When her retirement was rumoured Punch declared that the Bishop of Norwich should rather persuade her to remain on the stage than quit it, because of her example. Reports of her engagement to a Mr. Harris prompted the remark that "the people would never permit it." Indeed there were some persons as sceptical of his existence as Mrs. Gamp was of his female namesake. Her last appearance was in May, 1849, to assist Lumley, the unlucky impresario, then in difficulties, in response to appeals which were especially vehement in Punch. He asserted that her secession was a national calamity: she "made the stage better without making herself worse"; and Mozart's aid was invoked in an imaginary address from the composer of Don Giovanni.
TO JENNY LIND
FROM PUNCH
The engagement to Mr. Harris was "declared off" immediately afterwards, but Jenny Lind, in spite of Punch's repeated appeals, adhered to her decision to quit the stage. As late as 1856 Punch still hoped she would reconsider her verdict, and her farewell concerts at Exeter Hall in the summer of that year inspired the characteristic remark that "if any sweetening process could purify the building it would be such singing as hers."
Popular Favourites in 1844
In the early 'forties Norma was the opera most frequently mentioned. Punch published the stories of several of the most popular operas in verse. A fragment from Linda di Chamouni may suffice:—
Then Mario warbles a beautiful bar
About the revenge of his cruel mamma,
Who, finding to Linda his faith has been plighted,
Resolves to another to get him united: