NOAHS, that handsome Mr. JACOBS, and that delightful Mr. MOSES,--all
these elegant young men with beautiful eyes and curly hair that dress in
velvet coats and diamond studs--there isn't one of them here. Our best
society never goes to any opera but the real Italian opera."

LIGHT-HAIRED YOUNG MAN.--"But, my dear, it seems to me that your best
society must consist chiefly of Jews--judging from the names you
mention."

YOUNG LADY.--"Well, what if it does? They are rich, are they not? What
more could you want?"

LIGHT-HAIRED YOUNG MAN.--"What, indeed! But the music is just as good as
it would be if the fashionable Israelites were here,--isn't it?"

SHE.--"The music as good! Why, Charles, everybody knows that the Italian
opera music is perfectly lovely. This is only English, you know."

HE.--"It is precisely the same. Here the _Somnmabula_ is sung with
English instead of Italian words. That doesn't alter a single note."

SHE.--"You are too ridiculous! The idea of attempting to make me believe
that this is just like the Italian Opera! Don't you suppose I knows
anything about music?"

OLD GENTLEMAN.--"I heard CAROLINE RICHINGS sing in 1808,--I think it was.
I tell you she sings better now tan she did then, but the stupid public
never appreciated her. I recollect saying to KEAN--not CHARLES, you
know, but _the_ KEAN--that I knew a young lady that would be a splendid
singer some of these days--meaning CAROLINE, of course. 'Well, sir,'
says KEAN, 'what of it; you can't drink her, can you?' Gad! he was the
best man for repartee I ever knew. To give you an instance; one night
KEAN and I, and old SMITH,--you don't remember old SMITH, I presume; he
played old men at the Boston Theatre sixty years ago; I never met a
jollier fellow,--I remember his saying one night when JUNICS BOOTH was
playing--let me see, what was the play; it wasn't the _Apostate_, I
hardly think, for--"

Here the orchestra mercifully strikes up, and the big drum drums the
garrulous monologue of the veteran theatrical observer. We have another
act of the opera, sung far better than any opera has been sung at the
Academy for years. Pretty ROSE HERSEE--when have we had a voice as pure,
or a manner as charming as hers?--sings in this act, and her tones so
closely resemble those of NILSSON in their exquisite purity, that we
wonder how she has escaped the abuse of that "independent critical
journal," the _Season_, until we notice a middle-aged gentleman sleeping