BIOGRAPHY. SKETCH OF LORENZO DA PONTE, OF CENEDA. With a Notice of the Introduction of the Italian Literature and Musick into this Country, Some flowers bloom but for a night, Some mortals shed a transient light, The poet shines for aye.-GOETHE. in the troubadour's ballad, and now uniting with the neigh, the shout, and the clash of the battle-field. Ever accompanying man, it exhibits forms and com binations as complex as those of society. But mu sick and poesy have parted company. Independent of each other, both are tributary to sentiment→→ friends and allies still, but no longer inseparable. Thus while the poet ever reigns in his own dominion, the artist has carved out for himself a kingdom, and perpetuates the creations of his genius, Hereafter the couplet and the air, each will live, and, when united, become fraught with a double vitality, But the eloquent string portrays the deepest folds of human emotion, and musick has assumed all the forms of poetry-witness the heroick and pastoral, and other symphonies of Beethoven-even as the latter first borrowed its rhythmick beat. The musical drama is one of the triumphs of the last century, so distinguished for its fertility in mighty events. When the roar of revolution is forgotten, the divine harmonies of Haydn and Sebastian Bach will survive, like requiems, the buried passions of those days of convulsion, and the cperas of Gluck and Piccini reproduce the emotions they depict. Thus does art outlive mortality, and testify to the immutability of human nature. The many heroes of the French revolution lie, as the forest tree, where they fell, while the laurel ever blooms around the tomb of Metastasio, and eternal melodies resound the name of Mozart. and death of Mozart, Napoleon, Lord Byron, and Metastasio! Mozart! The Achilles in Sciros, and the Magick Flute! Did these so recently become inmates of the temple of Fame! They whose verse and song have filled our ears from the cradle upward, mingled with the hymns of Luther and Homer's song! Alas, how fleeting is existence ! and yet But yesterday what may its span not comprehend. IN the olden time musick was the voice of song. The verse has been handed down; not so the melody. died and was buried here the rival of the bard, the friend of the composer. One whose life comprised After giving birth to poesy the note died away midst the echoes of the grove or the banquet-hall. three social revolutions-1776, 1789, 1830; WashBut the numbers are yet alive with its magical spirit,ington, Mirabeau, Lafayette-and embraced the birth and in rhythm may be seen the foot-prints of tone. So also is the eloquence of spell-full antiquity a tradition. The speeches graven in enduring letters by Demosthenes and Cicero, like the ode which has survived its parent lyre, lack the impassioned voice, the animated gesture, even as the dried and scentless treasures of the herbal possess no longer life or perfume. Again, as the oration aroused and reflected the sentiments of the assembled crowd, and the lyrick harmonized with the clang of triumph, or silver note of revelry, so may the hour of danger or festivity again produce an orator, a bard, although the forum is now desolate and the pæan forgotten. The early ode was the first glad cry in which infant humanity uttered its sentiments of delight at the beauty of nature, at the glory of existence, and of joy that it could proclaim them. With increasing years the voice and ear have gained in tone and melody, but not in sentiment. Therefore do Amphion, Orpheus, and Linus; Pindar, Sappho, and Anacreon, remain the unsurpassed types of the verse they found. The death of Da Ponte naturally awakened the foregoing reflections. His name, associated with the nascent love of his native tongue, its musick and its poesy, among us, is entwined with the immortal inspirations of Mozart, and shone triumphantly at the brightest era in the life of the musical drama-the production of Don Giovanni at Vienna. The intimate sympathy that unites the poet to the composer in the creation of the opera, which when presented to the world becomes its possession and glory, was, in the case before us, more than a temporary tie. The Nozze di Figaro engendered between the authors a friendship which endured long after the appearance of its dissolute younger brother, and we should be It were curious to trace the descent of song flow-wanting in gratitude to the artist, did we refuse a ing through centuries, fertilizing the joys of man, share of the honour in which his musick will ever and bearing down its golden sands to posterity. To watch the out-branchings of the stream, now entering the cloister in the sacred chant, now the castle live to the faithful interpreter of its meaning. The life of the latter was, moreover, a singular tissue of romantick incidents and sober reality, while the for mer perished in the vigour of illusion. Death was the first cloud that intercepted the sunshine of Mozart, while by a brief glance at his career we shall see that Da Ponte's earliest days were overcast. We learn by his autobiography that the old poet we have just buried was born on the tenth of March, 1749, at Ceneda, a small town in the Venetian states, endowed with a bishoprick and seminary. His father was a poor leather-dealer, under the Mosaick law, in the precepts of which, from his early knowledge of Hebrew, we are induced to believe Lorenzo was brought up until his fourteenth year. At this age, anxious to become instructed, and feeling the humiliation of a social position on which an unenlightened publick opinion leaned with prejudice, he sought in Christianity a relief. His origin had hitherto closed to him the doors of the common schools, and he now To the emperour was the new poet presented by found in the seminary the elementary education he Salieri, and the result of this interview was, that Da stood in need of, and in the Bishop, Lorenzo Da Ponte-who had not yet written for the theatrePonte, whose name he assumed, a protector. In should make his debut in an opera adapted to musick those days the conversion of an Israelite was a source by the maestro. Althongh Il Ricco d'un Giorno, (his of high gratification in the papal church, which ex- first attempt,) proved unsuccessful, its failure stimutended its support to the family of the person con-lated him to renewed efforts. He speedily produced verted. Accordingly, the brother of Lorenzo was the Cosa Rara for Martini: and his Nozze di Figaro also placed by the bishop in the seminary of Ceneda, and Don Giovanni, composed for the musick of Mowhere the latter soon made notable progress in hu-zart, established his high reputation as a melo-dramanitary studies, that is, in the Latin tongue and matick poet. classicks. the celebrated composer, an opportunity of labouring in whose behalf soon presented itself. On the demise of Maria Theresa, her son Joseph the Second abolished the numerous pensions she had scattered about with so lavish a hand at the expense of the state. Metastasio, the old Cæsarean poet, so keenly felt this act, which he fancied an insult to his own merit and long services, as to fall sick and die before learning that by the emperour an exception had been made in his favour. Then it was that Da Ponte aspired to write for the Italian theatre of Vienna, although neither he nor Casti, who both subsequently composed dramas for the imperial stage, inherited the title, the office, or the salary of Poeta Cæsareo; this honour having ceased on the death of Metastasio, who succeeded Apostolo Zeno. At this point in the history of this extraordinary Six years after he proceeded, at the death of his man, a spirit steals near me akin to the inceptive patron, to the seminary of Porto Guaro, where cer- mood of this epigraph. Are we grateful enough to tain notions of philosophy and of physical and math-genius for its sacrifices? Appreciate we its strugematical science were hinted at, not taught. Theregles-the cost of its triumphs? Thousands have were no schools, at that time, in Italy, where liberal sung, and tens of thousands will yet sing, Finch an sciences were properly professed; and the year d'al Vino, or Non Piu Andrai, nor ever inquire, who passed by him as a disciple in this new institution, was devoted by young Da Ponte to the prosecution of his Latin studies, and to the secret perusal of the Italian classicks, which he occasionally essayed to imitate. During the ensuing two years he discharged the functions of Professor of Rhetorick, and thus sealed his devotion to belles-lettres. There is also reason to believe that in order to benefit his family he took orders and celebrated mass. His next peregrination was to Venice, that fairy town of which the true features in those days of gayety and voluptuous extravagance, have not yet found their Juvenal. Here he had two opportunities of establishing himself in life, which he declined; and in his own words we find a confirmation of our view that he had entered his noviciate. Aspiring to the election for avogadorn, (an important office in the Venetian state,) he found an opponent in Pisani, against whom he wrote a satirical sonnet, in consequence of which he was exiled from Venice. This production, composed in the Venetian dialect, appears in his memoirs, and still preserves a certain warm and popular eloquence. was Mozart ?-much less who wrote those animated stanzas? The aria has become the world's inheritance, and yet such songs, married to such cadences, involve the glory and illustrate the existences of two men who consecrated their lives, the one to musick, the other to letters, and who have gone down to the tomb unrecompensed by man. Joseph the Second, who passionately loved the opera, and sympathized not with Casti, protected the young Venetian bard. The latter became his Latin secretary when need was to indite an epistle to some court at which the French language had not yet been adopted as the diplomatick medium. In the course of a theatrical life, it is impossible for a playwright or composer to avoid wounding the feelings of some one or other of the sensitive followers of Thespis. Da Ponte was not destined to escape this fate; and sundry enemies, headed by a prima donna he had offended, contrived, on the decease of the emperour, to have the poet exiled from Vienna. Relying upon the promptings of a spirit which had never failed him, and confident the Austrian capital was a fitting scene for the exercise of his resources, he had recourse to Leopold, who promised to recall him. On leaving Venice he hastened to Gorizia, a small town of the Friul, on the Italian frontier. An enemy, On this occasion took place a dialogue more reto be rid of his presence there, forged a letter in markable, perhaps, than any on record between an which Da Ponte was invited to accept an honour- emperour and a subject-a master and a suppliant able post at the court of Dresden. Behold him on for his favour. This is registered in our hero's auhis way to the lovely capital of Saxony, on reach-tobiography, and should be read, if one would form ing which he discovers the fraud imposed upon him. Having no other occupation there, he translated five psalms of David, by which he acquired acquaintances and protection. Thence he voyaged to Vienna, supplied with a letter of recommendation to Salieri, any idea of the heterogeneous elements of which his character was made up. He addressed Leopold, kneeling, although the latter ordered him to "rise and speak;" and yet, in this posture of entreaty, he displayed much courage and great tenacity, nav, obstinacy of purpose. Although this curious interview, with its mingled firmness and humiliation, failed of attaining its object, a revocation of his exile, it, nevertheless, constitutes, next to his connexion with Mozart, the most striking event of Da Ponte's life. It occurred at Trieste, where, unable to compel the emperour to do him justice, he renounced the stole, and espoused an Englishwoman. From thence he proceeded with his wife to Paris and London. was fond of relating. It was of one of his pupils, a lovely young girl, upon whose cheek the death-germe of consumption had upshot its early prophetick bloom. In her fading state, she received, one day, the visit of her old master; and, aware how he treasured up every word spoken in praise of his native language, she playfully said, "Signor Da Ponte, I am so glad to have learned Italian; for sure am I it must be the language of the happy country into which I trust soon The Italian theatre of the great metropolis having to pass away." One of our most accomplished scholbeen recently consumed by fire, a person named ars thus writes to his old Italian professor :-" For Taylor conceived the project of reconstructing it by what you have done for Italy and the cause of letsubscription, and of accumulating, in shares, a fund ters, so long as there remains a spark of taste among sufficient to engage a firstrate company. To this us for the belles-lettres, the name of Da Ponte, theatre and its originator Da Ponte now became poet'clarum et venerabile nomen,' will be held in veneraand secretary; and, in Kelly's reminiscences, we tion; and his scholars of our, as well as of the gentfind mention of his striking and fanciful appearance ler sex, will remember, in the decline of life, the and costume. hours passed by them in pleasing conversation with their elegant and cultivated tutor, as among the sweetest moments of their existence; and it is, therefore, my dear sir, that I pray you to let this suffice, and not aspire to acquire for yourself alone the whole glory of the universe." In the year 1805, might have been seen in New York an individual, whose figure and person excited general admiration. A tall and imposing form, a head of Roman beauty and intelligence, a countenance lit up with vivacity which readily brightened to enthusiasm or became intense with inspiration, It was a day of joy for the old patriarch when and enframed in a classick profusion of flowing hair, came among us Garcia, with his lovely daughter, dignity of mien, and the self-possession of conscious then in the morning of her glory; Rosich, the inim talent-these met and arrested the passing gaze. It itable buffo; Angrisani, with his tomb-note; and is, I trust, easy to recognise Signor Da Ponte even Madame Barbiere, whom we still remember in the in a sketch which does him so little justice. For white satin of Amenaide-all led by our buried Ala more graphick delineation we must refer our read-maviva.* Don Giovanni triumphed as erst at Vienna, ers to the admirable portrait by ADAMS which heads this notice. The original, judiciously preserved by a distinguished fellow-citizen, with an instinct that ever leads him to rescue whatever is lovely or meritorious from oblivion, was by him handed to GEN. MORRIS, whom we have to thank for the beautiful woodcut. The bankruptcy of our bard's associate had involved his fortunes, and he left London for America, unable to avert the ruin of Taylor. and the double-lived old man thus shared in this and other successes of the Italian stage, which he had little dreamed of on this side the Atlantic. "The Barber," "Tancredi," "Otello," and other musical creations, rendered the winter of 1825-6 an epoch in the story of New York society, by first inspiring a taste for the works of the model-masters in musick. Alas! that joyous troop hath vanished! Its brightest ornament perished of excess of fame, as others Fifteen thousand dollars, saved from the wreck by die in pursuit of it. Upon the cheek of the Muse the prudence and economy of his wife and sister-in-the tear shed for Malibran is not yet dried, nor is law, constituted the fortune of this party. Upon the hushed among us the echo of the requiem Europe failure of several commercial speculations, and after sang over her grave. Angrisani hath gone to join residing in Elizabethtown in Sunbury, and, we believe," the Commander," in the shades where Garcia prein Philadelphia, the poet embraced a vocation worthy ceded him; and a silent vessel but yesterday brought his tastes and acquirements, the diffusion of the Ital-back the body of Almaviva to his native shores. ian language among the educated portion of the thriving community of New York. In 1811, at an age when cease the activities of most men, a new era commenced in the life of Da Ponte. Becoming naturalized here, he directed henceforth his whole energies to the propagation of his native language and literature among his new and intelligent countrymen. That these efforts, extended through a second life of thirty years, were crowned with success, our present cultivation of the Italian muse and rich collections of her noblest works are the amplest testimony. The laurel and the oak of Petrarch and of Dante interweave their branches with the bright foliage of the American grove; and more than two thousand pupils, listening beneath its shade to the sonnet and the epick from the trembling lips of the ancient bard, have echoed throughout the new world their imperishable glory. That this enthusiasm, which subsequently gained for him the professorship of his native tongue in Columbia College, communicated to others its electrick influence, we will cite an instance Signor Da Ponte VOL. IV.-6 All these Lorenzo Da Ponte survived! Indeed the indefatigable ardour which "hoped to enkindle a new light in his old age by the introduction of the opera, and that the allurements of its songs would in some induce and in others reinvigorate the desire of comprehending a language which is the most delightful vehicle for the transmission of the melody of the voice," seem to us one of the touching features of the old man's life. It was the mountaineer sighing for the melodies of his fatherland; for, need we add, the opera is to the Italian what the Ranz des Vaches is to the countrymen of Tell. When may we hope for a national musick? nor opera, nor Ranz des Vaches fall to our lot; and while a thousand varied objects entertain enterprise and patriotism, the musical chord, the melody of voice, excite no corresponding vibration-find no echo. It may not be irrelevant to the noble subject of this eulogy, to discuss the introduction of musick in our land. Startling truths are unfolded while meditating * D. L. of New-York. + Extract from his letter on the Italian corps. I. When man merges the individual into the social being, and seeks the growing shade of a community, the influence of relation modifies his whole existence; thenceforth leads he two lives; the one private and esoterick, the other in the publick place, abroad, exoterick. Castes are measured by the preponderance of these modes of being. The populace know few of the introjacent luxuries which constitute the charm of opulence and refinement. Yet, certain pleasures require the multitude for their full fruition. The majesty of the Athenian audience, dignified and exalted the favourite tragedian. The vivifying breath of enthusiasm created in the amphitheatre an atmosphere of exhilaration. The universal shout glorified the sensation of the moment, and the actor must echo the godlike tone or die. The dramatist became, on this occasion, an Olympian monarch; and we may picture to ourselves the swelling temples and throbbing heart, the glowing cheek and heaving breast. EURIPIDES was no hermit, nor SOPHOCLES an amateur. They doubtless knew it was the people with its refined passion for the triumphs of intellect, who drew from them the inextinguishable flame of genius. He then who calls up the type-dramas of antiquity, must summon around him the poet, the players, and, above all, the multitude. around us, and coming generations will respond and swell, with varied harmonies coloured by the spirit and events of their day, the voice transmitted. IV. Where a discord distorts a harmony, musick fleeth, holding her ears. But where there is musical sympathy, beauty of sound cannot fail to elicit some token of approbation. Of such small elements is a maddening acclamation often made up; where no sympathy gives back the musical sentiment the latter is chilled. There must be reciprocity that warmth should be engendered. Why perished the opera here ? Because no harmonious influence had educated the taste of the multitude on whom theatrical and operatick success depend. The boxes were filled with applauding virtuosi, the pit with a thin, bewildered people, whose surprise was divided between the actors on the stage and the performers above them. Rest assured the pit will bestow its next half dollar upon Jim Crow, or some representation consonant with its comprehension. This with other causes accounts for the failure of recent corps among us. Why did the troupe of Garcia reap laurels and gold? Because in its day boxes and pit were alike open to the novel captivation. Since then, the former have travelled abroad-the latter have continued to labour at home. The artisan Occasionally hums an air whose origin he forgets. His boy whistles it in the street. It is the una voce of poor Malibran which he thus unconsciously remembers, nor ever will forget. And whoever recalls to mind the exciting tumult in which Garcia was suffered to leave us-the clamours and intensity of that memorable night when the Signorina was crowned-the cane of Dr. Bartolo, the shouts of Almaviva, and the popular outcry, will not long deny that under certain conditions, musick may flourish among us; and these are that the sentiment be universal. In short, whenever the words musick and Italian were coupled together, the old bard became rejuvenesced, enthusiasm lit up his eye, and love of the literature and song of his native land thus remained until death a worship and a ruling passion. II. If to the drama the approbation and encouragement of the many be so necessary, how much more needful are they for the propagation of sound. The song and dance are contagious, and from ages immemorial have pipe and tabor welcomed the decline It was again the untiring zeal of Da Ponte which in of day-the finished task--the opening relaxation. 1832 procured for us anew the enjoyment of the Italian Laughing France and choral Germany are terms re-opera, and invited hither the company of Montressor. dolent of the vine-dance and the chant. In Gaul, the distinction between the one and the many maintained throughout the day, is blended on the festive night; and in Paris there are three hundred and sixty-five such in the course of the year. The pit sits in solemn judgment over the spectacle ; and the select few approve only upon its authority. But even there, where a new idea, so soon as uttered, dawns like daylight upon the whole town, the aid of the state is requisite to maintain the many theatres which assuage the publick thirst for amusement. In Germany the note is never silent. It is an echo of the past, swollen by present harmony. It has a significance, both of sentiment and of association, which stamps the national character. Even as the crowd moulded the sublime nature of the old tragick poet, has the people inspired the magical genius of a Beethoven and a Mozart, whose works proclaim their native songs-their own glory. III. Mere yearnings for harmony are then begotten and increased by time, and clime, and institutions. They are the popular traditions of the past, and may be traced to war and wassail-the sword-clang and the mute eloquence of the goblet. Such traditions we are destitute of. The past is inalterable. But we may even now commence according for the future. Diffuse musical knowledge among the rising ones The closing thirty years of an existence, so rife with incident and adventure, terminated in this city at nine o'clock on Friday evening, the seventeenth instant, (August, 1838,) just three months after the decease of Prince Talleyrand, whom he preceded five years upon the stage of life. Like that illustrious statesman he died in the catholick faith, of which he had for some time past been an ardent promoter. Two days previous to this event his sick chamber presented an interesting spectacle. Doctor J. W. FRANCIS, his friend and kind physician since the old operatick days, and to whom the aged poet had in gratitude addressed a parting ode on the day preceding, perceiving symptoms of approaching dissolution, notified his numerous friends of the change in the venerable patient. It was one of those afternoons of waning summer, when the mellow sunset foretels approaching autumn. The old poet's magnificent head lay upon a sea of pillows, and the conscious eye still shed its beams of regard upon all around him. Besides several of his countrymen, were assembled some remnants of the old Italian troupe, who knelt for a farewell blessing around the pallet of their expiring bard; among them the fine head of Fornisari and Signor Bagioli's benevolent countenance. All wept as the patriarch bade then an affectionate and dignified adieu, and implored a blessing on their common country. The doctor, watching the flickerings of the life-torch, stood at the head of the couch, and a group of fearful women at the foot, completed a scene not unlike the portraiture we have all seen of the last hours of Napoleon Bonaparte. On Monday afternoon (twentieth of August) a long train of mourners followed the remains of Da Ponte to the cathedral. The coffin, borne on the shoulders of men, displayed the appropriate laurel-wreath, and was preceded by a banner, where, on the black ground of mourning, was traced in golden characters this admirable device LAURENTIUS DA PONTE. Litterarum. Reipublicae. et. Musis. Patriae. et. Concivium. Amantissimus. After giving some account of the supposed cases of fossil human bones, and establishing the remarkable fact of the "total absence of any vestiges of the human species throughout the entire series of geological formations," our author passes to the general history of fossil organick remains: "It is marvellous that mankind should have gone on for so many centuries in ignorance of the fact which is now so fully demonstrated, that no small part of the present surface of the earth is derived from the remains of animals that constituted the population of ancient seas. Many extensive plains and massive mountains form, as it were, the great charnel houses of preceding generations, in which the petrified exuviæ of extinct races of animals and vegetables are piled into stupendous monuments of the operations of life and death, during almost immeasurable periods of past time. At the sight of a spectacle, says Cuvier, ' so imposing, so terrifick, as that of the wreck of animal life, forming almost the entire soil on which we tread, it is difficult to restrain the imagination from hazarding some conjectures as to the cause by which such great effects have been produced. The deeper we descend into the strata of the earth, the higher do we ascend into the archæological history of past ages of creation. We find successive stages marked by varying forms of animal and vegetable life, and these generally differ more and more widely from existing species as we go further downvard into receptacles of the wreck of more ancient creations. * "Besides the more obvious remains of testacea Among the pall-bearers were some of our most and of larger animals, minute examination discloses, distinguished fellow-citizens-Professor Clement C. occasionally, prodigious accumulations of microMoore, the venerable Doctor Macneven, the Hon. Gulian C. Verplanck, and Pietro Maroncelli, the scopick shells that surprise us no less by their abundance than their extreme minuteness; the mode in fellow-prisoner of Silvio Pellico. These were fol- which they are sometimes crowded together may be lowed by the reverend officiate of the catholick ca- estimated from the fact, that Soldani collected from thedral and Doctor Francis; and the funeral pro-less than an ounce and a half of stone, found in the cession testified by its length to the general emotion hills of Casciana, in Tuscany, 10,454 microscopick of regret created by an event so melancholy. chambered cells. grain." * * Of several After the impressive rite of the catholick burial ceremony, to which Allegri's "Miserere" lent its species of these shells, four or five hundred weigh but a single grain; of one species he calculates that mournful effect, the body was taken to the Roman cemetery, where we learn it is the intention of his a thousand individuals would scarcely weigh one countrymen to erect a monument in memory of their poet. On the completion of this a discourse is to be pronounced; but, however justly this may celebrate the virtues of the deceased, to us the living and growing love of the letters and song of his native land among us must ever seem the noblest panegyr ick of Lorenzo Da Ponte of Ceneda. S. ASTONISHING FACTS RELATING TO A FORMER DR. Buckland now proceeds to the most important and popular branch of his subject to give a description of the most interesting fossil organic remains, and to show that the extinct species of plants and animals which formerly occupied our planet display, even in their fragments and relicks, the same marks of wisdom and design which have been universally recognised in the existing species of organized beings. Extraordinary as these phenomena must appear, the recent discoveries of Ehrenberg, made since the publication of Dr. Buckland's work, are still more marvellous and instructive. This great naturalist, animals we have already noticed, has discovered whose discoveries respecting the existing infusorial fossil animalcules, or infusorial organick remains; and not only has he discovered their existence by the microscope, but he has found that they form extensive strata of tripoli, or poleschiefer, (polishing slate,) at Franzenbad, in Bohemia, a substance supposed to have been formed from sediments of fine volcanick ashes in quiet waters. These animals belong to the genus Bacillaria, and inhabit siliceous shells, the accumulation of which form the strata of polishing slate. The size of a single individual of these animalcules in about 1-288th of a line, the 3400th part of an inch. In the polishing slate from Bilin, in which there seems no extraneous matter, and no vacuities, a cubick line contains, in round numbers, 23,000,000 of these animals, and a cubick inch 41,000,000,000 of them. The weight of the cubick inch of the tripoli which contains them is 270 grains. Hence there are 187,000,000 of these animalcules |