The charm of that performance was undeniable. The rippling and glittering gayety of Rossini, the sweet and tender melody of Bellini, the sparkle of Auber, the romantic pathos of Donizetti, the brilliant melodramatic strain of Verdi--none who have felt the spell will deny the enchantment. But _tempora mutantur_; one age with its spirit and taste succeeds another. A deeper, stronger, more earnest taste in music, a higher general cultivation, another theory of opera, have come into the house and seated themselves in the parquet, and look askance at the boxes as the Quartier St. Antoine looked upon the Faubourg St. Germain. The boxes, with the innocent ignorance of the _oeil-de-boeuf_, propose to maintain the old order, to stand by Bellini and Donizetti and the last half-century. It is touching and interesting. _Vive l'opera italienne! Vivent les loges!_ So Marie Antoinette appeared in the balcony of the banqueting hall at Versailles, and so the _garde du roi_ sprang to its feet with gallant enthusiasm, rattling its sabres and pledging the Queen. It is a heroic story, a romantic tradition.--And the Queen? And the _garde du roi_? The authorities of the opera invite the city to an interesting entertainment. Nothing has seemed more natural than the precedence of German opera at a time in which the German musical genius and cultivation are dominant, and in a city in which the German audience abounds. And now, for our pleasure, Sisyphus will take a turn at the stone, and the lovely Danaides of the boxes, in the shining garments of Worth, with soft disdain of difficulty, will essay with sieves of the finest texture to bale out the ocean. THE DINNER IN ARCADIA. The Easy Chair went up lately to the hills to enjoy the annual dinner at Arcadia. It is a summer feast which tradition assigns to some old academy in those parts, supposed to have been founded by a pastor of the village in the days before railroads, when there was no path to Arcadia except that which is still sometimes pursued. It is a winding sylvan way through woods and by singing streams and solitary farms, and as you drive slowly on you feel yourself penetrating farther and farther into a rural seclusion to which the modern world has hardly found its way, and where you might expect to surprise a peaceful community of ancient New England, as in threading the remoter recesses and heights of the Catskill you might come upon a party of Hendrik Hudson's crew.