first Shakespeare jubilee was celebrated at Stratford-on-Avon in the
spring. A loss to English letters was the death of James Mill, the great
political economist, in his sixty-third year. About this time Wheatstone
constructed his electro-magnetic apparatus by which he could send signals
over nearly four miles of wire. The Irish composer Balfe began his
brilliant career as a composer of English operas with the "Siege of
Rochelle," produced at Drury Lane in London. About the same time
Mendelssohn brought out his "St. Paul" in Duesseldorf.

[Sidenote: Death of La Malibran]

[Sidenote: Her operatic career]

[Sidenote: Alfred de Musset's lines]

Maria Felicita Malibran, the great contralto singer of the early part of
the Nineteenth Century, died on September 23, at Manchester, in her
twenty-eighth year. Taken from Paris to Naples at the age of three, she
made her first appearance as a public singer in her fifth year. Two years
later she studied solfeggio with Panseron. At the age of sixteen she made
her debut as Rosina in "Barbiere di Seville" at London. The success of her
first appearance was so great that she was at once engaged for the season.
Next she appeared in New York, where she was a popular favorite for two
years, singing in Mozart's "Don Giovanni," in "Tancred," "Romeo and
Juliet," and two of her father's operas. Here she married a French
merchant, Malibran. After her separation from him she returned to Paris,
where she was engaged as prima donna at a salary of 50,000 francs.
Thereafter she sang at every season in Paris, London, Milan, Rome and
Naples. For one engagement of forty nights in Naples she received 100,000
francs. Both as a singer and woman she exercised an extraordinary
fascination over her contemporaries. Only a few months before her death she
married the violinist De Beriot. In England she suffered a severe fall
from her horse, which shattered her health. After this she literally sang
herself to death. Her loss was mourned most of all in France, where her
death has been commemorated by Alfred de Musset's beautiful threnody ending
with the lines:

Die, then. Thy death is sweet, thy goal is won;
What is called genius by men here below
Is the great cry for Love; all else is but show;
And since, soon or late, human love is undone,
It is for great hearts and great voices like thine
To die as thou didst--for Love all-divine.

[Sidenote: Meyerbeer's "Huguenots"]

[Sidenote: Gounod]