escent. Old Viarda, finding that her schemes have
fallen through, shows by a mark on Preciosa's shoulder, that the girl
is Donna Clara's own daughter, who was robbed many years ago and was
believed by her desolate parents to be drowned. In consideration of
Preciosa's entreaties the gipsies are pardoned and only ordered to
leave the country for ever. Preciosa is of course united to her
faithful lover Alonzo.

LE PROPHETE.

Opera in five acts by GIACOMO MEYERBEER.

Text by SCRIBE.

Though Meyerbeer never again attained the high standard of his
Huguenots, the "Prophet" is {280} not without both striking and
powerful passages; it is even said, that motherly love never spoke in
accents more touching than in this opera. The text is again
historical, but though done by Scribe, it is astonishingly weak and
uninteresting.

The scene is laid in Holland at the time of the wars with the
Anabaptists.

Fides, mother of the hero, John von Leyden, keeps an inn near
Dortrecht. She has just betrothed a young peasant-girl to her son, but
Bertha is a vassal, of the Count of Oberthal and dares not marry
without his permission.

As they set about getting his consent to the marriage, three
Anabaptists, Jonas, Mathisen and Zacharias appear, exciting the people
with their speeches and false promises. While they are preaching,
Oberthal enters, but smitten with Bertha's charms he refuses his
consent to her marriage and carries her off, with Fides as companion.

In the second act we find John, waiting for his bride; as she delays,
the Anabaptists try to win him for their cause, they prophesy him a
crown, but as yet he is not ambitious, and life with Bertha looks
sweeter to him than the greatest honors. As the night comes on, Bertha
rushes in to seek refuge from her pursuer, from whom she has
fled.--Hardly has she hidden herself, when Oberthal enters to claim
her. John refuses his assistance, but when Oberthal threatens to kill
his mother, he gives up Bertha to the Count, while his mother, whose
life he has saved at such a price, asks God's {281} benediction on his
head. Then she retires for the night, and the Anabaptists appear once
more, again trying to win John over. This time they succeed. Without
a farewell to his sleeping mother, John follows the Anabaptists, to be
henceforth their leader, their Prophet, their Messiah.

In the third act we see the Anabaptists' camp, their soldiers have
captured a party of noble