The opera-house presented but a gloomy appearance, from the extreme scarcity of light, till the curtain drew up, and discovered a brilliant chandelier, which hung directly over the actors. The illumination of the stage cast the audience into deeper obscurity; therefore, of the company in the boxes Louis had very little cognizance, while the dresses and decorations of the opera, and the exquisite singing, might have filled him with admiration, had not the style of the music, reminded him of the first time he had heard the like, when the fair Italian sung in his uncle's castle. He recollected his consequent feelings that night; and humiliated in the remembrance, compared those hours of infatuation, with his admiration of Otteline, and exclaimed to himself--"What a slave have I been, to my eye and ear! Music, I shall never like again; and beauty I shall abhor!" As there was little of the latter, excepting youth and a blooming complexion, in the smiling Amelia, to warn him of his abjuration; her incessant questions and remarks on what was going forward on the stage, amused him; and his attention to what she said, gratified the views of her mother. Apostola Zero, the father of the regular Italian Opera, had been invited to Vienna by the Emperor; and to reward his acquiescence, Charles invested him with two dissimilar, but productive employments--Imperial historiographer, and poet of the court opera. The grateful Italian dedicated his comprehensive genius solely to his munificent patron; and the present performance was the first night of a new composition he had formed on the story of Proserpine. The last act was a representation of the infernal kingdom; laying bare the foundations of Ætna, and exhibiting all the terrors of the subterranean world. The curtain had hardly dropped, which it did in some confusion, when an extraordinary bustle was heard behind the scenes. Soon after, the theatre filled with smoke, and cries of fire were distinctly heard from behind. Persons from the boxes jumped on the stage, while the curtain was rent down by those before and behind it; and the scene of horror that was discovered to those, who were not so entirely absorbed in their fears but they could look around them, is not to be described. The fire was seen bursting in several directions; men were mounted aloft on the burning rafters, breaking down with their hatchets the combustible apparatus in the way. Water was dashing and streaming everywhere. The terrible light which filled the stage, too well pourtrayed the inside of a raging volcano; sheets of flame, like forked tongues, threw themselves forward from a thousand gaping mouths, licking the ceiling, and entering the boxes. Shrieks, and groans, and dismal cries, mingled with the iron clang of hammers, the fall of timber, and the rush of fire and of people, assailed the ear in one horrid moment of time.