numerable modern
melodies, the precious metal which others beat out, wherewith to plate
their baser compositions,--exhaustless materials for the use of his
successors, like those noble temples which antiquity has raised in the
East, to become, in the sequel, the quarries from which whole cities
of lowlier dwellings are constructed?

At the Karnthner Thor I heard the Huguenots admirably performed.
Decorations excepted, I really thought it better done than at the
Academie Royale. Meyerbeer's brilliant and original conceptions, in
turning the chorus into an oral orchestra, are better realized. A
French vaudeville company performed on the alternate nights. Carl, the
rich Jew manager of the Wieden, and proprietor of the Leopold-Stadt
Theatre, is adding largely to his fortune, thanks to the rich and racy
drolleries of Nestroz and Schulz, who are the Matthews and Liston of
Vienna. The former of these excellent actors is certainly the most
successful farce-writer in Germany. Without any of Raimund's
sentimental-humorous dialogue, he has a far happier eye for character,
and only the untranslatable dialect of Vienna has preserved him from
foreign play-wrights.

Sir Robert Gordon, her Majesty's ambassador, whose unbounded and truly
sumptuous hospitalities are worthy of his high position, did me the
honour to take me to one of Princess Metternich's receptions, in the
apartments of the chancery of state, one side of which is devoted to
business, the other to the private residence of the minister. After
passing through a vestibule on the first floor, paved with marble, we
entered a well-lighted saloon of palatial altitude, at the further
end of which sat the youthful and fascinating princess, in
conversation with M. Bailli de Tatischeff ex-ambassador of Russia.

There, almost blind and bent double with the weight of eighty years,
sat the whilom profoundly sagacious diplomatist, whose accomplished
manners and quick perception of character have procured him a European
reputation. He quitted public business some years ago, but even in
retirement Vienna had its attractions for him. There is an
unaccountable fascination in a residence in this capital; those who
live long in it become _ipsis Vindobonensibus Vindobonensiores_.

Prince Metternich, who was busy when we entered with a group,
examining some views of Venice, received me with that quaker-like
simplicity which forms the last polish of the perfect gentleman and
man of the worl