The opera at Rome was tolerably supported. David was the hero, and the beautiful Dardanelli the prima donna. The one piece played during our stay was the Othello of Rossini, its popularity requiring no change; but, had the passive Romans been inclined to demand any, and murmured their disapprobation, the independence even of musical criticism would have been rewarded with the cavaletto, whose discipline is brought into activity whenever any one of the audience hisses in defiance of the order, that no mark of disapprobation shall be testified at the theatre.*

 *On the first murmur the offender is seized by the police or guards, with which the theatre is filled (for the most military government in Europe is the Pope's), and he is carried to the Piazza Navona, where he is mounted in a sort of stocks and flogged. He is then carried back, and placed in his seat, to enjoy the rest of the opera "with what appetite he may."