CHAP. I - “ESMERALDA”

Summary

Without being as over curious as Elia, when he demanded “a rationale of sauces, a theory of mixed flavours, and the ability of a reason for the relish that is in us,” if we would suit the preparations of dinner to the pleasures of the evening, an old fashioned beef-steak and a pint of port should prelude one of Shakspeare's plays; the risotto and the macaroni of a genuine Italian tratteria introduce the languid voluptuous cavatinas of the Donnizettis and the Bellinis; a modicum of champagne tune the spirits to the gay pitch of the Opera Comique, and an exquisite French dinner (why not at Vefour's?), unspoiled by barbarian English notions, be performed as a reasonable prologue to a first night at L'Académie Royale.

To speak seriously—the mind, if not the body, should be prepared to take its part in all national amusements, with something of the national spirit. Yet, how many Englishmen are there, who, by having cultivated such Catholicism, are capable of pronouncing a judgment upon the Grand Opera of the French? It has been again and again called by our tourists and journal writers, nay, and by our professed critics, a heavy, noisy, splendid, fatiguing amusement,—a pageant without singers, palling upon the eye, and either deafening or lacerating the ear.