THE ITALIAN OPERA.

[cannot, for a moment, be at a loss to discover the reason that Italian Music in Paris requires the arm of Government to sustain it. We are free from all these embarrassments, The experiment of the Italian Opera and consequently the success of the Italian having been fairly tried since the present Opera in this country must be less equivocal company visited our shores, and hardly a than in any part of Europe.

doubt remaining of its successful permanent The impulse which Garcia's Troupe gave establishment in this city, we hope long to to musical taste in New-York, is the most exenjoy every opportunity of making that re- traordinary event which the era of Music can fined amusement, the subject of interesting boast, and it determines a question very facomment in our pages. vorable to Italy, that cultivation to be good,

It is fortunate for us that we have no nation- must approach as near to nature as possible. al school of music, our country possesses no This constitutes the perfection of taste-here recollections of chivalry, of troubadours, feu- the Italian School leaves in the distance the dal contentions or scenes of romance to hand French and English Schools. They have down to us in song the deeds of heroism reduced music to a code of principles, and which such events naturally create. The not left it to the excursiveness of fancy. broad ocean which rolls between us and Eu- Whenever distances are fixed, comparison rope, is not only the interposing barrier in commences. The proportions of a Greek political relations, but it is also the means of column became the standards to regulate deremoving us so far from local attachments sign, and as our rule of beauty is deduced and preferences that we can make, our se- from its harmony, so are our notions of lection without prejudice and form our taste music derived from the expression of passion upon the best models without embarrassment. by simple intonation. Nature is then the We were then prepared to receive the best idol of the Italian artist, and while he is corimpressions which could be made, and when rected by its severity he is also chastised by in 1825 Garcia delighted us with his troupe he its truth. To be successful the artist must was astonished that his best points could be have with him the skill to copy and the pow appreciated. Before this period we had heard er to adorn a creation by grouping the scatlittle of Italian music. Some recollect the tered fragments of beauty, so as to form a Buffo of Carmoglio, the violin of Burke, and standard originating in an equal mixture of the songs of Trajetta; yet there was not suf-judgment and feeling. It ceases then to be ficient to give us a favorable impression of a matter of astonishment that our country is the great cultivation which existed in Italy. a ready recipient of good taste, and as soon When therefore it was proposed by Mr. Do- as the unpractised car recovers its tone, the minick Lynch of this city, to transfer Gar-power of appreciation will be more serbicia's troupe from the London Opera House ble and effective.

to New-York, the English critics predicted Again we have another troupe who came to the failure of an enterprise in a country where seek their fortunes in the western world, and no evidence had as yet been furnished of any we venture to predict, if they bring the proper taste in the Fine Arts. "If London or Paris materials, the permanency of Italian Operas cannot support an Opera, said they, how can is placed beyond all hazard. The materials you expect success in the rude and uncultiva- must be good or the labor is wasted. We ted wastes of America." The solution of this do not ask that a Pasta, Sontag, or Malibran problem is found in the fact that we had no should constitute a part of these materials; national tastes to interfere with the great per- but we expect that good singers will be given fection of the art which was introduced a- us. We might have been content with less if mong us. In England there are the melodies we had not heard Garcia, Malibran, and Anof Ireland and Wales, and the old ballads grisani, but their impressions have left with which were the foundation of a National us standards that at least claim respectability School; and in Paris, the Conservatoire es- in professional acquirement. The troupe tablished for France the same predilections. ef Montresor is good, but the sustaining powThese were to be subdued before the pure ro is in Signora Pedrotti. This lady is above taste of Italy and Germany could be success the usual height, yet she is so well propor ful. The Italian Opera in England cannot tioned, and likewise so graceful that she apsucceed except it be assisted by the French pears not too tall or too large-her face is Ballet, and in France it does not flourish one of expression without much beauty, but from the great rivalry of the French Opera her eye is so fine that every feature is lighted and its attractive decorations, When we up with great intelligence. Mind strong and hear Boildieu and Auber placed by the side powerful, so pervades every attitude and exof Rossinni, Webber, and Mozart, we pression-while her face exhibits intellec

The Knickerbacker.

VOL. I.

FEBRUARY, 1833.

MEMOIR OF GENERAL CHASSÉ.

No. 2.

LTHOUGH not among the warriors who have filled the world with their renown, the name of this distinguished foreign officer claims a place here by a double title-first, on the general public ground that he is now in command of a fortress, upon which the eyes of the nations are intent; and secondly, that he is of the race of those from whom spring the genuine Knickerbackers.

The engraving which accompanies this memoir, presents faithfully the lineaments of this veteran soldier. It is executed from an engraving recently received from Holland, and does more than justice to the original. In the compressed mouth, and resolute brow, and air of decision which this portrait exhibits, the daring character and well proved heroism of the man whose life, even unto old age, has been spent amid the din and perils of battle, speak to every eye.

According to a brief notice we find of him in the Biographie des Contemporains-a record, we may say in passing, of as high talents and attainments in every department of knowledge or of art, of as noble characters, and of as daring achievements, as the annals of the world can shew-DAVID HENRY CHASSE was born on the 18th March, 1765, at Thiel, in Guelderland, and at ten years of age, with hereditary taste, (his father being a military officer) he entered as a cadet into the service of the United Provinces. He obtained in 1781 the rank of lieutenant, and in 1787 that of captain. At this period the disputes, which had long agitated the United Provinces, broke out into open and violent conflicts. The republican

party, opposed to the establishment of an hereditary Stadtholdership in the house of Orange, and rendered more ardent in the general cause of freedom, by the success with which these United States had then recently concluded their struggle for independence, proceeded to extremes, and among other measures, a band of the more violent patriots arrested the wife of the Stadtholder, who was sister to the king of Prussia. She immediately besought the aid of her brother, and forthwith a Prussian army of 25,000 men appeared, to avenge the insult and vindicate the cause of the Stadtholder William V. Young Chassé, then only twenty-two years old, and who, with the natural enthusiasm of youth, had embraced the cause of the patriots, was fired with new zeal at the aspect of foreign mercenaries brought into his own native land, to impose upon it by force a government it rejected, and was foremost in the ranks to combat them. But the resistance of the patriots was unskilfully conducted and unsuccessful; and when, in September, 1787, Amsterdam fell into the hands of the Prussians, and the patriot cause was finally lost, Chassé, with others, went into voluntary exile. Soon again, however, lured by the same idol, Liberty, which now was arousing the people of France from the despotism of ages, he entered into the French armies, and so distinguished himself by his gallantry, that in 1793, he had attained the rank of lieutenant-colonel. In 1794, he was attached to the army under Pichegru, and made the memorable campaign of 1794-5, when the water defences of Holland, which under ordinary circumstances render her almost impregnable, became the sources of her weakness; and the floods which from her dikes she poured forth over smiling fields and villages, in order that the foot of the invader might be cut from her soil, were bridged over with solid ice, and presented the unwonted and unwelcome spectacle of embattled armies, with their horses and their artillery borne into the very heart of the land, by a path made with no human hands. The arms and the opinions of republican France found ready acceptance among the patriots of Holland, and by their aid, and with their concurrence, the Batavian republic was formed in May, 1795. They too soon found that a republic established by the arms and maintained by the presence of a foreign soldiery, was a mockery of their fairest hopes; and it cannot be doubted, that the delusion which had blinded Chassé to the crime-for crime since the days of Coriolanus to those of Moreau it has been, and ever should be, deemed-of bearing arms with foreigners

against his native land, was early and bitterly repented. He, whose youthful patriotism had been kindled to a loftier glow, by the introduction into his country of a Prussian army, to avenge and defend the cause of the Stadtholder, could not, in maturer years, and when the first impulse and ebulition of the high excitement of the times had passed, but feel that he had greatly erred. His career since that period has, however, been wholly with Dutch troops and worthy of the brightest days of that valiant people, who in their early history were styled by Tacitus, "the friends rather than the allies of the Romans," and whose warlike qualities were so remarkable, as to draw from the same historian this description of the nation-" unvexed by tribute, free from all taxes, they (the Batavians) are, as it were, set apart for the demands of battle, and like arms reserved alone for war." In the campaign of 1796, he was attached to the army under the command of the Dutch General, Daendels. In 1799, the English having made a descent upon the coast of Holland, General Chassé displayed great military talent at the head of the Dutch corps, who fought several hours against a larger body of English troops. This campaign having terminated, he quitted the country for Germany. He was at the siege of Wurtzburg, took a battery from the Austrians, and four hundred prisoners, on the 27th of December, 1800. In the years 1805 and 1806, he served with distinction in the war against Prussia, under the command of the Dutch General Dumoreau. But, above all, it was in the Spanish war that General Chassé was most distinguished.

Having been created a major-general and appointed to the command of a Dutch division, he led them wherever there was danger and glory. Always in advance himself, always decisive, and distinguished especially for the frequency and the success of the charges he led, he obtained from his own corps and in the army, the significant appellation of the weapon he so freely resorted to; and as Murat, from the number and brilliancy of his cavalry charges, was called the Saberer, and Junot, from the impetuosity of his attacks, was distinguished as the Grenadier, General Chassé came to be known and dreaded as the Bayonet-chief. For six years of this murderous Spanish war, he was always in the hottest of its battles, and in all, the simple and glorious praises of his soldiers, the witnesses of his exploits and the companions of his dangers, accompanied him. At Talavera, Durango, Missa d'Abord, and parti