described by the biographer of Rossini. "The theatre overflows, the people flock from ten leagues' distance; the curious form an encampment round the theatre in their calashes; all the inns are filled to excess, where insolence reigns at its height. All occupations have ceased; at the moment of the performance the town has the aspect of a desert. All the passions, all the solicitudes, all the life, of a whole population, is concentrated at the theatre. The overture commences; so intense is the attention, that the buzzing of a fly could be heard. On its conclusion, the most tremendous uproar ensues. It is either applauded to the clouds, or hissed, or rather howled at, without mercy. In an Italian theatre, they shout, they scream, they stamp, they belabour the backs of their seats with their canes, with all the violence of persons possessed. It is thus that they force on others the judgment which they have formed, and strive to prove it a sound one; for, strange to say, there is no intolerance equal to that of the eminently sensitive. At the close of each air the same terrific uproar ensues; the bellowings of an angry sea could give but a faint idea of its fury. Such, at the same time, is the taste of an Italian audience, that they at once distinguish whether the merit of an air belongs to the singer, or composer." Contrast the scene here described with the appearance presented on similar occasion by the Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket. There, few are bold enough either to applaud or disapprove. Many simple, perhaps, but beautiful and refined, characteristics of the composer or performer, may pass unnoticed; but some common-place embellishment, which is considered safe, will command the expression of approbation which the trait of real genius had failed to elicit. After a few representations, the fear of applauding _unwisely_ is diminished, but still, as was once said of the French under similar circumstances, "they affirm with the lips, but with the eye they interrogate;" and it is not till a sort of prescription has been established in favour of certain airs and passages, that the Englishman banishes doubt and distrust, and claps his hands, and shouts _bravo_--accenting the word strongly on the first syllable--with an air of confidence and decision. We would, nevertheless, entertain the hope, that our national reserve, or the _mauvaise honte_, which our countrymen contrive to exhibit on every possible occasion, is one cause of this apparent dulness; at all events, it would seem highly probable that a people among whom music is a necessity, should, in the unbiassed judgment of contemporary nations, be our superiors in the art.