rtress of Plymouth, under the guardianship of Lord
Walton, the Parliamentary leader, whose daughter Elvira loves Lord
Arthur Talbot, a young Cavalier, Elvira's tears and entreaties have so
far softened her stern parent that Arthur is to be admitted into the
castle in order that the nuptials may be celebrated. He takes advantage
of the situation to effect the escape of the Queen, disguising her in
Elvira's bridal veil. When his treachery is discovered Arthur is at once
proscribed, and Elvira, believing him to be faithless, loses her reason.
Later in the opera Arthur contrives to meet Elvira and explains his
conduct satisfactorily, but their interview is cut short by a party of
Puritans, who arrest him. He is condemned to be shot on the spot, but,
before the sentence can be carried out, a messenger arrives with the
news of the king's defeat and the pardon of Arthur. Elvira, whose
insanity has throughout been of an eminently harmless description, at
once recovers her reason, and everything ends happily.

'I Puritani' is in some respects Bellini's best work. Foolish as the
libretto is, the bitterest opponent of Italian _cantilena_ could
scarcely refuse to acknowledge the pathetic beauty of many of the songs.
It is a matter for regret, as well as for some surprise, that Bellini's
works should now be entirely banished from the Covent Garden repertory,
while so many inferior operas are still retained. In an age of fustian
and balderdash, Bellini stood apart, a tender and pathetic figure, with
no pretensions to science, but gifted with a command of melody as
copious, unaffected, and sincere as has ever fallen to the lot of a
composer for the stage.

The other Italian writers of this period may be briefly dismissed,
since they did little but reproduce the salient features of their more
famous contemporaries in a diluted form. Mercadante (1797-1870) lived to
an advanced age, and wrote many operas, comic and serious, of which the
most successful was 'Il Giuramento,' a gloomy story of love and revenge,
treated with a certain power of the conventional order, and a good deal
of facile melody. Pacini (1796-1867) is principally known by his
'Saffo,' an imitation of Rossini, which achieved a great success. Vaccai
(1790-1848) also imitated Rossini, but his 'Giulietta e Romeo' has
intrinsic merits, which are not to be despised.

After the days of Rossini, opera buffa fell upon evil days. Although the
most famous musicians of the day did