The next great event in Malibran's life was her visit to Naples. The Italians appear at first to have looked a little askance on an artist who had achieved greatness without having breathed the air, or been warmed by the sun, of Italy. This was especially the case at Naples, where her reception in the autumn of 1832 was so cold, that her first intelligence of it represented her as having completely failed. But the Neapolitans, with the impetuosity of their country, speedily corrected their first mistake. "Madame Malibran's performance in this city," says an article from Naples in a musical journal of the day, "has been one continued and splendid triumph. At first the cognoscenti of Naples were inclined to question the justice of the unbounded praises which have been lavished on this astonishing songstress, and to receive her with sang froid, and weigh her pretensions with all the coolness of determined critics; but she had no sooner opened her mouth than all this was instantly converted into an enthusiasm of applause and admiration, to which the oldest frequenters of the opera remember no parallel. For seventeen nights the theatre was crowded at double prices, notwithstanding the subscribers' privileges were on most of those occasions suspended, and although Otello, La Gazza, Ladra, and pieces of that description, were the only ones offered to a public long since tired even of the beauties of Rossini and proverbial for its love of novelty. But her grandest triumph of all was on the night when she took her leave of the Neapolitan audience in the character of Ninetta. Nothing can be imagined finer than the spectacle afforded by the immense theatre of San Carlo, crowded to the very ceiling and ringing with acclamations. Six times after the fall of the curtain Madame Malibran was called forward to receive the reiterated plaudits and adieus of an audience which seemed unable to bear the idea of a separation from its new idol, who had only strength and spirits left to kiss her hand to the assembled multitude, and indicate by graceful and expressive gestures the degree to which she was overpowered by fatigue and emotion. The scene did not end within the theatre; a crowd of the most enthusiastic rushed from all parts of the house to the stage door, and as soon as Madame Malibran's chair came out, escorted it with loud acclamations to the Palazzo Barbaja (Angelicé—the house of Barbaja, the manager), and renewed their salutations as the charming vocalist ascended the steps." On the 1st of May, 1833, Malibran appeared at Drury Lane in an English version of La Sonnambula, and drew the town in admiring crowds, "tickling the ears of the groundlings" with the felicity of her roulades. Shortly afterwards she returned to Italy, where she was as much idolized as before. In 1835 she was again in England for a short time, during which she excited an extraordinary sensation by her performance at Drury Lane of the part of Leonora in the English version of Beethoven's Fidelio. In March, 1836, she obtained in the law-courts of Paris a regular divorce from M. Malibran. This man, soon after her return to Europe, hearing of her success in the French capital, had followed her thither and demanded a share of her professional emoluments. This demand she properly refused to comply with. Malibran had obtained her hand by means of a deception; and she had moreover acquitted herself of any claim he might have had as her husband, by having voluntarily resigned in favour of his creditors the property which had been settled on herself. On the dissolution of this marriage she was united to the celebrated violinist M. de Beriot. The queen of the French complimented Madame de Beriot on this occasion by presenting to her a costly agraffe, embellished with pearls. In the summer following she commenced her last engagement at Drury Lane; and by her wonderful personation of the heroine in Balfe's opera, the Maid of Artois, mainly contributed to its success. Her exertions during this season were so excessive as to keep the witnesses of them in continual astonishment. While the rehearsals of the Maid of Artois were going on from day to day—and Madame de Beriot's rehearsals were not so many hours of sauntering indifference—she would, immediately after they were finished, dart away to one or two concerts, and perhaps conclude by singing at an evening party. The same course was pursued during her performance of that arduous character. Well might Lablache say, "Son esprit est trop fort pour son petit corps." She had, indeed, "a little body with a mighty heart;" and both must have given way earlier, had she not possessed the valuable faculty of being able suddenly to unbend and apply her mind to the most cheerful and even childlike amusements. In September, 1836, she went to Manchester to fulfil her engagement at the musical festival of that town; and there, as will long be remembered, her enfeebled frame sank under her exertions. The following particulars respecting the sad event which robbed the musical world of one who was its chief grace and ornament, were given by a writer who was at Manchester when the catastrophe occurred:—"Those who were near the late lamented vocalist state the closing scene of her existence to have been melancholy in the extreme. Though the hand of death was on her she would not spare herself, from a fear that she might be accused of capriciously disappointing her admirers. On her way to her last, or last but one performance, she fainted repeatedly, yet still adhered to her resolution. In the evening prior to the first day's performance at the collegiate church, she sang no less than fourteen pieces in her room at the hotel among her Italian friends. De Beriot cautioned her against exerting herself, but Malibran was not to be easily checked in her career. She was ill on Tuesday—the day of the first performance—but she insisted on singing, both morning and evening. On Wednesday her indisposition was still more evident; but she gave the last sacred composition she ever sang—'Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously'—with electrical effect; and on that evening, the 14th of September, her last notes in public were heard. It was in the duet with Madame Caradori Allan, 'Vanne se alberghi in petto,' from Mercadante's Andronico. Her exertions in the encore of this duet were tremendous; and the fearful shake at the top of the voice will never be forgotten by those who heard it. It was a desperate struggle against sinking nature; it was the last vivid glare of the expiring lamp; she never sang afterwards. The house rang with animated cheering; hats and handkerchiefs were waving over the heads of the assembly; but the victim of excitement, while the echoes were yet in her ears, sank exhausted after leaving the stage, and her vocal career was ended. She was bled and removed home; and her agonizing cries that night will not be erased from the memory of the writer of this article, who was within a short distance of the room in which she expired." Her melancholy death happened on the 23rd of September, 1836.—E. F. R.
MALLET or MALLOCH, David, a poet and miscellaneous writer, was born of humble parents at Crieff in Perthshire about the year 1700. He was educated at Aberdeen and Edinburgh, and in 1723 obtained the situation of tutor to the two younger sons of the duke of Montrose, whom he accompanied to Winchester and London, and afterwards on a continental tour. His residence in the family of the duke procured him admission to a circle eminent both for rank and literary ability. He had at an early age cultivated a taste for poetry, and in 1723 published in the Plain Dealer his beautiful ballad of "William and Margaret." A descriptive poem called "The Excursion," followed in 1728, and his tragedy of "Eurydice" was brought upon the stage in 1731. About this time he "took upon him," says Dr. Johnson, "to change his name from Scotch Malloch to English Mallet, without any imaginable reason of preference which the eye or ear can discover." He now became intimate with Pope, who expressed great regard for him and introduced him to Bolingbroke. He was made under-secretary to Frederick, prince of Wales, with a salary of £200 a year, and his tragedy of "Mustapha" was acted in 1739 under the patronage of that prince. Mallet subsequently wrote a "Life of Lord Bacon," and some tragedies and poems of no great merit. At the instigation of Lord Bolingbroke after the death of Pope, he attacked the character of that poet with great malignity in connection with the "Patriot King," and was rewarded for this vile service by the bequest of all his lordship's works and manuscripts. He received a legacy of £1000 from the duchess of Marlborough, to which the second duke added a pension, on condition that he should prepare a life of the great duke; but though he gave out that he was making progress in the work, he never wrote a line of it. He became the hireling of the government, the bitter assailant of the unfortunate Admiral Byng, and the interested eulogist of Lord Bute. Mallet died in 1765, leaving a considerable fortune. He was an avowed infidel, and a vain-glorious, worthless person.—J. T.
MALLET, Jacques André, a Swiss astronomer, was born at Geneva in 1740, and died at Avully, near Geneva, on the 30th of January, 1790. He was a pupil of the famous Daniel Bernoulli. He rendered great service to the progress of astronomy and geodesy by his industry and accuracy as an observer. He established at his own expense an observatory in his native city, about 1770.—W. J. M. R.
MALLET, Paul Henri, a distinguished French historical
