LITERATURE, MUSIC, AND THE DRAMA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIX, Issue 6422, 17 June 1882, Page 7

LITERATURE, MUSIC, AND THE DRAMA.

Signor Rossi made thirteen thousand dols. by his American tour. Byron's last surviving school-fellow, Rev, Spencer Drummond, died recently at ninetytwo.

Albani oncc sang in a church in Albany, New* York, from which she took her stage name.

The composer who writes under the initials M. E. B. is said to be Ernest, Duke of SaxeMeiningen. The great Polish poet, Boldan Zaleski, eighty years old, is one of the last survivors of the Diet of 1830.

The "Golden Legend" was -written by Mr. Longfellow in four weeks, but six months were spent in correcting it. The rumour that Mr. Oote has abandoned the idea of writing a biography of George Eliot turns out to be incorrect. Some one says that Wagner uses one of the Messiah subjects in his Siegfrid Idyl, almost exactly as Handel doea. Swinburne has been asked to contribute to the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," a biographical article on Mary Queen of Scots. Mr. Burnaud, the editor of Punch, who has been seriously ill, is now, we are glad to say, well enough to resame his engagements. The mother of Edmond About, who had a struggle to educate her son, and was rewarded by his unfailing tenderness, has just

Mr. Hallam Tennyson writes to a remonstrating temperance society that "\n his recent song his father only used the word 44 drink" symbolically. Sergeant Ballantine, in his Reminiscences, says Thackeray was "very egotistical, greedy of flattery, and sensitive of criticism to a ridiculous extent."

It is said that among bis own poems 14 Evangeliue n was Longfellow's favourite. " Hiawatha" might have disputed the palm as the great American epic. When the opera " The Queen of Sheba" was presented for the first time in Rome recently, the composer. Gold mark, was called before the curtain thirty-three times. The Savoy Theatre, in London, is said to have the prettiest drop curtain of any theatre in the world, itis of white satin, elaborately quilted by hand, and cost £1000. The death is announced of Miss Dora Greenwell, one of the earliest writers in Good Words, the Sunday Magazine, and other periodicals. She had long been an invalid. The proposition to import a troupe of Chinese actors and actresses (the latter being exceedingly rare) is said to be seriously under the consideration of a well-known American manager. Tolstoi, the Russian novelist, follows the system of Zola. He wishes to know how the lower orders in Moscow live, so he has engaged as a ceusus-taker and will take notes with his statistics. . #

Mozart's manuscript of the famous trio in G major sold for over three hundred dollars at a Berlin auction lately, and his portrait, painted from life, on ivory, for about one hundred and ten dollars.. It is to be hoped we have heard the last of Jumbo ; the affair has given quite a turn to the literature of the age. One penny publications containing his life has had, it is said, a sale of upwards of 150,000. " The Duca d'Alba," the posthumous opera of Donizetti, was brought out at Rome lately, where rank, wealth, art, science, and Queen Margherita were present, and in some parts the audience shouted their ap-

proval. . •> With regard to the Scottish Review, the new magazine which is expected to make its j appearance in October, it is stated that it will not be written either exclusively for Scotsmen or by Scotsmen. It will treat of questions of general as well as of North British interest. The author of "Kathleen Mavourneen, Professor F. Nicholls Crouch, who is old and in want, is to have a fund started for him in Portland, Maine. If every one who had ever sang his ballad, or had ever derived pleasure from hearing it, contributed a dime, he would be a rich man. When Taglioni made her d6but, in a ballet written by her father, entitled "Reception of a young Nymph at the Court of Terpischore," she was so frightened as to forget all her steps, and had to- improvise one, which revealed her natural talent-, and caused her to be recalled eight times. Thomas Moore, the Irish poet, was once an actor, and a good one. He was married March 22, 1811, to an actress named Dyke, whose sister, Mrs. Duff, formerly played in Providence. The latter was said to be one of the most beautiful women who ever appeared on the stage, and she subsequently gained great distinction as an actress. A dramatic critic in Rouen, France, wrote an unfavourable notice on a local actress,whereupon one of .the actors challenged him to a duel wibh pistols. The critic refused to accept the challenge, and was subsequently attacked and maltreated. The matter was brought before the courts, and meanwhile all the local papers agreed to ignore the theatre in question until the offending member should have been discharged.