Page:Men of the Time, eleventh edition.djvu/977

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960
SAINTON-DOLBY—SALA.

cheap rate, he tried, in conjunction with M. Debray, numerous experiments in the manufactory of Javel, and succeeded in obtaining, in the course of a few months, several ingots of the metal, which were exibited at the Exposition Universelle of 1855. The properties of aluminium, and the results of his experiments, have been published by him in the "Annales de Chimie et dePhysique," and in a work entitled "De l'Aluminium, ses Propriétés, sa Fabrication," published in 1859. He has contributed several papers to the Academy of Sciences, amongst which may be named "Sur les trois États moléculaires du Silicium," and "Un Mémoire sur la Production des Températures élevées."


SAINTON-DOLBY, Madame Charlotte H., an eminent contralto singer, born in London in 18Zl, received her professional education principally at the Royal Academy of Music, where her assiduity in the study of her art, and the cultivation of her natural gifts, rendered her one of the most successful pupils of that institution. Miss Dolby, in entering on the public exercise of her profession, resolved to eschew the tempting opportunities offered by the lyric stage, that she might devote her talents exclusively to the illustration of our national music, and to the interpretation of the oratorio works of Handel and the other great masters. In this branch Miss Dolby was soon allowed to be without a rival; while her great declamatory power, and her conscientious desire to give every note and every word their exact due, were of infinite value, and restored to the English public a style of vocalization which had become almost obsolete. Mendelssohn, who took great interest in this lady, after hearing her in his oratorio of "St. Paul," dedicated to her a set of six songs, and composed other works expressly for her. Having engaged her for the Gewandhaus Concerts at Leipsic, in the winter of 1846-7, he wrote the contralto part in "Elijah " for her. In the zenith of her fame, Miss Dolby became the wife of M. Sainton, the violinist. The preservation of the English ballad, in its pathos and simplicity, is mainly owing to the steady, well-directed efforts of this popular singer, which have had the advantage moreover of fostering the composition of these lyrics. Madame Sainton-Dolby retired from the practice of her profession as a public singer in 1870; but in the following year she opened a Vocal Academy for the training of lady vocalists who intend to adopt a musical career.


SALA , George Augustus Henry, journalist and author, son of an Italian gentleman who married a favourite English singer of West Indian extraction, born in London in 1828, was brought up with a view to following art as a profession, which he quitted for literature, and became a constant contributor to Household Words, taking Mr. C. Dickens's style as his model, and catching his spirit without being a slavish imitator. He was an extensive and regular contributor to the Welcome Guest, the founder and first editor of the Temple Bar Magazine, for which he wrote the stories of "The Seven Sons of Mammon," and "Captain Dangerous," afterwards republished as separate works; wrote for several years in the Illustrated London News, the Hogarth papers in the Cornhill Magazine, and a story entitled "Quite Alone," for All the Year Round, which appeared in a separate form, in Nov., 1864. He still writes "Echoes of the Week" in the Illustrated London News. He went as special correspondent for the Daily Telegraph to the United States, in 1863, and on his return, at the close of 1864, published the result of his observations under the title of "America in the Midst of War." He wrote