The downward course of Her Majesty's Theatre became more and more evident. Such hope as had been placed in the financial result of Madame Sontag's reappearance, died out.—She was heard with pleasure, but without enthusiasm. To myself, the amount of resource which she displayed, considering her age, seemed then, as now, marvellous,—a feat almost by itself in the history of Opera. But the public did not appreciate this as it deserved. The theatre was falling out of repute, and nothing could save it. None of the new singers excited the slightest sensation.—Signor Baucardé's voice, then very beautiful, already bore traces of ignorant cultivation and misuse.—Mdlle. Parodi continued to try for the succession to Madame Pasta, but in vain.—An English lady, Madame Fiorentini—the Irish lady, Miss Hayes—a French lady, Mdlle. Bertrand (a mezzo-soprano who wished to be a contralto)—had no better fate. There was, in fact, only one event during the season—the production of “La Tempesta,” by MM. Scribe and Halévy.

I have always thought it an unhappy, though not an unnatural idea—that of arranging Shakespeare's “Tempest” in the form of an opera, to be set by Mendelssohn.—The success in faëry-land which he had gained in his “Midsummer Night's Dream” Overture, and which ought to have deterred every one from tempting him to a second enterprise of the kind, was the ground of the mistaken calculation,—a mistake, however, which will be fallen into again and again, so long as the world prefers repetition to novelty.