words in particular songs, otherwise harmless,
which perverse hearers will twist into far-
fetched allusions; and as the singer approaches
such pitfals, X becomes attentive, and watches
him warily. This inflammability in the
audience, it will be seen, has to be carefully
watched, and the awkwardness of the thing lies
in this: that most operas dealing in impassioned
subjects—with liberty, and love, and the
oppressed virtues generally—makes the performance,
as it were, take place on barrels of
detonating powder. Thus, at various times, not
being as yet in these secrets, I am mystified by
an unusual burst of delight at what appears to
be a feeble and undeserving passage; and, on
turning to the words, I find a sentiment that can
be wrested, only by pure dislocation, into any
application to present affairs. Robust
revolutionary tenors, drawing their shining blades,
and pointing them to the clouds contemporaneously
with an encouraging musical shout,
strained at C in alt, and shrieking "La Libertà!"
would not by any means be tolerated. For
growling basso democrats with grievances, there
is a grudging allowance; but they are usually
ill-conditioned fellows, who excite no sympathy.
Their zeal in the cause is not wholly pure,
there being usually present a foreign leaven of
disappointed affection and preferred rival; so
the bad end that waits for him at the end of the
piece rather strengthens constituted authority,
and brings a just odium on a cause which could
avail itself of such degraded instruments. Even
artists of sound constitutional principles, steady
Tory sopranos, and Conservative tenors, are not
exempted from this close supervision. Is it not
difficult for an artist who has struggled through
his famous air with an enthusiasm that rises
every instant, who is encouraged by applauding
spectators, and who is now coming round "the
corner" for his last "rush" home, racing for
life and death with drums, trumpets, fiddles,
horns, flutes, sacbuts, psalteries, and all kinds
of music—I say, is it not hard for him to
avoid slipping out the old tabooed word? As
sure as ever he does so, Policeman X has him,
and next day Conservative tenor is fined fifteen
scudi. It might have blown over safely, might
have passed unobserved, the obnoxious syllable,
but still there was the risk.

In the year of grace eighteen hundred and
forty-eight, when kings were throwing their
crowns into cupboards and dust-heaps, and
packing their portmanteaus, and when Pope
Pius was gratifying his children with a toy
called a Constitution, this opera-house, in which
I now sit, witnessed the strangest, wildest,
and, I may say, maddest scene that ever theatre
witnessed. I am told how when Signor Verdi's
Ernani was presented to a boiling seething
tumultuous house, and Coletti, superb
barytone (who will play this very night),
discovering the conspiracy in the church, flung back
his cloak, and revealed himself to the conspirators
in the famous song, Sono Carlo Magne,
there arose such a storm of frantic enthusiasm
and jubilant violence as could only be lulled by
the superb barytone's adapting the words "Sono
Pio" to the situation. Which was done at once
with triumphant success, though they suit that
particular passage of music but ill, and are a
little incongruous with the situation. Another
night, on receipt of some specially joyful
news, ladies in the noblemen's tier were made
to stand up as so many human caryatides,
and join their handkerchiefs like garlands,
and speedily a snow-white drapery ran all
round the house. There was no end to these
exuberant freaks. At times, the Bed of Flowers
—I like this French name better than our blunt
English "pit"—would invade the stage en
masse, take possession of it for the evening,
and sing a sort of Liberty Opera of their own.

Orchestra sprinkled thickly with green-shaded
lamps is filling in quickly; and here I am
brought back to that mysterious dispensation
noted before, namely, the investiture of every
orchestral element in a black silk nightcap—
violins, ear-piercing flute (its own aural organs
are, however, effectually protected), trumpets,
fagotti (bassoon in the vernacular), trombone,
even kettle-drums, though I do own to a faint
lingering expectation that there would have been an
exception in favour of the kettle-drums. I had
no just ground for this supposition, but confess
I did expect it. It was all one. Every head,
whether it nodded responsive to the jerked
harmonies of the bow and string, or distended
with the exertion of filling the wind instrument,
was conspicuous by this unique silken cap. In
its universality it was astonishing. Positively
not a single shiny tonsure reflected back the
light. It would almost seem to have been
de rigueur an article of professional costume.

Flower-garden is filling in; though here and
there are patches very like (according to the
apt similitude of a lady near me) to gaps where
stray teeth have been knocked out. It is the old
street miscellany, the loungers of the Pincio
and shop-steps, who have flung away their
cigars and strayed in here. They pay thirty
baiocchi—say fifteen pence—for a comfortable
numbered stall. You can get an excellent box
with eight seats (coronet included) for the
modest sum of say twelve and sixpence: about
the same charge for each person as in the pit.

Now has the municipality deputation just
entered and given the signal from its box, and with
that low roll of the drums with which Maestro
Verdi loves to hint at and shadow out his
coming mysteries, has the overture to Simon
Boccanera set in. (By the way, see that lady who
has just come in—note a significant fact: it is
Madame de Grammont, imperial ambassadress,
and she has the best box in the house after the
ducal banker's.) Rolls out, too, Verdi's whispering
crescendo, mounting into bustle and gallop,
with final crisis in brazen burst. Then floats
up the curtain, and business commences. As
of course, the piece resolves itself into a doge
story, and—also as of course—every one wears
the low velvet Andrew Doria cap, with velvet
suits, and tramps it about in a correct doge
manner. The run upon these doge stories is