e to a woman so illustrious for genius and
virtue.

* * * * *

SPONTINI, the celebrated composer, author of _La Vestale_ and _Fernand
Cortez_, died on the 24th ult., at Majolati, near Ancona, where he had
gone to pass the winter, in the hope of re-establishing his health.
Being desirous of attending divine service, in spite of the severity of
the season, he took cold on leaving the church, which in a short time
led to a fatal result. He expired in the arms of his wife, the sister of
M. Erard, the celebrated pianist. He was in the seventy-second year of
his age. The life of this unfortunate _Maestro_, says the _Athenaeum_,
would be a curious rather than a pleasing story, were it thoroughly
written. He was educated at the _Conservatorio de la Pieta_ of Naples,
and began his career when seventeen years of age, as the composer of an
opera, _I Puntigli delle Donne_. To this succeeded some sixteen operas,
produced within six years, for the theatres of Italy and Sicily, not a
note of which has survived. In 1803, Spontini went to Paris, in which
capital again he produced some half-a-dozen operas and an oratorio,--all
of which have perished. It would seem, however, as if there must have
been something of grace in either _Maestro_ or music, since Spontini was
appointed music-director to the Empress Josephine; and it was owing to
court interest that his _La Vestale_--on a _libretto_ rejected by both
Mehal and Cherubini--was put into rehearsal at the _Grand Opera_. The
rehearsals went on for a twelvemonth. Spontini rewrote and re-touched
the work while it was in preparation to such an excess, that the expense
of copying the alterations is said to have amounted to _ten thousand
francs_ ($2,000)! _La Vestale_, however, was at last produced, in 1809,
with brilliant and decisive success, so far as France and Germany were
concerned. In 1809 he produced his _Fernand Cortez_ at the _Grand
Opera_. That work, too, was favorably received, and still keeps the
stage in Germany. In no subsequent essay was the composer so fortunate.
_Olympie_, the third grand work written by him for France, proved a
failure. During the latter part of his residence in Paris, he directed
the Italian Opera, until it fell to Madame Catalani. It was in 1820 that
the magnificent appointments offered to the _Maestro_ by the Court of
Prussia tempted him to leave Paris for Berlin; in which capital his last
three grand operas were produced