tilities, and a soft plaintive air is taken up by one clarionet,
violincello or oboe, with which air the audience must be very much
delighted, for they laugh and talk with the greatest earnestness, and
never turn their eyes towards the orchestra.

And now there is a new commotion among the musicians, while arranging
every thing for the more serious undertaking, the opera itself. The
director goes about like a general on the eve of battle, reconnoitres
his forces, and marshals them for the attack. He mounts the elevated
seat, gives another contortion to his frame, similar to that which was
necessary to put the overture in movement, and then the curtain rises.
Heads are slightly projected from the boxes at this movement, and many
an alabaster neck is curved forward till the lowered drapery reveals the
snowy bosom. The noise of conversation ceases, and the opera commences
in earnest.

CHAPTER VIII.

Of the Opera in the Concrete.

"Lord! said my mother, what is all this story about?

"A cock and a bull, said Yorick--and one of the best of its kind I
ever heard."--TRISTRAM SHANDY.

_Prince Henry._ "'Wilt thou rob this leather-jerkin,
crystal-button, nott-pated, agate-ring, puke stocking,
caddis-garter, smooth-tongue, Spanish-pouch,--"

_Francis._ "O Lord, sir, who do you mean?"

_P. Hen._ "Why then, your brown bastard is your only drink: for,
look you, Francis, your white canvas doublet will sully; in
Barbary, sir, it cannot come to so much." FIRST PART OF KING HENRY
IV.

"If this were played upon a stage, now, I would condemn it as an
improbable fiction." TWELFTH NIGHT.

When the curtain rises the scene represents a dark forest, where some
quite well dressed, but desperate, foreign-looking gentlemen are engaged
at a game of cards, which, from the abandoned appearance of the players,
we are warranted to believe, must be some such low pastime as "all
fours," or a hand at poker. The desperate gentlemen cantatorially
inform the audience that their profession is that of outlaws, and remark
that having no particular business then to engage them, they are staking
quite extravagant sums on some cards, which the curious observer will
discover to have a very unctuous appearance. How the outlaws ever came
to be reduced to such straightened circumstances as to put up with these
"lodgings upon the cold ground," or how they ever fell into such an
improp