For night-owls shriek where mounting larks should sing.
(Exeunt from above.)
Richard has been described as a prince of surpassing beauty; but his mental powers did not correspond with his personal form, and his character was both weak and treacherous. He, however, had some redeeming points. His ordering some trees to be cut down at Sheen, because they too forcibly reminded him of his deceased wife Anne, in whose company he used to walk under them, affords a favourable testimony of his susceptibility of the social affections. Of this sensitiveness, there is also an interesting trait recorded by Froissart. From Flint Castle, Richard was conveyed to London, and immured within the Tower cells. While he was here one day conversing with Bolingbroke, his favourite greyhound, Math, having been loosed by his keeper, instead of running to the King, as usual, fawned upon the Duke. The latter inquiring the cause of this unusual circumstance, was answered—"This greyhound fondles and pays his court to you this day as King of England, which you will surely be, and I shall be deposed."
To return to Flint Castle. After the civil wars under Charles I. it was ordered to be dismantled; but, among other rights, it was restored to Sir Roger Mostyn, after the Restoration, in whose family it is still vested, though the mayor of the borough acts as its constable.
SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.
WEBER AND DER FREISCHUTZ.
In 1821, the newly-erected Royal Opera at Berlin was opened with "Der Freyschütz." The effect produced by the first representation of this romantic opera, which we shall never cease to regard as one of the proudest achievements of genius, was almost unprecedented. It was received with general acclamations, and raised his name at once to the first eminence in operatic composition. In January it was played in Dresden, in February at Vienna, and everywhere with the same success.—Weber alone seemed calm and undisturbed amid the general enthusiasm. He pursued his studies quietly, and was already deeply engaged in the composition of a comic opera, "The Three Pintos," never completed, and had accepted a commission for another of a romantic cast for the Vienna stage. The text was at first to have been furnished by Rellstab, but was ultimately written by Madame de Chezy, and written in so imperfect and impracticable a style, that, with all Rellstab's alterations never had a musician more to contend with than poor Weber had to do with this old French story. As it is, however, he has caught the spirit of the tale.
"Dance and Provençal song, and vintage mirth"