It was from Spain also that Europe copied the arrangement of the modern theatre; the first playhouses there were merely open covered court-yards, after the classical fashion of Thespis. The _patio_ became the _pit_, into which women were never admitted. The rich sat at the windows of the houses round the court; and as almost all these in Spain are defended by iron gratings, the French took their term, _loge grillée_, for a private box. In the centre of the house, above the pit, was a sort of large lower gallery, which was called _la tertulia_, a name given in those times to the quarter chosen by the erudite, among whom at that period it was the fashion to quote _Tertulian_. The women, excluded from the pit, had a place reserved for themselves, into which no males were allowed to enter--a peculiarity based in the Gotho-Moro separation of the sexes. This feminine preserve was termed _la cazuela_, the stewing pan, or _la olla_, the pipkin, from the hodgepotch admixture, as it was open to all ranks; it was also called “_la jaula de las mugeres_,” the women’s cage--“_el gallinero_,” the henroost. All went there, as to church, dressed in black, and with mantillas. This dark assemblage of sable tresses, raven hair, and blacker eyes, looked at the first glance like the gallery of a nunnery; that was, however, a simile of dissimilitude, for, let there be but a moment’s pause in the business of the play, then arose such a cooing and cawing in this rookery of turtle-doves,--such an ogling, such a flutter of mantillas, such a rustling of silks, such telegraphic workings of fans, such an electrical communication with the Señores below, who looked up with wistful glances on the dark clustering vineyard so tantalizingly placed above their reach, as effectually dispelled all ideas of seclusion, sorrow, or mortification. This unique and charming pipkin has been just now done away with at Madrid, because, as there is no such thing at Covent Garden, or Le Français, it might look antiquated and un-European. The theatres of Spain are small, although called Coliseums, and ill-contrived; the wardrobe and properties are as scanty as those of the spectators, Madrid itself not excepted; when filled, the smells are ultra-continental, and resemble those which prevail at Paris, when the great people is indulged with a gratis representation; in the Spanish theatres no neutralizing incense is used, as is done by the wise clergy in their churches. If the atmosphere were analysed by Faraday, it would be found to contain equal portions of stale cigar smoke and fresh garlic fume. The lighting, except on those rare occasions when the theatre is illuminated, as it is called, is just intended to make darkness visible, and there was no seeing into the henroosts towards which the eyes and glasses of the foxite pittites were vainly elevated. [Sidenote: THE BOLERO.]