my honour, all the dancers at the opera were as beautiful as
Houris. Even in William IV.'s time, when I think of Duvernay
prancing in as the Bayadere, -- I say it was a vision of
loveliness such as mortal eyes can't see nowadays. How well I
remember the tune to which she used to appear! Kaled used to say
to the Sultan, "My lord, a troop of those dancing and singing
gurls called Bayaderes approaches," and, to the clash of cymbals,
and the thumping of my heart, in she used to dance! There has
never been anything like it -- never. There never will be -- I
laugh to scorn old people who tell me about your Noblet, your
Montessu, your Vistris, your Parisot -- pshaw, the senile
twaddlers! And the impudence of the young men, with their music
and their dancers of to-day! I tell you the women are dreary old
creatures. I tell you one air in an opera is just like another,
and they send all rational creatures to sleep. Ah, Ronzi de
Begnis, thou lovely one! Ah, Caradori, thou smiling angel! Ah,
Malibran! Nay, I will come to modern times, and acknowledge that
Lablache was a very good singer thirty years ago (though Porto
was the boy for me): and they we had Ambrogetti, and Curioni,
and Donzelli, a rising young singer.

But what is most certain and lamentable is the decay of stage
beauty since the days of George IV. Think of Sontag! I remember
her in Otello and the Donna del Lago in `28. I remember being
behind the scenes at the opera (where numbers of us young fellows
of fashion used to go), and seeing Sontag let her hair fall down
over her shoulders previous to her murder by Donzelli. Young
fellows have never seen beauty like that, heard such a voice,
seen such hair, such eyes. Don't tell me! A man who has been
about town since the reign of George IV., ought he not to know