era-dancer, the gymnast, Mr. Sheridan's boxing-school, and Du Crow, are only the comments on the books on physiology which they keep on their parlor tables and lend to their pale-faced, low-statured friends. So much has, for a long time, the intellect had the upper hand, that we wonder all this shrunken and suffering generation do not snatch the ball and hoop from their children's hands and give their days to restoring to the body its native vigor and pliancy; nor should we wonder at the pleasure in opera-dancing, if it were merely a display of feats of agility and muscular

power.

But great as is the pleasure received from the sight of a perfect discipline of limb and motion, till they are so pliant to the will that the body seems but thickened soul, and the subtlest emotion is seen at the fingers' ends, and this undoubtedly is the true state of man, and his body, if not thus transparent, is no better than a soul case, or rude hut in which he lives, this is the lesser half. The range of pantomime is as great as the world, and the rapidity and fulness in the motions of the ballet give it an advantage, on its side, perhaps commensurate with those derived by the drama from the beauty of poetic rhythm, and the elaborate and detailed expression of thoughts by means of words.

In seeing those ballets which were mostly of a light and graceful character, it was easy to perceive that their range might include the loftier emotions, and that it only required a suitable genius in the performer to make Medea a suitable subject for performance.

The charms of M'lle. Elssler are of a naive sportive character, it is as the young girl, sparkling with life and joy, new to all the varied impulses of the heart, half coquettish, more than half conscious of her captivations, that she delights us. She was bewitching in the arch Cracovienne, and in the impassioned feeling of life in her beautiful Spanish dances. The castanets seem invented by that ardent people to count the pulses of a life of ecstasy, to keep time with the movements of an existence incapable of a dull or heavy moment. Blossoming orange groves, perfumed breezes, and melting moonlight fill the thoughts, and the scene seems to have no darker background.

The Gipsy is of the same fascinating and luxurious character. It is beautiful, but, lately, in reading Borrow's book upon the Spanish Gipsies, and recalling this ballet, we could not but feel of how much more romantic a character the composition was susceptible. It is but a French Gitana, however graceful and fascinating, that appears in this ballet.

La Sylphide seems to require a different order of genius from that of M'lle. Elssler. She is sweetly childlike in her happy play, and evasions of her lover's curiosity. The light hovering motions of the piece, however, suggest an order of grace more refined and poetic than hers, such as is ascribed to Taglioni.

In Natalie we saw her to most advantage, and here she appeared to us perfect. The coquettish play of the little peasant queen among her mates, her infantine enchantment as she examines the furniture in the splendid apartment to which she has been conveyed in her sleep, her look when she first surveys herself in a full length mirror, the beautiful awkwardness that steals over her as she prinks and stiffens herself before it, and then the dizzy rapture of the little dance into which she flutters, her timid motions towards the supposed statue, the perfect grace of her weariness as she sits down tired with dancing before it, and the whole tissue of the emotions she exhibits after it comes down and reveals itself, all this is lovely à ravir, for only with French vivacity could one feel or speak about it.

That perfect innocence of gesture which a young child exhibits when it has to ask for some little favor which it hopes to obtain from your overweening fondness, or the attitude in which one "tired of play" suddenly sinks down leaning on some favorite companion with an entire abandonment, these rare graces were displayed by the hacknied artiste with a perfection that must be seen to be believed, so truer than life were they!

We do not know that the effect she produces can be attested better than by saying that one beautiful afternoon when the trees were all in blossom and the fields in golden green, looking from a wooded cliff across the fields, across the river, was heard from a house opposite at a great distance, played upon a violin, the first movement

with which the pas de deux commences in Natalie, and it was easy, it was appropriate to see her form advancing upon the velvet meads, with the same air as on the stage, full of life, full of joy, the impersonation of spring. That must be beautiful and true which will bear being thus called to mind and mingled with the free loveliness of Nature.

In this pas de deux was sufficiently obvious the need of genius to make a dancer, and the impossibility that good taste and education, here or elsewhere, should alone suffice to fill the scene. Her partner, Sylvain, was a light and graceful dancer and understood his part, yet whenever, after her part was done, she retired with timid gentle step and an air that seemed to say, "see how beautiful he will look now. He will show himself worthy of my hand," the light all vanished from the scene, the poetry stopped on the wing, and we saw Sylvain and his steps and thought of the meaning of the dance, distinctly. We wanted to see the prince with the princess, but she was escorted by a gentlemanly chamberlain.

And this is only one kind of beauty, of genius of which the ballet is susceptible. Taglioni's is of an entirely distinct character. We will insert here an account of a ballet composed for her which gives an idea of her style and powers. It is from the Revue de Paris, extracted from a letter dated St. Petersburg, 1839.

L'Ombre, ballet in three acts, given 1839 at the Imperial Theatre of St. Petersburg.

The expense of giving this ballet must have been enormous, but we must confess it was not without its due results. The costumes were of a surpassing magnificence; as to the decorations, both for quantity and quality, they seemed possible only to fairy-land. The four changes of scene in the very first act might astonish eyes habituated to every variety of luxurious display. The second act exhibits only one scene, but it would be pity indeed that it should be changed, so beautiful and novel is it. It is a park and garden of the most enchanting beauty; how unlike those pitiful landscapes usually exhibited by a few twisted trees at the side scenes. This is a true piece of nature, still fresh with the dew of morning, spacious parterres of flowers and verdure stretching out to the very front of the scene, with shrubberies that seem to catch the breeze, and a clear and limpid stream in the background.

The next time the curtain rises, we see a saloon decorated with the utmost taste and splendor. The tapestries and curtains are masterpieces, of themselves; the arabesques copied from Raphael with a religious precision. By sixty steps they descend into this sumptuous apartment, where three hundred and fifty persons could dance with ease. Look! Would you not think these colossal proportions betokened the remains of some Babylonian palace? The palace totters in fact, and all these riches fall into a heap of ruins. But reassure yourself. With the next stroke of the wand, you will witness a yet more glorious transformation. This place where your ear already presaged the lugubrious notes of the owl, is become the site of an eternal dwelling, and you, still living, find yourself in Elysium.

What then is the picture which requires so sumptuous a frame? you cry. - Patience, and you shall hear.

After all the different creations filled out by M'lle. Taglioni, you may conceive that the choregraphists have been somewhat at a loss to invent for her any new occasion. What new style could they discover for her who had been an Oriental in "La Revolte au Serail," a Greek divinity in "Le Pas de Diane," a water nymph in “La Fille du Danube," an aerial being, almost an angel in "La Sylphide," an ardent Spaniard, almost a courtezan in "La Gitana." Has not Taglioni taken possession of all the realms, the air, the water, and the earth? - Her empire reaches from the sea to the stars; in every region we encounter the perfumed and luminous track left by that white wing. And Taglioni belongs to the family of indefatigable artists, urged without cessation towards the ideal by a secret and noble ardor, those laborious geniuses for whom every conquered obstacle is an incentive to seek new obstacles to conquer, and who cannot traverse the same path twice. If you feel this and recall the title of the new ballet, you will not need to have me tell you that the scene is placed in the invisible, and that the heroine of the ballet is but a lovely phantom, the gracious and serene shade of a poor young girl, who died of love.

Without wishing to deprive Mons. Taglioni of the merit of inventing this beautiful work, I think he is not the originator of the idea. The writer, who in all France, perhaps, possesses in the highest degree, the artistical instinct and sentiment, he whose pen, among all the critics of the drama, has been most delicately inspired by M'lle. Taglioni, M. Jules Janin, addressed to her the ravishing and melodious "Adieu, ombre dansante!" when the Sylphide, in 1837, took her flight towards St. Petersburg. Une ombre dansante is in fact the theme of our new ballet. A pure young girl appears at first, fair and pale,

her heart full of love and singing hopes; she has in her hand a bouquet of flowers.

This fair child begins to dance; she knows not that death is so near her. Why does she so often press those flowers to her lips? She thinks she breathes from them the love of him whom she loves, but a jealous hand has concealed poison there. Alas! already it circulates in her veins; her light foot totters, a veil spreads over her eyes; she falls; she is dead; let us weep.Not yet, for see she returns into our world, poor ghost who cannot forget a living lover. She glides through the air like a floating cloud, through the tremulous foliage of the willow, over the green grass, or the glittering surface of lakes and rivers, seeking everywhere him whose image she has carried away in a corner of her white shroud. She finds him again at last, after many melancholy hoverings and floatings, between heaven and earth, but what avails it? Can the living arms embrace a shade? But Heaven pities them, and the union of these lovers is soon to be realized in a better world.

The dance with which M'lle. Taglioni began in the first act is called Le pas du bouquet. You may divine its character from the situation I have delineated to you. It is not yet the dancing shade, not yet the mysterious vision, which will by and by leave its luminous furrow in space like the passage of a sunbeam. No! it is the modest and blushing betrothed, whose brow expands, whose eye sparkles with a timid ecstasy, whose innocent bosom heaves above a palpitating heart. Do you not read in the noble attitudes of this young girl, how much she loves; in her gay bounding motions, that she is happy as the bird who sings upon the flowering shrub? But also does not something in her air inform you that her last hour is nigh? See from time to time she shows signs of pain and faintness, bending like a half unfolded rose of May, whose lovely stem is touched by the frost. Ah, can it be that death will not relent at sight of so many charms? Will fate be inexorable in cutting short a life so pure and so innocent? Will no angel descend from heaven to save this virgin so full of graces? Useless prayers, vain hope! M'lle. Taglioni was especially applauded in this Pas du bouquet, for the qualities which have shone in her so many times, yet seem always new each time they are displayed, her noble demeanor, the elegance of her motions, the ease of her gestures at the most difficult moments, the enchanting delicacy of her pantomime, the exquisite precision of her performance always and everywhere.

But the incomparable part, that in which she surpassed herself, and reached the height of a creation, which might with justice be styled supernatural, is the dance of the second act. You remember the beautiful garden, whose delights I was de