Are there not, in all congregations of men,
sheep who follow where the bell-wether
leads; and is not the black-bird scouted or
pecked to death by his brethren among
swans, as among Christians? Do not ants
make slaves, and are there not in apiaries
and formicaries knights templars, and
amazons, warlike vestals and monks
militant, as there have been among men? Is
there never a sleek tabby with velvet paws
and deadly claws among the purring spinsters
of a social tea? Is there never snugly coiled
up on the ministerial benches, a rat who left
a falling house and an adverse cause? Is the
lion, jealous and unapproachable, without
human compeer both in the west and east?
Is the ibis the only scavenger of the
cities? and has not even the crocodile his
faithful, humble friend? Was a spider's net
never spun in a lawyer's office? and to what
dried-up anatomies does not the Court of
Chancery reduce its fattest blue-bottles?
Other societies, besides those of crows and
starlings, avenge themselves on their offending
members; the mantis is not the only
hypocrite of pious seeming and deadly intent,
—there are men, like white ants, who undermine
your roof-tree, and eat away the heart of
your trusty staff, so that when you lean
your weight on it you are flung prostrate
on the ground; and there are men like
musk-rats who taint and pollute wherever
they pass.

Turn where we will for science, for art, for
poetic imagery, for human characteristics, we
still find prototypes and models in Nature.
She is in truth the omnipotent mother whom
once the Ephesians typified as their Diana;
the fountain head and well-spring of all life,
and all intelligence.

And the more we truly know of Nature,
the greater must be the admiration and wonder,
and the more profound the humility, with
which we pass from her to her Creator.

A PHANTOM OPERA.

ON the evening of the twentieth of April, I
went to the Opera-house in Covent Garden,
provided with an order for admission by the
kindness of Mr. Gye, the proprietor. I arrived
at a quarter-past seven o'clock, humming an
air from the Huguenots; the Opera I had
seen placarded all over the town; to
commence precisely at eight. When I got out
of my cab in Bow Street, I fancied for the
first time that something was wrong. I was
put down before a dingy hoarding, above
which arose, against the clear moonlit-sky,
a tangled web of scaffold-poles, ropes, ladders,
columns without capitals, capitals without
columns, pails, baskets, hods, planks, and
shouting men. I entered at a rude workman's
door, inside which stood a door-keeper,
sheltered by a small hut upon wheels. I delivered
the order of Mr. Gye with some hesitation,
but was immediately relieved from any
doubt by being requested to follow a guide
who would conduct me to my seat in the
building. I resumed the humming of the air.

We threaded our way with difficulty
through heaps of sand, small hillocks of
mortar and cement, earth-sifters, spades,
pick-axes, carts, horses, blocks of stone and
piles of timber, towards a low, cavernous,
dimly-lighted opening, at the foot of the lofty
side-wall of the theatre. In the dusk, we
passed troops of men, marching steadily
forward with heavy loads on their backs; and I
noticed that the prevailing style of evening
dress was fustian trowsers, tucked up over
laced-up boots, surmounted by a clayey,
whitey-brown shirt. As we approached the
building, I heard a loud sound, but not a shout
of harmony. It was composed of the metallic
ringing of trowels, the echoing blows of
various-sized hammers upon various-sized
bodies, the dabbing of cement upon walls,
the soft simmering of smoothing-boards, the
harsh grating of saws, the full whistle of
large planes, the falling of masses of timber,
the iron rattle of pulleys, and the hum and
shouts of men busily setting all these things
in motion. Stooping under the low arch, and
crossing a tottering plank, I left my companion,
and found myself standing in the pit of
the great Opera-house. No white and gold
decorations; no satin elbow cushions; no
velvet seats; no crowded orchestra with
green-shaded lamps; no full, bulging curtain;
no galaxy of wreathed beauty; no chandeliers;
no lorgnettes; but the aspect of a
dismantled cotton-mill—a mixture of Lisbon
after the great earthquake, and the ruins of
the Coliseum, with the chaotic workshop of
a Leviathan building-contractor turned into
them.

I have seen many Opera-houses, in Europe;
but never such an Opera-house as this. I
climb up as best I can, from the earthen
passage that runs round the house (a fops' alley
that would drive fops mad, so studded with
mortar-heaps, rough timber, and tenpenny
nails), and obtain a footing upon a fortuitous
concourse of planks that form the elevation
of the pit. Up from the centre of the flooring
into the distant roof runs a rough pine-tree
pole, round which is a large hoop of gas, which
lights the building efficiently, but rudely, as if
it were a travelling circus. Up in the roof is a
star-shaped scaffolding, with many thousands
of planks, looking like paper-knives, or old-
fashioned broad matches, radiating in all
directions.

There is a moderate audience as to numbers;
but their conduct is singular in the extreme.
The Opera is essentially a lounge: the
Opera-goer is essentially a lounger. There
are people who work at Opera-going, as they
would work even at opium-eating: people
who run with industriously-idle curiosity
after particular vocal stars; people who
barricade theatre-entrances from the middle
of the afternoon; people who struggle painfully