to me were somewhat blurred owing to her mouth being full of sausage, which destroyed most of the glamour of the situation.  Hedwig Scheuerlein was a big, jolly, cheery South-German, and she was a consummate artist in spite of her large appetite, as was the tenor Schrotter too.  Schrotter was a fair-bearded giant, who was certainly well equipped physically for playing “heroic” parts.  He had one of those penetrating virile German tenor voices that appeal to me.  These good-natured artists would sing us anything we wanted, but it was from them that I first got an inkling of those petty jealousies that are such a disagreeable feature of the theatrical world in every country.  Buxom Scheuerlein was a very good sort, and I used to feel immensely elated at receiving in my stall a friendly nod over the footlights from Isolde, Aida, Marguerite, or Lucia, as the case might be.

I wonder why none of Meyerbeer’s operas are ever given in London.  The “books,” being by Scribe, are all very dramatic, and lend themselves to great spectacular display; Meyerbeer’s music is always melodious, and has a certain obvious character about it that would appeal to an average London audience.  This is particularly true with regard to the Prophete.  The Coronation scene can be made as gorgeous as a Drury Lane pantomime, and the finale of the opera is thrilling, though the three Anabaptists are frankly terrible bores.  As given at Brunswick, in the last scene the Prophet, John of Leyden, is discovered at supper with some boon companions in rather doubtful female society.  In the middle of his drinking-song the palace is blown up.  There is a loud crash; the stage grows dark; hall, supper-table, and revellers all disappear; and the curtain comes down slowly on moonlight shining over some ruins, and the open country beyond.  A splendid climax!  Again, the third act of Robert le Diable is magnificently dramatic.  Bertram, the Evil One in person, leads Robert to a deserted convent whose nuns, having broken the most important of their vows, have all been put to death.  The curtain goes up on the dim cloisters of the convent, the cloister-garth, visible through the Gothic arches of the arcade, bathed in bright moonlight beyond.  Bertram begins his incantations, recalling the erring nuns from the dead.  Very slowly the tombs in the cloister open, and dim grey figures, barely visible in the darkness, creep silently out from the graves.  Bertram waves his arms over the cloister-garth, and there, too, the tombs gape apart, and more shadowy spectres emerge.  Soon the stage is full of these faint grey spectral forms.  Bertram lifts his arms.  The wicked nuns throw off their grey wrappers, and appear glittering in scarlet and gold; the stage blazes with light, and the ballet, the famous “Pas de Fascination,” begins.  When really well done, this scene is tremendously impressive.

I once heard in Paris, Levasseur, the French counterpart of our own Corney Grain, giving a skit on Robert le Diable, illustrating various stage conventions.  Levasseur, seated at his piano, and keeping up an incessant ripple of melody, talked something like this, in French, of course:—­