interesting. The choruses of women and the ballet music (of which these choruses form part), in the second act, are graceful and melodious; and the king's air in the third act, _Pour tant d'amour_, has been always liked both by the popular baritones who sing it and by the public. Leonora's scena, too, "O mon Fernand," possesses, at least in the slow movement (the quick one being quite unworthy of it), a certain amount of beauty. But the fourth act of _La Favorita_ is worth all the rest of the opera, and it may well be regarded as the finest act Donizetti has composed. The calmness and purity of the tenor's air, "Ange si pur," and the passionate impulsiveness of the final duet for the despondent lovers, are eminently dramatic: the character of each piece being perfectly in accord with the situation. The choruses are highly impressive, and the whole scene becomes filled with earnest animation as it moves towards the final climax. Donizetti is said to have sketched and in the main to have completed this act at a single sitting, and in the space of some three or four hours. The andante, however, of the duet was added at the rehearsals; and the cavatina, "Ange si pur" was borrowed from the score of a work never brought out--_Le Duc d'Albe_. If there could be any doubt about the fact, it would be difficult to believe that Fernando's air had not been inspired by the situation in which it occurs. So, after all, in a measure it was; since the composer took it from elsewhere to introduce it where he knew it would be in place. _La Favorita_ was by no means Donizetti's last work. He had yet to write _Linda di Chamouni_, in which there is more of what is called "local colour" than in any other of his operas; and _Don Pasquale_, which, apart from the brightness and gaiety of its never-ending series of melodies, would be remembered if only from the circumstance of its having been written for that incomparable quartet, Grisi, Mario, Tamburini, and Lablache. The very year (1843) that Donizetti produced _Don Pasquale_ at Paris he brought out _Maria di Rohan_ at Vienna. The music of _Maria di Rohan_ is in some respects the most dramatic that Donizetti has written. The libretto, like almost every good libretto, is based on a French play--_Un Duel sous Richelieu_; and it contains a very strong part for the baritone, in which, at our Royal Italian Opera, Ronconi has often shown the highest histrionic genius, together with a certain inability to sing in tune. _Maria di Rohan_, however, is not to be called dramatic simply because it contains one great dramatic part. What is more important is the fact that the music of the work is appropriate to the various personages and to the great situations of the piece. In portraying the original of the jealous husband, Donizetti exhibits all the earnestness and vigour of Verdi, whom, as before observed, he resembles more in _Maria di Rohan_ than in any of his earlier works.