secured him the professorship of the piano in the Conservatory.  He also took lessons at this time of Cherubini in counterpoint, and in 1803 brought out a very successful work, “Ma Tante Aurore.”  We next hear of him in St. Petersburg, as conductor of the Imperial Opera, where he composed many operas and vaudevilles.  He spent eight years in Russia, returning to Paris in 1811.  The next year one of his best operas, “Jean de Paris,” was produced with extraordinary success.  Though he subsequently wrote many operas, fourteen years elapsed before his next great work, “La Dame Blanche,” appeared.  Its success was unprecedented.  All Europe was delighted with it, and it is as fresh to-day as when it was first produced.  The remainder of Boieldieu’s life was sad, owing to operatic failures, pecuniary troubles, and declining health.  He died at Jarcy, near Paris, Oct. 8, 1834.

LA DAME BLANCE.

“La Dame Blanche,” opera comique in three acts, words by Scribe, adapted from Walter Scott’s novels, “The Monastery” and “Guy Mannering,” was first produced at the Opera Comique, Dec. 10, 1825, and was first performed in English under the title of “The White Maid,” at Covent Garden, London, Jan. 2, 1827.  The scene of the opera is laid in Scotland.  The Laird of Avenel, a zealous partisan of the Stuarts, was proscribed after the battle of Culloden, and upon the eve of going into exile intrusts Gaveston, his steward, with the care of the castle, and of a considerable treasure which is concealed in a statue called the White Lady.  The traditions affirmed that this lady was the protectress of the Avenels.  All the clan were believers in the story, and the villagers declared they had often seen her in the neighborhood.  Gaveston, however, does not share their superstition nor believe in the legend, and some time after the departure of the Laird he announces the sale of the castle, hoping to obtain it at a low rate because the villagers will not dare to bid for it through fear of the White Lady.  The steward is led to do this because he has heard the Laird is dead, and knows there is no heir to the property.  Anna, an orphan girl, who had been befriended by the Laird, determines to frustrate Gaveston’s designs, and appears in the village disguised as the White Lady.  She also writes to Dickson, a farmer, who is indebted to her, to meet her at midnight in the castle of Avenel.  He is too superstitious to go, and George Brown, a young lieutenant who is sharing his hospitality, volunteers in his stead.  He encounters the White Lady, and learns from her he will shortly meet a young lady who has saved his life by her careful nursing after a battle,—­Anna meanwhile recognizing George as the person she had saved.  When the day of sale comes, Dickson is empowered by the farmers to purchase the castle, so that it may not fall into Gaveston’s hands.  George and Anna are there; and the former, though he has not a shilling, buys it under instructions