CHRONICLE. 



331 



16 spacious and superb ; in the 

 center is a square table of immense 

 size — thesurface mahoganj', highly 

 polished ; the presses vvliich line the 

 room are in wainscot, finished with 

 the most exquisite taste. In the 

 construction of this splendid edifice, 

 the calamitous fate of the late two 

 great winter theatres has not been 

 forgotten. Every means of safety 

 against fire, or other accident, that 

 ingenuity could devise, has been 

 adopted. At all convenient intervals 

 are strong party walls, with iron 

 doors, by which, if a fire were to 

 break out, it would be confined 

 within that particular compartment, 

 and be prevented from spreading 

 through the house. The fire-places 

 are also made with the grates turn- 

 ing upon a pivot, by which means 

 the front can be moved round to the 

 back, and the fire is thus extin- 

 guished without the possibility of 

 accident. Water-pipes are also in- 

 sinuated into every part of the 

 house, through which they are 

 spread hke veins through the hu- 

 man body. Great brass cocks, 

 which, when turned, would pour 

 the contents into the house, present 

 themselves to the eye in the lobbies 

 and other open places. 



Tlie flight of stairs to the upper 

 gallery consists of 1 20 steps, and the 

 number of bricks laid down in seven 

 months, amounted to seven millions; 

 a circumstance which may afford an 

 idea of the magnitude of the edifice, 

 and the celerity with which it has 

 been built. The materials are of 

 the best quality, and the building is 

 most substantial and secure. Pre- 

 vious to its opening its strength was 

 tried by immense leaden weights 

 placed on the several tiers, greatly 

 exceeding the weight of the most 

 crouded audience that could be 

 compressed into the liouse, and yet 



the building did not in any point 

 give wa}'. 



We ought to have mentioned a 

 verygreat improvement in the doors, 

 which not only facilitates admission, 

 but which affords the most satisfac- 

 tory means of security, in case any 

 accident should render the imme- 

 diate evacuation of the theatre ne- 

 cessary. The doors, now, instead 

 of opening backwards or forwards, 

 upon touching a spring, slide late- 

 rally, and are whollj' removed from 

 the passages. 



The interior of this theatre is 

 exceeded by no building ancient or 

 modern, and the entire structure 

 will probably remain an example to 

 the present and succeeding ages, 

 of elegance and magnificence con- 

 trolled and directed by an unri- 

 valled simplicity and taste, and a 

 commodiousness and general com- 

 petency to its various purposes of 

 which there is no parallel in any 

 building of the same kind. 



26. IVestphalia. — The follomng 

 letter, after our disappointments 

 in the North of Germany, will be 

 read with a degree of interest pro- 

 portioned to the mortification it 

 produces. 



You may form a tolerable idea 

 of the miserable state of oppression 

 the people of this kingdom groan 

 under, by the subsequent anec- 

 dote : — 



" Some time after the war against 

 France broke out in Austria, the 

 people of Hesse Cassel, and the 

 officers and soldiers of the armies, 

 indignant at the tyranny of the 

 government of Jerome, entered 

 into a plot to overturn his throne. 

 The officers were to wear a par- 

 ticular mark worked on the coat 

 sleeve. — About two miles from 

 Hesse Cassel stands a convent, for 

 the reception of ladies of high 



rank 



