Page:The history of Mendelssohn's oratorio 'Elijah'.djvu/143

 THE REVISED ORATORIO.

��" And now many thanks for your friendly advice in the opera affair. Some time before you wrote your letter to me, I had already informed Mr. Lumley that I should not be able to produce an opera of the ' Tempest ' in the season 1847 ; and, according to the advice my friend Klingemann gave me some days before your letter came, I have since again written to Mr. Lumley (about the same words as you suggest), have asked Klingemann to take care of seeing the letter safely delivered, and have sent to him a duplicate of it. So that the whole of your advice, the same which my friend Kl. gave, has been followed literally, and I should be very glad if thus the affair would come to an end. Of this I think I may be sure, that Mr. Lumley will not continue his advertisements of my opera after he heard that I had taken the resolution not to write the ' Tempest ' for the season 1847.

" And now forgive this dry letter, and believe me, yours very truly,

" Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy."

��Reading between the lines of the last-quoted letter, it is easy to see that Mendelssohn was much annoyed at the public announcements, made by Mr. Lumley in his opera prospectus of 1S47, to the effect that " The celebrated Dr. Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy will likewise visit England, and produce an Opera expressly composed for Her Majesty's Theatre, the Libretto, founded on ' The Tempest ' of Shakespeare,

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