isest,
in certain respects, had a buffoon's costume, and plagued the statesman
and churchman grievously.

By degrees I made my way through the mocking, taunting, flouting,
many-colored crowd, to the orchestra, and gradually up its steps until I
stood upon a fine vantage-ground. Near me were others; I looked round.
One party seemed to keep very much together--a party which for richness
and correctness of costume outshone all others in the room. Two ladies,
one dark and one fair, were dressed as Elsa and Ortrud. A man, whose
slight, tall, commanding figure I soon recognized, was attired in the
blue mantle, silver helm and harness of Lohengrin the son of Percivale;
and a second man, too boyish-looking for the character, was masked as
Frederic of Telramund. Henry the Fowler was wanting, but the group was
easily to be recognized as personating the four principal characters
from Wagner's great opera.

They had apparently not been there long, for they had not yet unmasked.
I had, however, no difficulty in recognizing any of them. The tall, fair
girl in the dress of Elsa was Miss Wedderburn; the Ortrud was Lady Le
Marchant, and right well she looked the character. Lohengrin was von
Francius, and Friedrich von Telramund was Mr. Arkwright, Sir Peter's
secretary. Here was a party in whom I could take some interest, and I
immediately and in the most unprincipled manner devoted myself to
watching them--myself unnoticed.

"Who in all that motley crowd would I wish to be?" I thought, as my eyes
wandered over them.

The procession was just forming; the voluptuous music of "Die Tausend
und eine Nacht" waltzes was floating from the gallery and through the
room. They went sweeping past--or running, or jumping; a ballet-girl
whose mustache had been too precious to be parted with and a lady of the
_vielle cour_ beside her, nuns and corpses; Christy Minstrels (English,
these last, whose motives were constantly misunderstood), fools and
astrologers, Gretchens, Claerchens, devils, Egmonts, Joans of Arc enough
to have rescued France a dozen times, and peasants of every race: Turks
and Finns; American Indians and Alfred the Great--it was tedious and
dazzling.

Then the procession was got into order; a long string of German legends,
all the misty chronicle of Gudrun, the "Nibelungenlied" and the
Rheingold--Siegfried and Kriemhild--those two everlasting figures of
beauty and heroism, love and tragedy, which stand forth in hues of pure
brigh