Nero and Louis XIV. were the two sublime monarchs who were most addicted to private theatricals; but the Roman outdid the Frenchman. We know that persons of the Senatorial and Equestrian orders, and of both sexes, played the parts, but we do not know how they liked or disliked what they dared not decline. One can fancy, however, the figure and feelings of the Roman knight when he began to practise riding on an elephant that trotted swiftly along a rope. What strong expletives he must have muttered to himself!--any one of which, uttered audibly, would have cost him his head as a fine levied by his imperial manager. As to Nero’s riding, and racing, and wrestling, and charioteering, as an amateur, among professionals who always took care to be beaten by him, these things were nothing compared with his ardour as a private player, and especially as what would now be called an opera singer. After all, Nero was more like an amateur actor who plays in public occasionally than an actor in strictly private theatricals. There is no doubt of his having been fond of music; he was well instructed in the art and a skilful proficient. His first great enjoyment after becoming emperor was in sitting up night after night playing with or listening to Terpnus the harper. Nero practised the harp as if his livelihood depended on it; and he went through a discipline of diet, medicine, exercise, and rest, for the benefit of his voice and its preservation, such as, it is to be hoped, no vocalist of the present day would submit himself to. Nero’s first appearance on any stage was made at Naples. The _débutant_ was not at all nervous, for, though an earthquake made the house shake while he was singing, he never ceased till he had finished his song. Had any of the audience fled at the earthquake, they probably would have been massacred for attending more to the natural than the imperial phenomenon. But we can fancy that, when some terrified Drusus got home and his Drusilla asked him about the voice of the _illustrissimo_ Signor Nerone, Drusus looked at her and answered, ‘Never heard such a shake in all my life!’