On the other hand, I heard William Tell entirely massacred at the great opera-house at Paris. My belief is they scarcely sang a piece of pure Rossini all night, but had fitted in modern skimble-skamble tunes, and quite unspeakably clumsy and common ballet. I scarcely came away in better humor from the mouthed tediousness of Gerin at the Français, but they took pains with it, and I suppose it pleased a certain class of audience. The William Tell could please nobody at heart.
The libretto of Jean de Nivelle is very beautiful, and ought to have new music written for it. Anything so helplessly tuneless as its present music I never heard, except mosquitoes and cicadas.
Ever faithfully yours,
(Signed) J. Ruskin.
Amiens, October 12th, 1880.
FOOTNOTES:
[177] This and the following letter were both addressed to Mr. John Stuart Bogg, the Secretary of the Dramatic Reform Association of Manchester. The first was a reply to a request that Mr. Ruskin would, in accordance with an old promise, write something on the subject of the Drama for the Society's journal; and the second was added by its author on hearing that it was the wish of the Society to publish the first.
[From the "Glasgow Herald," October 7, 1880.]
THE LORD RECTORSHIP OF GLASGOW UNIVERSITY.[178]
I.
Brantwood, Coniston, Lancashire, 10th June, 1880.
My Dear Sir: I am greatly flattered by your letter, but there are two reasons why I can't stand—the first, that though I believe myself the stanchest Conservative in the British Islands, I hold some opinions, and must soon clearly utter them, concerning both lands and rents, which I fear the Conservative Club would be very far from sanctioning, and think Mr. Bright himself had been their safer choice. The second, that I am not in the least disposed myself to stand in any contest where it is possible that Mr. Bright might beat me.