Three _Traviatas_ in diff'rent quarters, Three _Rigoletti_ murd'ring their daughters!! Three _Trovatori_ beheading their brothers, By the artful contrivance of three gipsy mothers!!! Verdi in the Haymarket, Verdi at the Lane, Green's in Covent Garden, and Verdi again! Was ever a being so music be-ridden, Barrel-organ-beground, German brass-band bestridden; What with all the Concerts at all the Halls, And the Oratorios--_Samsons_ and _Sauls_-- Mozart and Mendelssohn, Haydn and Handel-- All lights of the Art in every part, From the blaze of the Sun to a farthing-candle! And the Classical Matinées, With Clauss's touch satiny, That to hear her your heart seems to go pit-a-pat in ye-- And Hallé so dignified, pure and sonorous, And Henry Leslie's amateur chorus, And fair Arabella, so melting and mellow, That she charms the stern judgment of Autocrat Ella, And Rubinstein--rapid and rattling of fist, That one cries out with _Hamlet's_ Papa, "Liszt, Oh Liszt." Ella was the founder and director of the "Musical Union," which gave Chamber Music Concerts much on the lines of the famous "Pops"; Arabella was Arabella Goddard, the leading British pianist. Henry Leslie's choir for the performance of madrigal music carried off the prize against all comers at Paris in 1867. Wilhelmine Clauss was the Bohemian pianist, known in later years as Mme. Szarvady. To return to opera: it is amusing to find precisely the same charge hurled against Verdi as against Wagner twenty or thirty years later--that he cracked or wore out voices in their vain effort to contend against orchestral din. Grisi was still the chief _diva_, though a new star had arisen in Titiens, whose name spurred _Punch_ to display his metrical prowess:-- We've got a great artist, a lady named Titiens, Whose praises we'd sing, but her name will not rhyme. Stuff! Horace reminds you, with "_Tantalus sitiens_," We've thirsted for music like hers a long time. [Sidenote: _The Advent of Patti_] The new Opera House had been opened at Covent Garden, and on the first night patrons complained of getting covered with white, as the paint was still fresh. The "Music of the Future" continues to excite _Punch's_ derision, and at the close of 1858 he seizes the opportunity of running a tilt against _Lohengrin_:--