What man would not? Certainly not our dashing acquaintance, Mr. Indigo Boolder. Wherever he went, astonishment, with its open mouth and eyes, surrounded him. He was a wonderful man. It is not known exactly how long he lived at the rate of ten thousand a year out of what he could earn by doing nothing; but it was a long time. Nor how many pieces of silver he borrowed in that period to pay for bill stamps and paper; doubtless sufficient to stock a silver mine. But he drove tandems, did Mr. Boolder, and wore large black whiskers and mustachios, and military trousers: things that tradesmen cannot refuse credit toyou understand. And if any of his creditors presumed to send a messenger to dun him, he would curse him like a lord, and wonder what the deuce his employer meant by insulting a gentleman; wherefore the master would think all must be right with a man who could talk so loud, and continue to supply the garrison on the usual terms. Then, when Sir Thomas Croesus, his neighbour, bought a carriage for two hundred pounds, Boolder astonished him and the world by buying another with a piece of paper, the nominal value of which was three hundred. And when he heard that Sir Thomas had bought a street, he went to his solicitor, to make arrangements for purchasing the whole parish, the taxes of which were so abominably low that he had not the face to pay them to the collector, who never got them. He was an astonishing man. In the social circle, too, 4 Daughters admired his dress, and pious mothers And as his dress was intended to win admiration, his income positively unlimited, and his brothers unknown, he had the opportunity of making love to four angels-three of whom accepted him. It is not recorded whether he intended to take them all to Constantinople, and turn Mahomedan, or not; for, some time after this event, he vanished from the scene of his conquests in company with a mysterious Hebrew. Some persons said it was the Wandering Jew; but others, less imaginative, declared Moshesh to be a sheriff's officer. And the parish of St. Dupes absolutely bellowed forth its astonishment. Il faut étonner. Mr. Meek passes for one of the quietest of the sons of Eve. You would think that to astonish lay directly away from his forte. Yet not so. Offend him in the street, or at his club; knock him down, if you will-and he'll say nothing, and do nothing, but smile his forgiveness. But he goes home fully determined when arrived there to astonish Mrs. Meek with the sweetness of his temper, quiet, still-born humdrum as he is. How useful is a wife! Some astonish by their large expectations-some by their great liberality. Hebbs combined both in himself; or rather, indisputably had the former, and plumed himself upon having the latter. The acorn he planted one day he expected to find an oak tree the next; for every smile he looked for a summer; for every kind act the name of a dozen John Howards. This propensity caused him to be an astonishing person. Take, for example, the manner in which he amazed the charitable of a provincial town. It is not long since they issued an advertisement, appealing to the benevolent for subscriptions towards building a row of almshouses, or something of the sort. This appeal caught the eye of Hebbs, in town, and, in the hurry and excitement of the moment, he sent off to the treasurer eighteen postage stamps, in a letter unpaid, with a request that their receipt might be acknowledged immediately by electric telegraph. We often find men passing with the world for numskulls for a length of time, and then surprising it with their rare cleverness. Witness the first Brutus, Leon in "Rule a Wife and Have a Wife," and Louis Napoleon. Doctor Hurtwell allowed so many people to go out of the world, that in time not a patient would hear of him; but one day a poor fellow applied at his surgery in his absence, for medicine, and the doctor's assistant gave the man, by mistake, a strong physic instead of a strictly harmless compound. Somehow the physic delivered effected a cure, gained Hurtwell a reputation, and he is now carrying all before him. So the Rev. Z. Bell, having preached so many drowsy sermons that there soon promised to be nothing to preach to but the clerk and the empty pews, one day got hold of a sermon that he had not written, and so astonished his sheep with it, and so ensured subsequent success, that the dissolving view he has now always in view represents his poor living melting into a bishopric. Persons who astonish themselves perhaps outnumber all the rest. Particularly are timid creatures apt at times to stand surprised at the temerity of some very unusual action of their own. Weasels turned lions for half an hour or so. Thus poor little Mr. Hyde is a mere instrument in the hands of his great wife he is the family piano, and what key in his construction his wife thinks fit to touch, that note he is forced to sound. But one day the instrument turns stupid, and Mrs. Hyde, in spite of all her thumping at A, is unable to get anything out of him but D. He is quite revolutionary, and taking up his hat he makes towards the Dragon, resolved to contribute alarmingly to the wine duties. But ere he gets half-way there he finds he has hardly sufficient money to pay for a single bottle; he cools, sees his injured wife at home, remembers what he has done, surprise has succeeded his unwonted red-republicanism, to be increased by the ill-used musician when he reaches home again. We wonder if parliamentary speeches ever astonish their authors-they seldom do the public, except by their dulness. And Sunday saints and work-day sinners-are they ever surprised with themselves? Young Jones fell in love, and was for months unable to pluck up a spirit and make it known; and when at last he conquered himself thus far, he amazed himself with his boldness and the lady with his sheepishness; but which hardly equalled the astonishment of all who knew him, when it became known that he had taken to writing unhappy poems about blighted affections and stifled hopes. Why should not miserable lovers have their poet laureate?—and why should not Jones be the man? What pages we could fill about astonishing people who teach a language in three lessons, decipher a man's character by his handwriting, who can tell you how to keep a horse in high spirits upon next to nothing a day; about paupers who marry heiresses, omnibus conductors who are civil; about magistrates just able to read and write and speak bad grammar, astonishing folks by being in their office at all, no less than by the manner in which, being in, they deport themselves; about persons who live nobody knows how, and hold their heads above everybody, nobody knows why. In short, about two-thirds of the people in the world, what a chapter, for a long one, we could write. PROGRESS OF THE CHOREGRAPHIC ART IN ENGLAND. In this, the nineteenth century of the Christian era, the glory, greatness, and splendour of potent nations reside, methinks, neither in their material strength, nor in the number of their possessions within or without; but, thanks to the pacific tendencies of our times, the splendour, greatness, and glory of such nations arise and spring from the prosperity of their industry and commerce, aided, developed, and maintained by the progress and advances made in the encouragement and protection afforded to science and the fine arts. England, that country of which so many others are jealous, whether they be allies or latent imitators, has, to her everlasting glory, inaugurated such a new era by heralding throughout the whole world, and challenging every civilised nation to the intellectual tournament at her Crystal Palace, thereby taking the vanguard place in civilisation, by proudly hoisting the flag of intellectual progress; and although it may here, perhaps, seem a trite or use subject, yet still I cannot help repeating that we do owe an everlasting tribute of gratitude and admiration to the man of genius who first thought of convening from the four points of our globe those of the human kind, desirous of intellectually partaking of the banquet of peaceful conquest, whose moralising and civilising result will remain for ever unparalleled in the history of ages! Honour, thrice honour to a Prince who, in naturalising himself in British hearts and British sympathies, has, by his enlightened judgment, raised British intellect up to the highest standard of genius! His was the thoughthis was the deed: great, great indeed, has he made himself by that one thought, thus proving the truth of the following beautiful lines from a modern French authoress : Ce qui fait l'homme grand partout-c'est la pensée!.. Such is the language attributed by Madame Emile de Girardin to the anciently renowned, but imperious Queen of Egypt, in her tragedy called Cléopatre," when chiding the sages of her court who came to prostrate themselves in her presence and do her homage. Such, in fact, and in this instance particularly, is the language of truth. Yet, despite the judicious and liberal protection which England bestows upon them, the fine arts have not hitherto followed the general development of the progress of the age, because public attention has been attracted towards, and riveted by, more substantial matters; and even our grand metropolis itself, which, from its multifarious advantages, might be the modern Athens of arts and sciences, as well as it veritably is the Carthage of industry and wealth, where intellectual progress should equal material development-London, I say, is still destitute of certain establishments which would imprint upon her name the stamp of superior pre-eminence, if I may be allowed the expression, and still add to the splendour of her renown. True it is, that widely scattered over its immense area, London possesses many establishments available for the instruction, curiosity, ex amination, or amusement of the public. The Museum, lecture-rooms, literary institutions, scientific institutions, concert-halls, theatres, exhibitions, pleasure-gardens, balls, &c., in very great numbers, are generally frequented by persons fond of instruction, or the votaries of pleasure. But it is generally allowed by all Englishmen who are ambitious of their country's pre-eminence, that the chain of the foregoing mentioned establishments is not yet complete that a link is still wanting, and which link is a place forming a medium between the performances of the opera and the theatres the discussions on political economy of the clubs-the quiet chit-chat of the drawing-rooms-the conversaziones of the literary circles, and the overflowings of the ball-rooms-there is still wanted, I say, an establishment where the aristocracy of birth, wealth, literature, science, and arts, can safely resort to, seeking that intellectual recreation which produces elevation of mind in cultivating the fine arts and the sciences-the whole to be combined in that most attractive of words, NOVELTY. Now this deficiency, this vacuum, or more properly speaking, this desideratum, is proposed to be filled up by the erecting of a Choregraphical Concert Theatre, on the same plan as the one at present existing (but still in an imperfect state) in Paris. Such an establishment is destined to raise London far above all other cities, and, one and all, whether natives or foreigners, will, in truth's sake, be obliged to say, "London is really the metropolis of the civilised world !" a Amongst the arts most neglected in England, I allude especially to music and dancing. For the former, although much has been done, and is still doing, yet much, very much, still remains to be done. Not that there exists amongst us what foreigners have been pleased to call " total absence of musical taste"-far from it; but the art had been for a long time only followed and not cultivated. Its development is now slowly introducing itself into the middle classes of our days, but it must eventually form a part of the popular education, as it does in France, in Germany, and in Italy, where national schools have been founded, are endowed at the expense of their respective governments, and are gratuitously open to the rising generation. Thus is every facility afforded, not only to the enfans du peuple, but to every grade of society upwards, of cultivating their innate taste for music-I mean, to those who have been so favoured by nature, and of acquiring a taste by those whose bluntness of the musical organ may require a stimulant or excitement from exterior impressions. And what I here say of music is applicable to every other branch of the fine arts, as far as encouragement, facilities, and opportunities go. Who Who that has travelled through Germany but has stopped with pleasure to hearken to those choruses of even the agricultural classes, when "from labour free" they congregate together to spend some evening hours in melodiously chanting the "Legends of the Rhine ?" that has visited Italy in her various parts, but has repaired to hear "with ravished ears" the delightful strains poured forth from her village chapels and city cathedrals, strains pure and enchanting like an Italian sky? Who that has seen France all over her eighty-six departments, but has found everywhere écoles gratuites de chant, free singing schools, and sociétés 534 PROGRESS OF THE CHOREGRAPHIC ART IN ENGLAND. philharmoniques? Who that has been in Paris particularly, has not visited with rapture and delight her Conservatoire de Musique, Rue Bergère, that nucleus of talent of every kind in Orpheus and St. Cecilia's art? Yes, a general taste for music is a sure forerunner, or rather an actual guarantee, of an advance in civilisation. And so true is this observation, that some two centuries and a half ago our immortal bard of Avon thus wrote upon music's general civilising effect : "There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st, But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-ey'd cherubins: Such harmony is in immortal souls ; But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it." "I am never merry, when I hear sweet music." You shall perceive them make a mutual stand, By the sweet power of music: Therefore the poet Did feign, that Orpheus drew tears, stones, and floods; The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds, The motions of his spirit are dull as night, Let no such man be trusted.-Mark the music." With regard to dancing, or choregraphy rather, in all its splendour of composition and its fairy-like execution, I may say that not only in our own, but in almost every other country of Europe, this art is far from having received the development it has a right to demand. For more than a century has it remained stationary, if it have not receded; and yet, what enjoyment is equal to the feelings afforded by a spirited ballet, harmonising with a superior musical accompaniment, as our eyes have been gratified with in those rare individual apparitions from time to time, allowing us at will to imagine what dancing might one day become? Now, if, as it has been said, "Harmony often softens manners," certainly, à fortiori, choregraphy must polish them. And this is so true, that history mentions as the most civilised times those when ballets were most in favour. It is therefore proposed that London, ere six months roll over our heads, should be in the enjoyment of a Choregraphical Concert Theatre, to be erected in a central neighbourhood of the fashionable West, capable of commodiously containing at least two thousand spectators; the decorations of the interior to be on a most sumptuous plan, and the establishment itself to be under the patronage of the aristocracy. In fact, |