"
In the second of these works Jenny Lind, Sontag, and Alboni won bright
triumphs at a subsequent period.

II.

"La Favorita," the story of which was drawn from "L'Ange de Nigida,"
and founded in the first instance on a French play, "Le Comte de
Commingues," was put on the stage at the Academie with a magnificent
cast and scenery, and achieved a success immediately great, for as
a dramatic opera it stands far in the van of all the composer's
productions. The whole of the grand fourth act, with the exception of
one cavatina, was composed in three hours. Donizetti had been dining at
the house of a friend, who was engaged in the evening to go to a ball.
On leaving the house, his host, with profuse apologies, begged
the composer to stay and finish his coffee, of which Donizetti was
inordinately fond. The latter sent out for music paper, and, finding
himself in the vein for composition, went on writing till the completion
of the work. He had just put the final stroke to the celebrated "_Viens
dans un autre patrie_" when his friend returned at one in the morning
to congratulate him on his excellent method of passing the time, and to
hear the music sung for the first time from Donizetti's own lips.

After visiting Rome, Milan, and Vienna, for which last city he wrote
"Linda di Chamouni," our composer returned to Paris, and in 1843 wrote
"Don Pasquale" for the Theatre Italien, and "Don Sebastian" for
the Academie. Its lugubrious drama was fatal to the latter, but the
brilliant gayety of "Don Pasquale," rendered specially delightful by
such a magnificent cast as Grisi, Mario, Tamburini, and Lablache, made
it one of the great art attractions of Paris, and a Fortunatus purse for
the manager. The music of this work perhaps is the best ever written by
Donizetti, though it lacks the freshness and sentiment of his "Elisir
d'Amore," which is steeped in rustic poetry and tenderness like a rose
wet with dew. The production of "Maria di Rohan" in Vienna the same
year, an opera with some powerful dramatic effects and bold music, gave
Ronconi the opportunity to prove himself not merely a fine buffo singer,
but a noble tragic actor. In this work Donizetti displays that rugged
earnestness and vigor so characteristic of Verdi; and, had his life been
greatly prolonged, we might have seen him ripen into a passion and power
at odds with the elegant frivolity which for the most part tainted
his musical quality. Donizetti's last opera, "Catari