travelled _dilettanti_. He wrote to her, and offered her an immense sum, but she felt compelled to decline, owing to her engagements on the continent. Of course, when it was ascertained that Madlle. Sontag could not come, the subscribers, and the public generally, were filled with a headlong desire to behold her. On the principle of _omne ignotum pro magnifico_, their imaginations were excited in the extreme; for, the "children of a larger growth," like their juniors in petticoats, never cry violently but after what is taken from them, or is beyond their reach. Well we remember how every one inveighed against the want of liberality, or of diplomacy, of the unfortunate lessee--who, after all, had only committed one error, that of allowing the negotiation to be known before he was certain it would succeed. He was, consequently, soon compelled to make another appeal to Madlle. Sontag, and offer that, if she would come, he would pay indemnity for her engagement. But Madlle. Sontag indignantly repudiated the idea of breaking any contract accepted by her. The successors of Mr. Ebers, Laurent and Laporte, were destined to reap the benefit of these applications. The queens of the lyrical stage, like the heroes and heroines of Shakespeare, come on with tenfold effect when alarums and flourishes are previously sounded. These negotiations had awakened and raised the expectations of the whole musical world of the English metropolis, and, for once, their imaginations were not destined in any respect to be disappointed in the contemplation of the reality. The Duke of Devonshire, for so many years the liberal and tasteful patron of every kind of art, was the first to make society enjoy the talents of the wonderful artist.