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    Untitled Article

    Erivin and JElmire—an operette in two acts . An elegant trifle , wrought of the slightest materials : a sort of counterpart , a . lawyer would say a set-off , to the Laune des Verliebten ; for the shepherdesses here are the offenders . Elmire , being in despair at having , by her cruelty , driven to destruction her faithful lover Erwin , Valerio tries to console her , and offers to lead her into

    the desert to be shriven there by the hermit : but in this attempt he excites the jealousy of his mistress Rosa , and himself in resentment goes alone to the hermitage . There he finds in the hermit his friend Erwin , and thither follow the repentant shepherdesses . Elmire , like Angelina to Edwin , confesses to her lover in a most delicious ballad , which is in everybody ' s memory in Germany : —

    c Sieh mich heilger wie ich bin Sine arme Siinderinn . ' ' Wretched sinner as I am , Harken to me , holy man . ' Here , too is found that other very popular ballad , € Veilchen auf der Wiese stand . ' * A violet on the meadow grew . '

    The 11 th volume opens with another singspiel , more in the sphere of common life , though still a pastoral , —Jery and Batel y * Bately is a coy shepherdess ^ and treats her lover with disdain : his name is one , we suppose , which German shepherdesses would respect as little as English wives would Jerry . An old comrade of Jery ' s ,

    a discharged soldier , a rough carrier of a musket , offers to court for him ; but proceeds with so great violence as to frighten Bately and her father . Even Jery ' s prudence and patience are worn out : he forgets their mutual understanding ; ventures to resist the assailant ; gets a fall in a wrestling match , but is a gainer , for he wins by it the heart of his mistress .

    Lila . —A ticklish subject , for Lila is rather crazy—something between a lunatic and a hypochondriac . Now downright madness is as unfit for tragedy as the itch would be for comedy , though the one is terrific and the other ridiculous ; and Alfieri , in his Saul , otherwise perhaps the best , because the profoundest , of his tragedies , suffers the moody paroxysms of his hero to assume too much the character of mere ordinary disease , while Goethe ' s Orestes never ceases to be that awful personage , —one

    encountering the divine vengeance for a voluntary crime . The opera , the least earnest form of the drama , allows of greater liberties . Lila , who lives in the solitude of a romantic park , worn out by anxiety for the fate of her wounded husband , is overcome by illusions . She believes that he is under the power of ogres and demons , who seek to subdue her . On this , the doctor attempts a cure by masquerading what she fancies . —An ingenious expedient , which with Goethe ' s eminent skill in verse , and incomparable excellence

    Untitled Article

    Goethe ' s Worte . ggg >

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1832, page 685, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1822/page/35/