going to notice: but we wish to observe, that ladies, always delightful, and not the least so in their undress, are apt to deprive themselves of some of their best morning beams by appearing with their hair in papers. We give notice that essayists, and of course all people of taste, prefer a cap, if there must be anything: but hair, a million times over. To see grapes in paper bags is bad enough, but the rich locks of a lady in papers, the roots of the hair twisted up like a drummer's, and the forehead staring bald instead of being gracefully tendrilled and shadowed! it is a

capital offence, a defiance to the love and admiration of the other sex, a provocative to a paper war: and we here accordingly declare the said war on paper, not having any ladies at hand to carry it at once into their headquarters. We must allow, at the same time, that they are very shy of being seen in this condition, knowing well enough how much of their strength, like Samson's, lies in that gifted ornament. We have known a whole parlor of them flutter off, like a dovecot, at the sight of a friend coming up the garden.

But to return to our table. Ham is a good thing, but it is apt to fever our sedentary notions. We prefer cracking the round end of an egg with the back of a silver spoon, not a horn spoon, which is flimsy and inefficient. A judicious jerk of the former upon a good, fair, dome-like shell issuing out of the egg cup, maketh a pretty result to the sensations. We cannot, in conscience, recommend hot buttered toast; but it is a pleasing guilt. The best adventure to which it can give rise, is when you

have modestly taken one of the outside pieces, and find your gentility rewarded by carrying off the whole of the crumb part of the inner one, the crust of which has been detached. Chocolate has a nutty taste, but is heavy. Coffee is heating, but has a fine, serious flavor in it, if well done. You seem to taste the color of it. We used to prefer it at all times, but tea has become preferable to the meditative state of our digestion. How the Chinese came to invent it, as Sancho would say, we do not know: but it is the most ingenious, humane, and poetical of their discoveries. It is their epic poem

1820.

GOING TO THE PLAY AGAIN.

WITH the exception of Oberon, we have not

WITH

Iwith the exception of perfon, wice till the

performance other night for these six or seven years. Fortune took us another way; and when we had the opportunity we did not dare to begin again, lest our old friends should beguile us. We mention the circumstance, partly to account for the notice we shall take of many things which appear to have gone by; and partly out of a communicativeness of temper, suitable to a Companion. For the reader must never lose sight of our claims to that title. On ordinary occasions, he must remember that we are discussing morals or mince-pie with him; on political ones, reading the newspaper with him; and in the present instance, we are sitting together in the pit (the ancient seat of

criticism), seeing who is who in the play-bill, and hearing the delicious discord of the tuning of instruments, - the precursor of harmony. If our compan

ion is an old gentleman, we take a pinch of his snuff, and lament the loss of Bannister and Mrs. Jordan. Toothache and his nephew occupy also a portion of our remark; and we cough with an air of authority. If he is a young gentleman, we speak of Vestris and Miss Foote; wonder whether little Goward will show herself improving to-night; denounce the absurdity of somebody's boots, or his bad taste in beauty; and are loud in deprecating the fellows who talk loudly behind us. Finally, if a lady, we bend with delight to hear the remarks she is making, “far above” criticism; and to see the finer ones in her eyes. We criticise the ladies in the boxes; and the more she admires them, the more we find herself the lovelier. May we add, that ladies in the pit, this cold weather, have still more attractions than usual; and that it is cruel to find ourselves sitting, as we did the other night, behind two of them, when we ought to have been in the middle, partaking of the genial influence of their cloaks, their comfortable sides, and their conversation? We were going to say, that we hope this is not too daring a remark for a Companion: - but far be it from us to apologize for anything so proper. Don't we all go to the theatre to keep up our love of nature and sociality?

It was delightful to see "the house" again, and to feel ourselves recommencing our old task. How pleasant looked the ceiling, the boxes, the pit, everything! Our friends in the gallery were hardly noisy

enough for a beginning; nor, on the other hand, could we find it in our hearts to be angry with two companions behind us, who were a little noisier than they ought to have been, and who entertained one another with alternate observations on the beauty of the songs and the loss of a pair of gloves. All is pleasant in these recommencements of a former part of one's life; this new morning, as it were, re-begun with the lustre of chandeliers and a thousand youthful remembrances. Anon the curtain rises, and we are presented with a view of the lighthouse of Genoa, equally delicious and unlike, some gunboats returning from slavery, salute us with meek puffs of gunpowder, about as audible as pats on the cheek, - the most considerate cannon we ever met with: - then follow a crowd and a chorus, with embraces of redeemed captives, meeting their wives and children, at which we are new and uncritical enough to feel the tears come into our eyes; and, finally, in comes Mr. " Atkins," with a thousand memories on his head, — husband that was of a pretty little singer some twenty years back, now gone, Heaven knows where, like a blackbird. It seemed wrong in Atkins to be there, and his wife not with him. Yet we were glad to see him notwithstanding. We knew him the instant we heard him speak.

Native Land (a title, by the by, which looks like one of the captives, with an arm off) is worth going to see, for those who care little about plot or dialogue, provided there be good music. Part of the music is by Mr. Bishop, the rest from Rossini. It is seldom that any of Mr. Bishop's music is not worth hearing,

The

and one or two of the airs are among Rossini's finest. There is Di piacer, for instance; and we believe another, which we did not stay to hear. We fear it is a little out of the scientific pale to think Rossini a man of genius; but we confess, with all our preference for such writers as Mozart, with whom, indeed, he is not to be compared, we do hold that opinion of the lively Italian. There is genius of many kinds, and of kinds very remote from one another, even in rank. greatest genius is so great a thing that another may be infinitely less, and yet of the stock. Now Rossini, in music, is the genius of sheer animal spirits. It is a species as inferior to that of Mozart, as the cleverness of a smart boy is to that of a man of sentiment; but it is genius nevertheless. It is rare, effective, and a part of the possessor's character: - we mean, that like all persons who really affect anything beyond the common, it belongs and is peculiar to him, like the invisible genius that was supposed of old to wait upon individuals. This is what genius means; and Rossini undoubtedly has one. "He hath a devil," as Cowley's friend used to cry out when he read Virgil; and a merry devil it is, and graceful withal. It is a pity he has written so many commonplaces, so many bars full of mere chatter, and overtures so full of cant and puffing. But this exuberance appears to be a constituent part of him. It is the hey-day in his blood; and perhaps we could no more have the good things without it than some men of wit can talk well without a bottle of wine and in the midst of a great deal of nonsense. Now and then he gives us something worthy of the most popular names of his coun