t a day would come when the animals
would sup with their masters, and upon their masters." Considering the
preparatory ordeal and frequent perils of their profession, dancers
fairly earn the money and honours paid to them. Crowned heads have
condescended to treat them as equals. At Stuttgart, we are told,
Taglioni, towards the commencement of her career, won the affections of
the Queen of Wurtemberg, who shed tears at her departure. At Munich, the
King of Bavaria introduced her to his Queen, with the words,
"_Mademoiselle, je vous presente ma femme_." "At Vienna she was once
called before the curtain twenty-two times in one evening, and was drawn
to her hotel, in her own carriage, by forty young men of the first
Austrian families." Every one remembers the enthusiasm excited by Fanny
Elssler amongst the matter-of-fact Yankees. During her last engagement
at the French opera her salary was eighty thousand francs a-year.
Taglioni and Elssler personify the two styles into which the present
school of dancing is divided, the _ballonne_ and the _tacquete_. The
former is lightness combined with grace, when the dancer seems to float
upon air. The _tacquete_ is vivacity and rapidity; little quick steps on
the points of the feet.

The principal singers now engaged at the French opera are Duprez and
Gardoni, tenors; Baroilhet, the barytone; Bremond and Serda, who have
succeeded, if they could not replace, the celebrated bass, Levasseur;
and Madame Stoltz. Duprez is well known in England as a singer of great
energy and admirable method, but whose powers have grievously suffered
from over-exertion. Halevy and Meyerbeer should be indicted as the
assassins of his once beautiful voice. The five tremendous acts of
Robert le Diable, and the stunning accompaniments of the author of the
Juive, are destructive to any tenor. In Paris, Duprez is still a
favourite, especially in Guillaume Tell, considered his crack part.
Gardoni, who has now been two years on the opera boards, has replaced
him in some of his characters. This young singer has a very fresh and
melodious voice, great taste and feeling, but lacks power, and, it is to
be feared, will share the fate of most of his predecessors, and soon
succumb to the thundering orchestra of the Academie Royale.[14] As Mr.
Hervey very justly observes, there is no medium for a tenor at the
French opera. He must either scream, in order to be heard above the
music, or be wholly inaudible. Baroilhet is un