ch would
otherwise be unsightly, being closed by an open framework in
Arabesque. Through this the chandelier is lighted by a long rod,
having at the end a wire, to which is attached a piece of ignited
sponge soaked in spirits of wine: the chandelier is raised and lowered
at pleasure by a three-ton windlass.

Not less than eighty-five apartments, great and small, surround the
stage or adjoin it, and are used as dressing-rooms, workshops,
store-rooms, and offices. We first visited the dressing-room of Madame
Grisi, nearest the stage, and it had the air of an elegant boudoir,
hung and furnished in green and crimson; while another close beside
it, fitted up in precisely the same style, was somewhat prematurely
called the dressing-room of Mademoiselle Wagner. The dresses of the
various performers, we may mention, are supplied by the management;
but some of them, with large salaries, and priding themselves on
appearing before the public in costly and well-fitting garments,
choose to incur this expense themselves.

The sempstresses-room looks exactly like a large milliner's shop, and
here we found a forewoman with eighteen assistants at work. Books of
costumes are always at hand, so that a degree of historical accuracy
is now attained in Opera costume, which materially assists the
illusion; and no such anachronism is visible in Covent Garden as in a
certain theatre across the Thames, where, instead of the Saracenic
minarets of Cairo, this gorgeous Arab city is represented by pyramids,
obelisks, and sphynxes. The painting-room of Covent Garden is a light
and lofty apartment at the top of the house, and the name of Mr Grieve
is a sufficient guarantee both for historical accuracy and artistic
character. Scene-painting, as practised at Covent Garden, is a most
systematic process: a coloured miniature of each scene is made on
Bristol-board, and consigned to an album; then a larger miniature is
made, and placed in a model of the Opera stage, on a large table, and
from this the scenes themselves are executed. Near the painting-room
is the working property-room, filled with carpenters, mechanists,
smiths, painters, and other artificers--everything either before or
behind the curtain being kept up, repaired, and altered by the people
of the establishment.

We now proceeded to hear the rehearsal of the opera of _Lucia di
Lammermoor_, and entering the stalls, found the orchestra full and
nearly ready to commence, Mr Costa discussing