ose by the dismal prophecy of the terrible fate so
rapidly approaching her. The characters are Queen Mary (soprano), Mary
Beatoun (Beton), her maid of honor (contralto); Rizzio, the ill-fated
minstrel (tenor); and John Knox (bass). The scene is laid in a court of
the palace of Holyrood, and introduces a coterie of the court ladies and
gentlemen engaged in one of those joyous revels of which Mary was so
fond. In the midst of the pleasantry, however, the Queen moves pensively
about, overcome with sadness, as if her thoughts were far away. Her
favorite maid tries in vain to rouse her from her melancholy with a
Scotch ballad. The minstrel Rizzio is then urged to try his skill. He
takes his lute and sings an Italian canzonet which has the desired
effect. The sensuous music of the South diverts her. She expresses her
delight, and seizing his lute sings her new joy in a French romance. It
is interrupted by a Puritan psalm of warning heard outside. The revellers
seek to drown it; but it grows in power, and only ceases when the leader,
John Knox, enters with stern and forbidding countenance. The Queen is
angry at first, but bids him welcome provided his mission is a kindly
one. He answers with a warning. As he has the gift of prophecy, she
orders him to read her future. After the bridal, the murder of the
bridegroom; after the murder, battle; after the battle, prison; after the
prison, the scaffold, is the tragic fate he foresees. The enraged
courtiers call for his arrest and punishment, but the light-hearted Queen
bids him go free:--

"Let him go, and hear our laughter!
Mirth to-day, whate'er come after."

The cantata opens with a chorus for female voices in three divisions,
with a contralto solo, in the Scotch style:--

"The mavis carols in the shaw,
The leaves are green on every tree,
And June, whose car the sunbeams draw,
Is dropping gold on bank and lea;
The hind is merry in the mead,
The child that gathers gowan flower,
The Thane upon his prancing steed,
The high-born lady in her bower,--
Gay, gay, all are gay,
On this happy summer day."

After a short recitative passage in which Mary Beatoun appeals to the
revellers to lure the Queen from her loneliness, and their reply ("O
Lady, never sit alone"), the maid sings a very characteristic and
engaging Scotch ballad:--

"There once was a maiden in Melrose town
(Oh! the bright Tweed is bonny to see!)
Who looked on the b