could do, if we could not hear the opera once in a while, we should refuse to believe that such dignity and beauty of utterance could be kept up alongside of the grave old cobbler's humorous bedevilment. Beckmesser wants to serenade Eva--mistaking Magdalena at the window in Eva's dress for that lady; Sachs insists on finishing Beckmesser's new shoes for the contest of the morrow, and revenges himself for the insult inflicted upon Walther in the morning by striking one blow for every mistake. Before this is arranged there is a long altercation, and as the heat of the men's temper dies down that sweet love melody of the old world creeps in again; but then the farce commences. Beckmesser's song is almost outrageous caricature; the parody of the academics of Wagner's day who made no mistakes from the academic point of view, and yet could write nothing that sounded right, is excruciatingly funny; then David, under the impression that the chief of the academics is serenading Magdalena, comes out, goes in to fetch a stick, comes out again armed, and sets to work with it upon Beckmesser; the good burghers have been annoyed by Beckmesser's caterwauling and Sachs' hammering; out they come to keep their streets in order; and the tumult begins in serious earnest. Every one hits at every one else, as Irishmen hit, it is said, at Donnybrook Fair; Beckmesser is sadly injured; Sachs kicks David indoors, Eva and Magdalena are got in to Pogner's; Sachs gets Walther in with him also; the row dies down. No one save Sachs and David knows how it started; no one knows why it ends. It is--allowing for the lapse of four centuries--rather like a cab accident in London or any other great city: ladies in night attire look out of windows, and, seeing their husbands engaged in deadly warfare, in the very spirit of Miss Miggs begin to empty pails of cold water over the combatants indiscriminately. Apparently this cools the ardour of everybody. One by one the crowd makes for shelter; the watchman's horn is heard a few streets away; and when he arrives with his lantern and stick a few minutes later the alley and platz are deserted. The moon shines out on the lovely scene; the old man chants his call--it is eleven of the night; all the world should be in bed; all the lights and fires should be out; he goes off, leaving us the wondrous picture of old Nuremberg sleeping in the heart of old Germany; and the curtain slowly falls. A very ineffective "curtain" it was in the eyes of most opera-goers in the 'sixties, and is in the eyes of the ordinary play-goer of to-day; but, for all that, one of the most superb to be found in the whole of the dramatic works of the world.