s at dinner
were the Haizingers, he the admirable tenor singer of whom the German
opera company here may well be proud, she pretty and agreeable as
ever; we had, too, our great Schroeder and our greater Mendelssohn. The
conversation, of course, was animated, and the two ladies were in such
spirits that they not only told anecdotes, but accompanied them with
dramatic gestures; Schroeder, when telling us how he (the hero of her
anecdote) drew his sword, flourished her knife in a threatening manner
toward Haizinger, and Mendelssohn whispered to me, 'I wonder what John
[the footman] thinks of such an English vivacity? To see the brandishing
of knives, and not know what it is all about! Only think!'" A comic
episode which occurred during the first performance of "Fidelio" is
also related by the same authority: "In that deeply tragic scene where
Mme. Schroeder (_Fidelio_) has to give Haizinger (_Florestan_) a piece of
bread which she has kept hidden for him three days in the folds of her
dress, he does not respond to the action. She whispers to him with a
rather coarse epithet: 'Why don't you take it? Do you want it buttered?'
All this time, the audience, ignorant of the by-play, was solely intent
on the pathetic situation." This is but one of many instances which
could be adduced from the annals of the stage showing how the exhibition
of the greatest dramatic passion is consistent with the existence of a
jocose, almost cynical, humor on the part of the actors.

III.

In the following year (1833), Mme. Schroeder-Devrient sang under Mr.
Bunn at the Covent Garden Theatre, appearing in several of Weber's and
Mozart's masterpieces. She was becoming more and more of a favorite with
the English public. The next season she devoted herself again to
the stage of Germany, where she was on the whole best understood and
appreciated, her faults more uniformly ignored. She appeared in twelve
operas by native composers in Berlin, and thence went to Vienna and St.
Petersburg. She proceeded to Italy in 1835, where she sang for eighteen
months in the principal cities and theatres of that country, and
succeeded in evoking from the critical Italians as warm a welcome as
she had commanded elsewhere. In one city the people were so enthusiastic
that they unharnessed her horses, and drew her carriage home from the
theatre after her closing performance. Although she never entirely
mastered the Italian school, she yet displayed so much intelligence