Alas for thee, Grenada! Thy chiefs are shadows now, And ashes have been sprinkled Upon thy crownless brow: Thy glory is departed, Thy day of pomp is o’er, And “Allah illah Allah!” Is a battle-cry no more. Castilian valor vainly To cloud thy glory strove Ere Treachery within thy walls His cunning web-work wove; By bloody parricidal hands Inflicted was the blow That brought thee, gem of cities! In all thy grandeur low. ----- [4] Prime Minister. * * * * * MOZART’S DON GIOVANNI. BY JOHN S. DWIGHT. This masterpiece of Mozart must always stand as the highest type of musical drama. Yet most persons who go to this famous opera for the first time, and look over the libretto, are disappointed in a worse sense than the travelers who complain of the first unimposing view of Niagara. It seems to them a waste of so much fine music, to couple it with the mere story of a desperate rake, (a young cavalier _estremamente licenzioso_, as he is set down in the list of characters,) who, after running a most extravagant career, is brought to judgment in a marvelous way; namely, by his inviting in jest the statue of an old man whom he had murdered, the father of the noble lady he had sought to ruin, to sup with him; and by being surprised in the midst of his feast by the statue in good earnest, with the whole _posse comitatûs_ of the nether world rising to claim him! We are at a loss at first to account for the charm of so vulgar and grotesque a tissue of absurdities. Yet there is a meaning in it that concerns us all.