ctrified so many thousands was mute for ever. Poor Malibran! she had
had but a niggard portion of happiness in this world, although she
procured so much pleasure to others. A brutal father, from whom she
received but blows, who sold her to a dotard, who would have sold her
again would she have consented! until her late marriage, toiling for
others, without one object in the world on whom to throw her warm
affections. I remember one day when we were talking of seasickness, I
observed that the best remedy was beating the sufferer: she shook her
head.

"No," said she; "that will not cure it, or surely I should have been
cured when I crossed the Atlantic with my father."

Those who knew Malibran only as a performer did not know enough of her;
they should have known her in society, and in domestic life. She was
the _ne plus ultra_ of genius in a woman; one moment all sunshine, the
next a cloud would come over her expressive features; changeable as the
wind, but in every change delightful, for she never disguised a thought.
Six weeks--but six short weeks, and I saw her at Brussels at her
country house, whither she had retired after the fatigues of the season.
How impressive must be her death. Had she sickened and died at
Brussels, the shock would have been great, for it is a shock when youth,
beauty, and talent are so suddenly mowed down; but she died, as it were,
on the stage. Admiring and applauding thousands had been listening to
her magical powers, thousands more waiting to hear her at the other
festivals; all eyes were upon her, all expectation upon tiptoe, when
death, like a matador, comes in, strikes his victim, bows sarcastically
to the audience, and retires. A thousand sermons, and ten thousand
common deaths could not have produced so effective a moral lesson as the
untimely fate of Malibran. There is but one parallel to it, and the
effect of it was tremendous. It was that of Mr Huskisson, on the
opening of the Manchester Railroad. This is the second homily read to
the good people of Liverpool and Manchester. Peace be with her,
although her body is not permitted to be at rest.

The more I see of the Swiss and Switzerland, the more is my opinion
confirmed as to the strongest feature in the national character being
that of avarice. The country is poetry, but the inhabitants are the
prose of human existence. Not a chalet but looks as the abode of
innocence and peace; but whether you scale the beetling roc