s of the Italian Opera _de Londres_, to record our admiration,
our opinions, and our _regrets_ for this great _artiste_.

Signor Rubini is in stature what might be denominated _juste milieu_;
his _taille_ is graceful, his _figure_ pleasing, his eyes full of
expression, his hair bushy: his _comport_ upon the stage, when not
excited by passion, is full of _verve_ and _brusquerie_, but in
passages which the _Maestro_ has marked "_con passione_" nothing can
exceed the elegance of his attitudes, and the pleasing dignity of his
gestures. After, _par exemple_, the _recitativi_, what a pretty
_empressement_ he gave (alas! that we must now speak in the past
tense!) to the _tonic_ or _key-note_, by _locking_ his arms in each
other over his _poitrine_--by that after expansion of them--that clever
_alto_ movement of the toes--that apparent embracing of the _fumes des
lampes_--how touching! Then, while the _sinfonia_ of the _andante_ was
in progress, how gracefully he turned _son dos_ to the delighted
auditors, and made an interesting _promenade au fond_, always
contriving to get his finely-arched nose over the _lumieres_ at the
precise point of time (we speak in a musical sense) where the word
"_voce_" is marked in the score. His pantomime to the _allegri_ was no
less captivating; but it was in the _stretta_ that his beauty of action
was most exquisitely apparent; there, worked up by an elaborate
_crescendo_ (the _motivo_ of which is always, in the Italian school, a
simple progression of the diatonic scale), the _furor_ with which this
_cantratice_ hurried his hands into the thick clumps of his picturesque
_perruque_, and seemed to tear its _cheveux_ out by the roots (without,
however, disturbing the celebrated side-parting a single hair)--the
vigour with which he beat his breast--his final expansion of arms,
elevation of toes, and the impressive _frappe_ of his right foot upon
the stage immediately before disappearing behind the _coulisses_--must
be fresh in the _souvenir_ of our _dilettanti_ readers.

But how shall we _parle_ concerning his _voix_? That exquisite organ,
whose _falsetto_ emulated the sweetness of flutes, and reached to A
flat _in altissimo_--the _voce media_ of which possessed an unequalled
_aplomb_, whose deep double G must still find a well-in-tune echo in
the _tympanum_ of every _amateur_ of taste. _That_, we must confess, as
critics and theoretical musicians, causes us considerable _embarras_
for words to des