not exercising, you are sure to see Satirists jump
on his back. Dozens, foreign and domestic, are on the back of Old
England; a tribute to our quality if at the same time an irritating
scourge. The domestic are in excess; and let us own that their view of
the potentate, as an apathetic beast of power, who will neither show the
power nor woo the graces; pretending all the while to be eminently above
the beast, and posturing in an inefficient mimicry of the civilized,
excites to satire. Colney Durance had his excuses. He could point to the
chief creative minds of the country for generations, as beginning their
survey genially, ending venomously, because of an exasperating unreason
and scum in the bubble of the scenes, called social, around them. Viola
under his chin, he gazed along the crowded hall, which was to him a rich
national pudding of the sycophants, the hypocrites, the burlies, the
idiots; dregs of the depths and froth of the surface; bowing to one, that
they may scorn another; instituting a Charity, for their poorer fawning
fellows to relieve their purses and assist them in tricking the world and
their Maker: and so forth, a tiresome tirade: and as it was not on his
lips, but in the stomach of the painful creature, let him grind that
hurdy-gurdy for himself. His friend Victor set it stirring: Victor had
here what he aimed at!

How Success derides Ambition! And for this he imperilled the happiness of
the worthy woman he loved! Exposed her to our fen-fogs and foul
snakes--of whom one or more might be in the assembly now: all because of
his insane itch to be the bobbing cork on the wave of the minute!
Colney's rapid interjections condensed upon the habitual shrug at human
folly, just when Victor, fronting the glassy stare of Colonel Corfe,
tapped to start his orchestra through the lively first bars of the
overture to Zampa.

We soon perceive that the post Mr. Radnor fills he thoroughly fills,
whatever it may be. Zampa takes horse from the opening. We have no
amateur conductor riding ahead: violins, 'cellos, piano, wind-stops:
Peridon, Catkin, Pempton, Yatt, Cormyn, Colney, Mrs. Cormyn, Dudley
Sowerby: they are spirited on, patted, subdued, muted, raised, rushed
anew, away, held in hand, in both hands. Not earnestness worn as a cloak,
but issuing, we see; not simply a leader of musicians, a leader of men.
The halo of the millionaire behind, assures us of a development in the
character of England's merchant princes