half open to catch breath. Taglioni seldom smiles, a seals her lips. She performs her long, and graceful, cated feats without any apparent respiration. You with this, and you lean tranquilly back in your com d'Amphitheatre, extremely delighted that she who now does it without any labour, any toil, any difficulty. seem all her motions. "Any body could dance lik almost exclaim; and yet the highest efforts of other mere accessories to Taglioni's achievements. She ha which they would give all the world to possess, som she herself probably cannot account for, something liar, mysterious. Why does Taglioni dance so well? dances out herself. Nature has given her a peculiar fra whose natural action fulfils all the conditions necessa grace. Taglioni knows this. She very well knows th grace can be successfully engrafted upon her. Wer tate even some beau ideal of grace which her own might possibly create, she would perhaps fail. She ha out herself-or rather, not to speak it profanely, she ha nature act itself through her. Her chief feature is und that feature indeed which characterizes all highest eff department of thought or action. As she does every t toil, so she does every thing without knowledge. We the applause momently rained down upon her, I am she herself would never know or feel that she move than ordinary grace. Madame Julia is conscious that she dances well. proclaims to you that she is thus conscious. She tal step which does not seem to say, "was not that finely There are continual drafts made on your astonishme ration. Sometimes you pay them, sometimes not. Ta you at liberty to be charmed or to be indifferent. S tonishes; nay more, she never surprises you. She with a tranquil charm and a delight. What use is whirl about, times without number, in a pirouette? W for her to stand upon her left foot's great toe, with he higher than her head? What use is it for her to lea snap her feet ten times together ere they touch agai Rightly she leaves these little tricks and clap-traps to tists. She has another sphere. She knows enough 1 step the modesty" of that sphere. She is in the most ar perhaps of all the world, and yet in every thing is she pronounced her walk, alone, to be worth a voyage across the Atlantic. It is certainly very fine, and her gesticulation is likewise marked by that indescribable beauty which characterizes the more complicated pantomime of her dance. With what captivating naïveté did she not fill the character of Fleur des Champs! Her grace ran through the entire story like a golden thread, binding together its dream-like fancies, from the time she is first seen in her cradle of roses, to the concluding moment, when in her shell she ascends to the world through the waters of old father Danube. This ballet is, I think, one of the most delightful works of art, in its way, that I have seen. I did not regard it merely as a graceful exhibition of plastic muscle, rather as a living and breathing language, embodying a story not altogether unpoetical. It has certainly nothing of the utile. It is all of the dulce. It is all lightness, and beauty, and grace, charming away your hour of rest, and seemingly of the same unsubstantial stuff whereof dreams are made. Pronounce it ridiculous if you please. It is still a part of the great system of means for accomplishing this necessary end, the amusement of the Parisians. So far as it illustrates a taste of the time, you cannot, hard-reasoning Utilitarian as you are, daff it aside with absolute indifference. With respect to it, even your beloved question of "What does all this prove?" may not be entirely in vain. Friday night. I have just come from seeing Taglioni in another ballet, entitled the Sylphide. This and the Fille du Danube are now the only pieces in which she performs. I was more charmed than on the former occasion. The beauty of simplicity is inex. haustible. Taglioni is the beau ideal of simplicity. Taglioni can never tire. Nay, the more I see her, the more of newness and of charm does she reveal. What is the Sylphide? A fantastic and fairy thing, whose scenes are laid in Scotland. The curtain rising, you see a young lowland shepherd slumbering, and over him, as if in guardiance, hangs a sylph. This sylph is Taglioni. She is in white; a garland is on her head; she bears wings like those which painters have given to Psyche, and her position is that to which you have been familia. rized by numberless engravings in the musical windows of Paris and London. She rises, moves her wings to cool the air which the youthful Scot breathes, awakens him by a kiss on the forehead, and while in a dreamy confusion, he pursues her moving like a phantom, she swiftly disappears up the chimney of the apartment. Now awaking his comrade Gurn, he asks him if he has seen that fairy form. No; Gurn has only dreamed of Effie, who, by the bye, likes the young Scot far better than him. Effie is indeed the pro. It mised bride of this young Scot. Preparations are soon made for their nuptials, in the midst of which comes in an old witch, Madge by name, who reading the palms of all the lads and virgins present, foretells, among other things, that Effie will be the wife, not of the young Scot, but of Gurn. The former is soon left alone. He is half in love with the sylph, or rather with a certain vision of his sleep, for such to him does Taglioni seem. Well, while he is musing, up rises a distant window, and the sylph appears therein. By mysterious means she sails down to where stands her beloved. She appears sad, for he is soon to marry Effie. Notwithstanding her sadness, he resolves to abide true to his Scottish bride. Taglioni now goes through some steps of surpassing grace to win him. is all in vain. And yet if there be any thing which may worthily cheat a young man into forgetfulness, not only of his vows but of all the past, it is the style of Taglioni. She now folds around her the cloak which Effie had accidentally left behind. This trick succeeds. The recreant Scot salutes the sylph's lips. Gurn happened to see this. He gives notice to Effie and her companions that the Scot is billing and cooing with an unknown damsel. They rush in. The sylph had swiftly seated herself in a large arm-chair, over which, for concealment, is thrown Effie's cloak. Gurn suddenly jerks up said cloak, but lo! the form has vanished. Mighty is the machinery of the Academie Royale de Musique. It is complete diablerie. There is nothing like it in all the world. I shall not detail the various events which take place ere the Scot finds himself, alas! quite disloyal to his first love, and led on, captivated by the sylph, far away into her own fairy realms. I think that never was stage scenery arranged, so as, even in any remote degree, to equal that which these realms present. It is executed by French taste, out of abundant governmental funds; and its ambition is to outrival any thing of the kind in Europe. It is indeed unique and magnificent beyond all parallel. In the theatres of my own country I had been taught to think it a pretty clever feat, if but one good-looking actress were made to soar, by the aid of ropes and wires, from the nether to the upper regions. But fancy to yourself an entire score of French nymphs, flying at the same moment through what seemed the heavens, near and far away, over meadows and among groves, while approaching on the earth from the distance, appears a band of some forty or fifty others, each in white, adorned with rose wreaths, and beating their Psyche wings, as, with Taglioni at their head, they advance and retire in every line of beauty and of grace. What a magnificent succession of tableaux could their successive positions have been, transferred to the canvass! Could only the lines written by Taglioni on the un retaining air have been traced on paper, they would have formed a study for any sculptor or painter. All seems enchantment. It is airy, and wavering, and noiseless as a dream. You hear not the fall of a single footstep. All is in motion, and all is in deep stillness. Surely there could be desired no more perfect realization of fairy land than this. The French do these things well. They understand exactly what will delight in this luxurious centre of all the world, where thousands on thousands congregate for no other mortal end than mere amusement. The ballet is a work of art. It must be executed on a grand scale, and with nicest delicacy in all its minutest details, that it may please the artificial tastes which have been created to enjoy it. It is so executed; and every night is it witnessed by thousands, thronging the immense theatre to the very roof. The part of the young Scot was performed by an Italian named Guerra. He dances with vigour and extreme legerity. His elastic springs surprise you. His pirouettes astonish. Therein lies his genius. He twirls about swiftly and painfully long. Indeed, the wags of the theatre declare that Guerra would pirouette until doomsday did not the Police close the house each night at twelve. He, however, discloses a consciousness. He seems to know that he dances well. Like Madame Julia, his attitudes are continually saying, "think of that." It neutralizes half the effect of his fine motions. It But what is the denouement of the tale? the Scot is in fairy land. There, strange to say, the sylph plays the coquette. She delights him with her motions, but she vanishes away whenever he attempts to approach her. In these scenes is Taglioni again inimitable. It is as a sylph that she should always be seen. It is only thus that all her grace and lightness can shine out. seems to be a character necessary for the success of one who, though upon the earth, seems, so far as motion is concerned, to be so little of the earth. The coquetry of Taglioni, the sylph, is the only amiable coquetry I have ever seen. It enabled her to reveal some new capacities of her finely moulded form. It was soon, however, to be subdued. The Scot having sought out and requested the above-mentioned Madge to give him a charm whereby he might secure the sylph, receives a crimson scarf. This he found occasion dexterously to fling around her. Embraced within its folds, her wings fall from her shoulders, and she falls dead to the earth. With the loss of her liberty has passed away her life. The Scot, of course, is inconsolable. Her sister sylphs now cluster around the lifeless form, enshroud it in a transparent veil; and while with it they slowly ascend heavenwards by the mysterious propulsion of their wings, the cur |