reater effect. After the
fourth act the curtain was raised; and while the orchestra played the
Coronation March from the "Prophete," the bust of the composer was
crowned with laurel by the performers.

The family, in accordance with the curious European custom, sent around
to their friends a circular worded as follows:--

"Sir,--Madame Meyerbeer (widow); Mlles. Cecile and Cornelie
Meyerbeer; the Baron and Baroness De Korf, and Son; M. and
Madame Georges Beer; M. and Madame Jules Beer and Children;
M. and Madame Alexandre Oppenheim; M. and Madame S. de
Haber, Madlle. Laure de Haber; and Madlle. Anna Eberty, have
the honor to announce to you the sad loss they have just
suffered by the death of M. Giacomo Meyerbeer, their
husband, father, father-in-law, grandfather, uncle, and
great-uncle, who died at Paris on the 2nd May, 1864, aged
seventy-two."

Meyerbeer was, up to the last, full of plans for the future, and while
getting "L'Africaine" ready was looking for the _libretto_ of a comic
opera to compose "for amusement," as a repose between grander works. It
is said that he has left another completed opera, on the Biblical story
of Judith and Holofernes; and he also had a vague idea of writing a
grand historical opera on an English subject, the idea having been
suggested by a visit to the Princess Theatre, London, when Charles Kean
was playing, with unusual scenic accessories, Shakspeare's "Henry VIII."
The proposed opera was to have been equally as grand a work as the
"Huguenots," and the peculiarities of old English music--the style of
melody of Locke, Purcell, and Arne--were to have been imitated with that
skill of which Meyerbeer was so eminently a master. He never would write
an oratorio, because he had no hope of excelling Mendelssohn in that
branch of musical art. His last composition was an aria written to
Italian words for a Spanish lady-friend, the Senorita Zapater; and he
was about to arrange the accompaniment for the orchestra when his last
illness came on.

Personally, Giacomo Meyerbeer had many characteristics which were not
inviting. He was fond of money, yet willing to lavish it whenever Art
demanded the sacrifice. He took snuff, and wore green spectacles, was
careless, often shabby in his dress, and would stroll through the
streets of Paris wearing a wretched hat, inwardly composing music as he
walked along; on grand occasions, however, he would go to t