coming to New York with her father; and she continued her studies with
a new energy and a new purpose after the departure of her father to
Mexico had left her apparently stranded in New York with a bankrupt and
good-for-nothing husband to support. She made her first essay in English
opera with "The Devil's Bridge," and followed it up with "Love in a
Village." English operas, whether of the ballad order or with original
music, were constructed in principle on the lines of the German
Singspiel and French opéra comique, all the dialogue being spoken; and
Malibran's experience at the theater and Grace Church, coupled with her
great social popularity, must have made a pretty good Englishwoman of
her. "It is rather startling," says Mr. White, in the article already
alluded to, "to think of the greatest prima donna, not only of her day,
but of modern times--the most fascinating woman upon the stage in the
first half of the nineteenth century--as singing the soprano parts of
psalm tunes and chants in a small town then less known to the people of
London and Paris and Vienna than Jeddo is now. Grace Church may well be
pardoned for pride in a musical service upon the early years of which
fell such a crown of glory, and which has since then been guided by
taste not always unworthy of such a beginning." Malibran's performances
at the New York Theater were successful and a source of profit, both
to the manager and M. Malibran, to whom, it is said, a portion of the
receipts were sent every night.

Three other theaters which were identified with opera more or less
came into the field later, and by their names, at least, testified to
the continued popularity which a famous English institution had won a
century before, and which endured until that name could be applied to
the places that bore it only on the "lucus a non lucendo" principle.
These were the theaters of Richmond Hill, Niblo's, and Castle Garden.
The Ranelagh Gardens, which John Jones opened in New York, in June,