and opera. I fancy that this sound--which, seeming to be more distinct
at this hour than at any other time, might be called one of the civic
voices of the night--has certain urbane suggestions, not unpleasant to
those born and bred in large cities. The moon, round and full, gradually
usurps the twinkling lights of the city, that one by one seem to fade
away and be absorbed in her superior lustre. The distant Mission hills
are outlined against the sky, but through one gap the outlying fog which
has stealthily invested us seems to have effected a breach, and only
waits the co-operation of the laggard sea-breezes to sweep down and
take the beleaguered city by assault. An ineffable calm sinks over the
landscape. In the magical moonlight the shot-tower loses its angular
outline and practical relations, and becomes a minaret from whose
balcony an invisible muezzin calls the Faithful to prayer. "Prayer is
better than sleep." But what is this? A shuffle of feet on the
pavement, a low hum of voices, a twang of some diabolical instrument,
a preliminary hem and cough. Heavens! it cannot be! Ah, yes--it is--it
is--SERENADERS!

Anathema Maranatha! May purgatorial pains seize you, William, Count
of Poitou, Girard de Boreuil, Arnaud de Marveil, Bertrand de Born,
mischievous progenitors of jongleurs, troubadours, provencals,
minnesingers, minstrels, and singers of cansos and love chants!
Confusion overtake and confound your modern descendants, the "metre
ballad-mongers," who carry the shamelessness of the Middle Ages into
the nineteenth century, and awake a sleeping neighborhood to the
brazen knowledge of their loves and wanton fancies! Destruction and
demoralization pursue these pitiable imitators of a barbarous age,
when ladies' names and charms were shouted through the land, and
modest maiden never lent presence to tilt or tourney without hearing a
chronicle of her virtues go round the lists, shouted by wheezy heralds