FIRST HORSEMAN. "What a noise they make tuning their fiddles When's this thing going to begin?"

SECOND HORSEMAN. "Begin! Why, it has begun. This is BEETHOVEN'S Symphony in C."

THIRD HOUSEMAN. "Don't you know the Symphony at Sea? It represents a storm, you know."

YOUNG LADY FROM BOSTON. "How divinely beautiful! It ought to be played, however, by GILMORE'S Band. They do not understand classical music in New York."

ACCOMPANYING FRIEND. "Hush. PAREPA is going to sing."

There is a tremulous motion felt throughout the vast building. It is the approach of PAREPA, who skips lightly—like the little hills mentioned by the Psalmist—across the stage. She curtseys, and her skirts expand in vast ripples like the waves of a placid sea when some huge line-of-battle ship sinks suddenly from sight. She smiles a sweet and ample smile. She flirts her elegant fan, and gallant little CARL ROSA—who can lead an orchestra better than the weightiest German of them all—is swept swiftly away, whirling like a rose-leaf before the breath of the gentle zephyr. Then she sings.

What is the grand orchestra compared with the exhaustless volume of her matchless voice! What the chorus of three thousand singers or the multitudinous pipes of the great organ! Far above chorus or orchestra or organ soar her clear notes, full, rich, ringing. Her voice, like her majestic presence, was made expressly for Boston Jubilees and BEETHOVEN Centennials. The former can fill the largest building the continent has ever seen; the latter—well, the latter is perceptible at quite a distance.

The "Inflammatus" is sung, and sung again, and then the programmes rustle, as the audience looks to see who has the rashness to follow PAREPA the peerless.

RURAL PERSON. "Now we're goin' to hear somethin' like. The New Jersey Harmonic Society is agoin' to sing 'When first I saw her face in 1616.' I don't like none of your operas. That 'inflammation' may be a big thing,' but give me some old-fashioned toon."

Accordingly the New Jersey Society sings, and sings extremely well. The simple melody sung by these gentle rustics pleases the people. They demand its repetition, and it is generally conceded that the native Jerseyman has more music in what he regards as his soul, than the wilder aborigines who follow SPOTTED TAIL and SWIFT BEAR.

YOUNG LADY FROM BOSTON.—"How sweet these old madrigals are. That piece, however, ought to have been played by GILMORE'S Band. These New Jersey people know nothing about any music that is above OFFENBACH'S melodies."

And then everybody is seized with an impulse to whisper to everybody else, "Now we are to have the Star Spangled Banner."

It is evident that the American nation hungers and thirsts after something over which it may wax patriotic and loyal. It has no monarch, and the absurdity of becoming enthusiastic over GRANT'S cigar is only too manifest. It is therefore obliged to content itself with simulating a frantic admiration of the Flag.

Now the flag is rather a pretty one, and to people north of MASON and DIXON'S line, possesses many interesting associations. But the doggerel which the late Mr. KEY attempted to celebrate it, is not altogether above reproach. Beginning with the Bowery interrogative "Sa-ay," and ending with a reference to the "land of the free and the home of the brave," which the late ELIJAH POGRAM, or the present NATHANIEL BANKS might have written, it is simply the weakest of rhymed buncombe wedded to the cheapest of pinchbeck music. And yet we fancy ourselves inspired when we hear it.

Fortunately, as sung at the BEETHOVEN festival, the words are drowned by the music, and the music by the artillery. It thus becomes an inarticulate patriotic "yawp," of tremendous ear-splitting power. But the public likes it.

They greet it with tremendous roars of applause. The artillery, discharged with uniform promptness several seconds in advance of time, renders them wild with delight. PAREPA'S voice, rising at intervals above even the combined din of instruments, voices, and cannon, is hardly heeded by them. Noise is what they want, and they have a surfeit of it. It is only after the performance is ended that the vision of GILMORE'S ecstatic coat-tails, as they danced to the wild whirling of his maniacal baton, comes back to their memory. Then they smile and say, "Curious fellow that GILMORE. Knows how to make himself a pleasing and prominent feature."

But the Boston young lady says in a serious tone, "GILMORE'S band should have played that piece without any assistance. These New York people do not understand the potentialities of brass."

Perhaps we don't. And then again perhaps we do.—Boston may have a monopoly of virtue, but it has hardly a monopoly of brass.

After the patriotic noise comes the Oberon overture, led by CARL ROSA so daintily that it is the best performance of the evening. By and by everybody attempts to leave in advance of everybody else, with a view to a seat in the cars; and the first night of the Centennial is over.

And nine-tenths of the people remark that it is "bully."

And several of the remainder speak patronizingly of it.

And the critics go up to the "Press Room" for another glass of—in short, for a sandwich:

And the Boston young lady expresses her firm conviction, that GILMORE should have managed the whole affair, without the interference of those uncultivated New-Yorkers.

And the fat lady from the Fifth Avenue remarks that "nothing has occurred to mar the misanthropy of the occasion."

And a wretch who does not consider Miss KELLOGG the "Nightingale of America," smiles a fiendish smile as he thinks that her pretty little voice is to be heard by the conductor and the nearest chorus singers on the following day.

And the undersigned goes home to calm his mind by an hour's perusal of Dr. WATTS, and then to dream of star-spangled GILMORES and electric PAREPA batteries until morning.

MATADOR.