ease explain himself either by speaking, in words, which are the signs of the intellect; or he can avail himself of the second set of qualities, and express his ideas by gestures, which are the signs of the body; and which, therefore, are used by the inferior animals also, when they want to demonstrate their feelings. But the northern nations, as the English and Germans, have the mental qualities superior to those of the body, or rather those of the body in subjection to those of the mind, and therefore they make use of the intellectual method of communication alone, neglecting the bodily method-gestures.

We might easily trace an analogical difference of the same kind between the two races of people, in the manner in which they each cultivate the same arts. Painting, in England, has numberless artists who excel in landscape, the more intellectual, or rather less sensual branch of the art-Italy, who excel in the face and figure, the more sensual division. In England, sculpture can scarcely be said to exist, or, if it exist, to mount higher than ornaments and chimney-pieces-Italy has but lately lost her Canova. In music, the Italians have expression, melody, and passion; while the Germans boast chords and counterpoint, and we flourish in canons, catches, fugues, and airs with variations. Our comedies have wit and character, our tragedies are unrivalled in literature: the Italians have scarcely a comedy, and but few tragedies; while their opera is the model for Europe, and their ballets are never deficient in humour, mimicry, and the perfection of pantomime acting.

The second theatre in Rome, the Teatro Valle, which is situated beyond the Pantheon, near the church of S. Eustachio, is also appropriated to music and the opera; though it has also an indifferent company of comedians, who act the most wretched trash between the acts of the opera, just to give the singers a little more breathing time. It is a well-proportioned and a well-sized house, but very dirty and neglected. As the performances at the Teatro Valle are inferior to those of the Apollo, and the payment less, so the audience is composed of a lower class of persous; but they are more amusing to a stranger, because they are less reserved in their conduct, and give freer vent to the sentiments with which the entertainments have affected them, and are not ashamed to let out their excitability, their good-humour, and their enthusiasm.

I believe that, on this account, there are few audiences in Europe so well calculated as the Roman, particularly the audience of the Valle, to develope and encourage the powers of a young singer, or to correct his faults. And, moreover, in the Roman theatres great forbearance is always shown towards the female performers, whether singers or actresses. If they are indifferent, they are allowed to make their exit from the stage in the midst of a dead silence; if they are absolutely bad, a laugh may be audible, but very seldom anything more. Teatro di Apollo had a seconda donna not very well qualified for her station, and whose vanity and affectation made her defects still more visible: I asked an Italian what was the name of this lady who sang so wretchedly; "Non saprei," he answered; " è una bestia, ma.' (I don't know; she is a beast, but-she is a woman.)

The

The Romans have a delicate ear and a correct taste, and are at the same time good-humoured and indulgent. A passage neatly executed,

a musical phrase expressively delivered, are sure to be noticed and approved; while a note out of tune, a trip, or a flourish in bad taste, are just as sure to be laughed at, and perhaps mimicked, though but seldom hissed. The first night of a new opera, particularly if it happen to be unsuccessful, is the best opportunity of witnessing this national peculiarity displayed to its utmost degree. The overture is listened to in breathless silence, and no opinion is expressed, except perhaps by a few plaudits from some friends of the "maestro," as the composer is styled. The greater part of the first act also is watched with silence and attention; but then if it is found that the music goes on in a humdrum, unconnected, or discordant style, the popular indignation bursts out at length in an universal horse-laugh; the singers look astonished and interchange mournful glances with each other, try to go on, and are laughed at again. Perhaps when the primo tenore is chanting some tale of love or misery, a fat gentleman will rise in the pit and tell the same tale, using the same notes and action: perhaps when the lady of the opera closes her aria with what she deems a brilliant cadenza, she will have the satisfaction of hearing it repeated by some old lady of no very high fashion, who is perched aloft in one of the upper boxes. As the night proceeds, the chattering and joking in the pit become more audible, and the voices of the actors less so, till the curtain drops in the midst of good-humoured confusion: the fate of the opera is decided without howling or hissing, spite or ill-nature, and the last notes of it which ever reach the ear fall from the lips of some one of the audience, who hums away the time in passing through a back street on his way to bed.

On the other hand, when an opera is successful, nothing can surpass their delight and enthusiasm. In all cases, the overture and first two or three movements are listened to in silence-neither applauded nor disapproved as the man of taste gives no opinion of the port after dinner, till he has slowly and fairly tried a glass or two. Then come the plaudits unbounded and overwhelming, like a cataract. "Viva il maestro!"(Long live the composer!) "Viva! Viva!" The "maestro," who generally is posted in the orchestra, dressed for the occasion in a black coat, white cravat, and his hair smartly brushed up, then comes forward, makes his bow, and sits down again. But not long is he allowed to enjoy the pleasures of repose: the clapping of hands, the waving of handkerchiefs, or a big thundering garland made of greens, thrown at him from the pit, or a shower of sonnets printed on white paper, and let fall from the uppermost boxes, compel him to rise from time to time and pay his grateful acknowledgments. You want to listen to the opera, but you cannot, because some enthusiast just behind you is continually whining into your ear " Ah, bene! Oh, bello!" at every passage that is pretty or expressive. When it is all over, a louder noise than ever commences: every one who has had anything to do with the new piece is to be brought forward before the audience. The "maestro" who composed the music, the singers who performed it, the poet who wrote the words, and the artist who painted the scenes, advance from behind the curtain, and march across the stage for the satisfaction of the audience, two, three, four, or even five times; and when they have applauded to their heart's content, and made so much noise that they can make no more, they retire in knots to some café, and while taking

their ice or rosolio, discuss the merits of the late spectacle, as if a successful opera were the chef d'œuvre of human intellect.

The Teatro Argentina*, so called from being situated in the Via Argentina, ranks here as the third theatre, though many despisers of the lyrical drama would claim for it the first place in the order of precedence; for it is the only theatre in Rome appropriated to the legitimate drama. Its most usual performances are the best tragedies of the best authors (rather a limited range in Italy); but they occasionally indulge in comedies and farces. The company of actors is excellent: the most insignificant parts are supported with a spirit and cleverness which leave nothing to be desired. But in spite of these attractions, the performances are but indifferently supported, and that chiefly by foreigners, who go there by way of taking an Italian lesson. The throngs of Russians, Germans, and Swedes who visit Italy to educate themselves, and not for pleasure merely, form a large proportion of the audience; which, however, seldom reaches beyond the middle bench of the pit, while the music theatres are overflowing. The want of patronage of course produces a corresponding falling off in the external dignity of the legitimate drama. The Teatro Argentina, though well-sized and wellproportioned, is shabby, dirty, and ill-kept; the scenery and decorations are very inferior, and the dresses are such as would be hissed or laughed at in England. In fact, there is no circumstance which displays the different degree of success obtained by the two rival dramas in a stronger light, than the state in which we see their respective wardrobes. The attori parlanti, the "speaking actors," or actors of the legitimate drama, are clad in a collection of tagrag-and-bobtail which would disgrace Bartlemy Fair, with a coat of one century and small clothes of the next, and a wig which belongs to the middle ages. The ladies generally display a total absence of costume, and appear in some calico or stuff of an every-day fashion, which they probably wore on the last Sunday or Festa, and intend to wear on the next. On the other hand, the attori cantanti-or opera singers, or actors of the lyrical drama, are sometimes overloaded with gold, jewels, and feathers, and at other times exhibit an accuracy and elegance of costume, which require no less taste and expense to attain. The opera-houses are daubed over with marble, gilding, and looking-glass; while the theatres which confine themselves to Alfieri, Silvio Pellico, De Rossi, and other sterling authors, are dingy, neglected, and can scarcely afford to pay the urchin who sweeps the cob. webs from their boxes and benches.-Admission to the pit of the Teatro Argentina, 2 pauls, or 10d. English.

The Teatro Capranica, in the Piazza Capranica, is not a small theatre, and is much neater and brighter than the Argentina, in spite of its silver name; for it is better attended, and can therefore better afford a little outlay of paint and gold-leaf, because it condescends to consult the popular taste, and does not care a rush for legitimacy and the unities. Here you may see the actress of all-work, a lady who performs

*The expression "Teatro Argentina," a masculine noun agreeing with a feminine adjective, might appear a false concord and a grammatical error; but it is only an abbreviated method of speaking, and the ellipsis fully supplied is this, "Teatro della Via Argentina." Such apparent errors are frequent in familiar Italian expressions, but, upon investigating them, they are always found to agree perfectly with the rules of grammar,

ten different characters within a quarter of an hour: here we have farces broader than broad-melodramas dark, bloody, and mysterious, with translations or hashes of the last new piece which has made a hit in England, France, or Germany. The comedians are not bad, but they throw singing, and in fact music altogether, overboard; for the band which scrapes, and rasps, and trumps between the acts, is as bad as it would be possible to collect in a civilized country. It is difficult to conceive how people with such nice ears as the lowest of the Romans have can submit to such a combination of discords. But the manager trusts to other attractions to fill his house. He orders his scene-painter to make a picture of the most horrible incident in his bloodiest melodrama, or of the most absurd scene in his broadest farce, and these are hung about the market-places and the principal streets, with the same view that a wild-beast man exhibits the portraits of his menagerie. The market before the portico of the Pantheon, being a place of great resort, is often half-tapestried over with these advertisements of rival theatres, which contend with each other, as well as with Punch and the puppetshows, in the gaudiness of their painted baits for an audience.-The admission to the pit of the Capranica is 1 paul, or 5d. English.

In order to give anything like a clear idea of the Teatri Pallacorda and Pace, it will be necessary to premise that there exists in Italy a class of theatres to which there is nothing exactly analogous in England. The "Volkstheater," or popular theatre of Germany, gives a similar species of entertainment, but we have nothing which corresponds so closely. In our great theatres (Covent Garden, before the present management, for instance), there are the boxes for the gentry and the aristocracy, when they deign to come; the pit for the middle classes and for sober-minded single men, and the miserable, hot, stinking galleries for the populace. Now these galleries are a disgrace to the humanity and benevolence of a civilized people. Instances have been known of persons dying of heat in the galleries of our great theatres. Even the French, good as their theatrical arrangements generally are, have their "Paradis," which answers to the place occupied by our "Gods." But the Italians will have nothing to do with such an abomination. They say, “We cannot afford to pay the admission-price to your fine pit and boxes, and so we will have a pit and boxes of our own. We will have a theatre to ourselves, our wives, and our daughters, and the élite of the bourgeoisie shall occupy the boxes, and we, the gentlemen, will fill the pit, upon the same plan as the Gran Signori at the Tordinone." the gallery system is altogether rejected, and palchi and platea, boxes and pit, make the two grand divisions of an Italian theatre.

Thus

Some

These popular theatres are all built upon one plan-if that may be called a plan which is only an after-thought and an adaptation. They are all of them evidently constructed within the shell of some large oblong building, which had originally been used for other purposes, but was afterwards gutted and cleared to obtain the requisite space. times the partitions of two or three dwelling-houses have been removed, the principal walls being left untouched; and even the cellars have been thrown open to give greater altitude. Thus in order to enter the Teatro Pace at Rome, it is necessary to descend by several steps from the street; and the pit and the first row of boxes are found to be on the ordinary level of a cellar. At Rome, the circumstance of a building being

half buried is nothing extraordinary, and is often merely a proof of its antiquity, or of its having been raised upon the foundations of an ancient building. Vegetable earth and rubbish have accumulated round some of the Roman ruins to the depth of thirty, or even forty feet. But, in this instance, all the neighbourhood of the Teatro Pace-the Piazza Navona, for example-retains nearly its ancient level; is still, with its neighbour the Pantheon, subject to inundations of the Tiber, and during such an event, the stage, pit, and first row of boxes in the Teatro Pace would be flooded with water. There is besides, at Naples, a still more ludicrous instance of the application of cellars for theatrical exhibitions on entering the Teatro Fenice, at the level of the street, it is necessary to descend two flights of stairs in order to arrive at the pit ; so that the third or uppermost tier of boxes is on a level with the ground floor. I was surprised to find the gilding and ornaments of this subterranean place of amusement much better than its situation would seem to deserve; but, after all, may not the coolness of such a position be a recommendation in a hot climate, instead of a reason for ridicule?

:

As the theatre is thus merely a lining which has been appended to some formerly-existent building, its proportions and design must not be expected to display much elegance or even convenience. The stage is generally so narrow, that one good hop would carry a man from one side of it to the other: the pit is quite level, not gradually inclined so as to assist the spectators sitting on one bench in looking over the shoulders of those on the bench before them: the boxes, instead of forming a horse-shoe curve or an ellipse, start from the stage at right angles on each side, and are met by a straight row of boxes at right angles also; so that the ground plan of the theatre is an exact parallelogram or oblong, of which one end is the stage, and the other end and the two sides are occupied by boxes. Of course the persons in the two sides can see nothing of the stage or the actors, unless they sit with their heads poked out of their box during the whole performance; but as they can hear the music, and see, and be seen by the persons in the boxes opposite, that is sufficient to content them.

The entertainments given at these popular places of amusement are even more varied than at the theatres frequented by their betters. Some offer an opera upon their diminutive stage, which is always the favourite opera of the day, and generally the same which is being performed at the great theatre of the place. The actors, in that case, are either broken-down singers who are verging towards the end of their course, or very young aspirants who are just stepping on the first staves of the ladder of ambition; the odds and ends and sweepings of other opera-houses fill up any vacancy, and the whole is held together by one or two competent second-rate performers. An opera is thus got through somehow or other, by the omission of all unnecessary scenas, recitatives, and symphonies, and for those who are fond of a laugh or a sneer, there is plenty of opportunity. But the stranger who visits these resorts with a proper tone of mind will find that the smile of ridicule which at first settles on his lip will exchange its expression for that of benevolent pleasure, when he sees a crowded assembly of men and women, few much elevated above the labouring class, attentively and enthusiastically enjoying an operatie entertainment, instead of going about in search for the ambiguous indelicacies of a farce, or the horrors of a melodrama, as