The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-28 00:00:00

AN ITALIAN THEATRE.

The boxes areill-furnished, with common straw-bottomed.
chairs without arms, sometimes a mirror, and generally a
velvet cushion in front on which to rest the elbow or arm
or to place the lorgnette ; no carpets are on the brick fleece,
which, in the winter sea,,n, numb one's feet with cold.
One of the servant, of the theatre, however, always comes
to the box to offer footsto At, for the use of which he asks
a few baioceki. But comfort is trot an Italian word, nor au
Italian thing; and if you are dissatisfied and begin to
grumble at the desolate and cold palehi, and contrast it with
the cushioned and carpeted ones at home, please to pause
and count the cost of that comfort, and remember that here
you pay three sixpences and there a guinea to hear the
same singers. I was never so struck by this as once on
coming from Italy into Franc ). I had just been hearing
the " Trovatore" sung by the troupe, in which were Beau-
for whom it was written; and
carde, Pence, and Goggi,
when the season came on in Paris nearly the same com-
pany were advertised to sing the same opera there. I was
inclined to hear them again, but after having heard them
six months before for three pauls, I experienced a decided
sense of unwillingness to pay ten francs for identically the
same singing, merely because my seat was an arm-chair
well-padded and covered with velvet. So, too, after for
years purchasing the privilege of listening to Ristori and
Salvini for two pauls and a half, or a shilling English, I
rebelled in London against paying half a guinea far the
same thing; the chair in this case being scarcely more
comfortable, and the house much more close and stuffy.

As a contrast to these gayer passages, we will cite
our author's description of—

THE ARA CCELT.

It was here that Romulus, in the gray dawning of Rome,.
built the temple of Jupiter Feretrius. Here the spolia °pima
were deposited. Here the triumphal processions of the
Emperors and generals waded. Here the victors paused
before making their vows until, from the Mamertine pri-
sons below, the message came to announce that their
noblest prisoner and victim, while the clang of their tri-
umph and his defeat rose ringing in his ears as the pro-
cession ascended the steps, had expiated with death the
crime of being the enemy of Rome. Over these very steps,
nineteen centuries ago, the first great Cesar climbed on
his knees after his first triumph, At their base, Rienzi,
"last of the Roman tribunes," fell. And, if the tradition
of the Church is to be trusted, it was on the site of the
present high altar that Augustus erected the "Ara prime-
genito Dei," to commemorate the Delphic prophecy of the
coming of our Saviour. Standing on a spot s) thronged
with memories, the dullest imagination takes fire. The
forms and scenes of the past rise from their graves and
pass before us, and the actual and visionary are mingled
together in strange poetic confusion. Truly, as Walpole
says, "our memory sees more than our eyes in this
country."

The work of an author who thoroughly identifies
himself with his subject is always interesting, and
when the subject is one of such world-wide inte-
rest it cannot fail to be doubly so. Notwithstand-
ing the defects we have alluded to, the book is fall
of attraction from its life-like sketches of a fasci-
nating people, while the writer combines, in a
singular degree, the enthusiasm of an artist with
the keen observation of a quick-witted American.