—­“Poiche paga il volgo sciocco, e giusto
    Scioccamente ‘ballar’ per dargli gusto.”

The Theatre of the Scala, notwithstanding the vastness of my expectations, did not disappoint me.  I heard it criticised as being dark and gloomy; for only the stage is illuminated:  but when I remember how often I have left our English theatres with dazzled eyes and aching head,—­distracted by the multiplicity of objects and faces, and “blasted with excess of light,”—­I feel reconciled to this peculiarity; more especially as it heightens beyond measure the splendour of the stage effect.

We have the Countess Bubna’s box while we are here.  She scarcely ever goes herself, being obliged to hold a sort of military drawing-room almost every evening.  Her husband, General Bubna, has the command of the Austrian forces in the north of Italy:  and though the Archduke Reinier is nominal viceroy, all real power seems lodged in Bubna’s bands.  He it was who suppressed the insurrection in Piedmont during the last struggle for liberty:  ’twas his vocation—­more the pity.  Eight hundred of the Milanese, at the head of them Count Melzi, were connected with the Carbonari and the Piedmontese insurgents.  On Count Bubna’s return from his expedition, a list of these malcontents being sent to him by the police, he refused even to look at it, and merely saying that it was the business of the police to surveiller those persons, but he must be allowed to be ignorant of their names, publicly tore the paper.  The same night he visited the theatre, accompanied by Count Melzi, was received with acclamations, and has since been deservedly popular.

Bubna is a heavy gross-looking man, a victim to the gout, and with nothing martial or captivating in his exterior.  He has talents, however, and those not only of a military cast.  He was generally employed to arrange the affairs of the Emperor of Austria with Napoleon.  His loyalty to his own sovereign, and the soldier-like frankness and integrity of his character, gained him the esteem of the French emperor; who, when any difficulties occurred in their arrangements, used to say impatiently—­“Envoyez-moi donc Bubna!”

The count is of an illustrious family of Alsace, which removed to Bohemia when that province was ceded to France.  He had nearly ruined himself by gambling, when the emperor (so it is said) advised him, or, in other words, commanded him to marry the daughter of one Arnvelt or Arnfeldt, a baptized Jew, who had been servant to a Jewish banker at Vienna; and on his death left a million of florins to each of his daughters.  He was a man of the lowest extraction, and without any education; but having sense enough to feel its advantages, he gave a most brilliant one to his daughters.  The Countess Bubna is an elegant, an accomplished, and has the character of being also an amiable woman.  She is here a person of the very first consequence, the wife of the archduke alone