there assembled together a numerous and brilliant, if not an attentive audience; and St. Peter’s part in the oratorio was sung by a soprano voice, with no appearance of peculiar propriety to be sure; but a satirical nobleman near me said, that “Nothing could possibly be more happily imagined, as the mutilation of poor St. Peter was continuing daily, and in full force;” alluding to the Emperor’s rough reformations:  and he does not certainly spare the coat any more than Jack in our Tale of a Tub, when he is rending away the embroidery.  Here, however, the parallel must end; for Jack, though zealous, was never accused of burning the lace, if I remember right, and putting the gold in his pocket.  It happened oddly, that chatting freely one day before dinner with some literary friends on the subject of coat armour, we had talked about the Visconti serpent, which is the arms of Milan; and the spread eagle of Austria, which we laughingly agreed ought to eat double because it had two necks:  when the conversation insensibly turned on the oppressions of the present hour; and I, to put all away with a joke, proposed the fortes Homericae to decide on their future destiny.  Somebody in company insisted that I should open the book—­I did so, at the omen in the twelfth book of the Iliad, and read these words: 

    Jove’s bird on sounding pinions beat the skies;
    A bleeding serpent of enormous size
    His talons trussed; alive and curling round
    She stung the bird, whose throat receiv’d the wound. 
    Mad with the smart he drops the fatal prey,
    In airy circles wings his painful way,
    Floats on the winds, and rends the heavens with cries: 
    Amid the hosts the fallen serpent lies;
    They, pale with terror, mark its spires unroll’d,
    And Jove’s portent with beating hearts behold.

It is now time to talk a little of the theatre; and surely a receptacle so capacious to contain four thousand people, a place of entrance so commodious to receive them, a show so princely, so very magnificent to entertain them, must be sought in vain out of Italy.  The centre front box, richly adorned with gilding, arms, and trophies, is appropriated to the court, whose canopy is carried up to what we call the first gallery in England; the crescent of boxes ending with the stage, consist of nineteen on a side, small boudoirs, for such they seem; and are as such fitted up with silk hangings, girandoles, &c. and placed so judiciously as to catch every sound of the fingers, if they do but whisper:  I will not say it is equally advantageous to the figure, as to the voice; no performers looking adequate to the place they recite upon, so very stately is the building itself, being all of stone, with an immense portico, and stairs which for width you might without hyperbole drive your chariot up.  An immense sideboard at the first lobby, lighted and furnished with luxurious and elegant plenty, as many people send