20 SEPTEMBER 1935, Page 13

A Hundred Years Ago

" THE SPECTATOR," SEPTEMBER 19TH, 1835.

THE, COLOSSEUM.

The evening entertainments and splendid promenades of the Colosseum continue to attract visiters, and even the moonlit walks outside are not utterly deserted, The amusements are varied every week. Last 'Week, a Mademoiselle Crandi sang and Herr Werner gave a zoological concert—that is, he imitated the different instru, ngionts of an orchestra, and interruPted the musical sounds with the singing of birds, barking of dogs, Sze. This week, Bochia has been performing his Voyage Musicale, assisted by a band and chorus: The day exhibition has lost none of its varied charms ; and the Panorama of London continues to save hundreds the trouble o( going to the top of St. Paul's; and to gratify them with a better view of London than the smoke will* allow rn tho to get in the open air.

*

The habit of eating fast and carelessly is supposed to have para. lyzed Napoleon on two of the most critical occasions of his life—the battles of Borodino and Leipsic, which he might have converted into decisive and influential victories, by pushing his advantages as was his wont. On each of these occasions he is known to have been suffering from indigestion. On the third day of Dresden, too, the German novelist Hoffman, who was present in the town, asserts that the Emperor would have done much more than he did, but for the effects of a shouldet of mutton stuffed with onions—a dish only to be paralleled by the pork-chops which Messrs. Thurtoll and Co. regaled on after completing the murder of their friend Mr. Woare.