Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 1.djvu/389

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS.
347

Since their own Drama yields no fairer trace
Of wit than puns, of humour than grimace.[1]


Then let Ausonia, skill'd in every art
To soften manners, but corrupt the heart,
Pour her exotic follies o'er the town,620
To sanction Vice, and hunt Decorum down:
Let wedded strumpets languish o'er Deshayes,

And bless the promise which his form displays;

    made his début on the London stage at the King's Theatre in April, 1806. In conjunction with Catalani and Braham, he gave concerts at Willis' Rooms. Angelica Catalani (circ. 1785-1849), a famous soprano, Italian by birth and training, made her début at Venice in 1795. She remained in England for eight years (1806-14). Her first appearance in England was at the King's Theatre, in Portogallo's Semiramide, in 1806. Her large salary was one of the causes which provoked the O. P. (Old Prices) Riots in December, 1809, at Covent Garden. Praed says of his Ball Room Belle

    "She warbled Handel: it was grand;
    She made the Catalani jealous."]

  1. [Moore says that the following twenty lines were struck off one night after Lord Byron's return from the Opera, and sent the next morning to the printer. The date of the letter to Dallas, with which the lines were enclosed, suggests that the representation which provoked the outburst was that of I Villegiatori Rezzani, at the King's Theatre, February 21, 1809. The first piece, in which Naldi and Catalani were the principal singers, was followed by d'Egville's musical extravaganza, Don Quichotte, ou les Noces de Gamache. In the corps de ballet were Deshayes, for many years master of the ballet at the King's Theatre; Miss Gayton, who had played a Sylph at Drury Lane as early as 1806 (she was married, March 18, 1809, to the Rev. William Murray, brother of Sir James Pulteney, Bart.—Morning Chronicle, December 30, 1810), and Mademoiselle Angiolini, "elegant of figure, petite, but finely formed, with the manner of Vestris." Mademoiselle Presle does not seem to have taken part in Don Quichotte; but she was well known as première danseuse in La Belle Laitière, La Fête Chinoise, and other ballets.]