the opera-world, which will not be very soon filled. An artist, whose progress was so steady, and so complete as hers, is so rare (of late times) among the choir of singing-birds, that, when such a one as she may disappear, the trouble becomes doubly painful.—She perished from the Russian climate, and owing to her too incessant labour.

The other event of this year, was the production of M. Meyerbeer's latest opera; the opera meant by him to be simple, pleasant—and peasant. It is worth a study.

I have elsewhere pointed out the extent to which M. Meyerbeer has wronged himself, owing to his superfluous anxiety. Here is a pathetic, characteristic, and simple village anecdote, dragged out of shape and lengthened, without its being made, in any respect, a great work; an opera rendered difficult to produce and tiresome to hear merely because the charm, which lived in the original thought, has been exhausted and elongated.

The notion of a divining-rod which should bring out the precious metal from the entrails of the earth is, possibly, in any event, too far-fetched a fancy to be clad in Music. But in this case, there was contrived an earlier story:—(I conceive, invented as a supplement), in which occurs the fire at a farm house, on a Breton Saint's Day, as a consequence of which fire the girl of the farm grows mad.