The use of intense light has favoured the introduction of new effects in the shape of transparent scenery; that is, of a scene that looks like any ordinary one, but is painted on a thick gauzy material. Thus, in the first act, the back of the scene in the Corsican Palace is of this material, through which the tableau of the Paris duel is shown, a fierce light being cast upon it. In the original representation the whole wall descended and revealed the scene. The upper half ascending, the other offers something of a magic-lantern or phantasmagorian air. The same material is used in the dream in ‘The Bells,’ when the spectral trial is seen going on, made mysterious and misty by the interposition of this gauze. In the duel scene one of the swords is broken by an accident; the other combatant breaks his across his knee, that the duel may proceed “on equal terms.” It is not, of course, to be supposed that a sword is broken every night. They are made with a slight rivet and a little solder, the fitting being done every morning, so that the pieces are easily parted. But few note how artfully the performers change their weapons; for in the early stages of the duel the flourishings and passes would have soon caused the fragments to separate. It is done during the intervals of rest, when the combatants lean on the seconds and gather strength for the second “round,” and one gets his new weapon from behind a tree, the other from behind a prostrate log. But it is in the next act that the series of elaborate set scenes succeeding each other entails the most serious difficulties, only to be overcome in one way—viz., by the employment of an enormous number of persons. Few modern scenes were more striking than that of the Opera House lit _à giorno_, with its grand chandelier and smaller clusters running round. The blaze of light was prodigious; for this some five thousand feet of gas-tubing had to be laid down, the floor covered with snake-like coils of indiarubber pipes, and the whole to be contrived so as to be controlled from a single centre-pipe. There were rows of boxes with crimson curtains, the spectators filling them—some faces being painted in, others being represented by living persons. Yet nothing could be more simple than the elements of this Opera House. From the audience portion one would fancy that it was an elaborately built and costly structure. It was nothing but two light screens pierced with openings, but most artfully arranged and coloured. At its close, down came the rich tableau curtains, while behind them descended the cloth with the representation of the lobby scene in the Opera House. It used to be customary for the manager’s friends to put on a mask and domino and mingle with the gay throng of roysterers in the Opera House scene, or to take a place in one of the practicable boxes and survey the whole—and a curious scene it was. A cosy supper in the Beef-steak room, and a pleasant _causerie_ through the small hours, concluded a