ten people could have sat embowered. A more perfectly
English woodland scene it would be impossible to imagine, and here,
as Mrs. Grote told me, Mendelssohn found the inspiration of much of
the music of his "Midsummer Night's Dream." (The overture he had
composed, and played to us one evening at my father's house, when
first he came to England, before he was one-and-twenty.) At one time
Mrs. Grote contemplated erecting some monument in the beautiful wood
to his memory, and showed me a copy of verses, not devoid of merit,
which she thought of inscribing on it to his honor; but she never
carried out the suggestion of her affectionate admiration; and to
those who knew and loved Mendelssohn (alas! the expressions are
synonymous), the glorious wood itself, where he walked and mused and
held converse with the spirit of Shakespeare, forms a solemn sylvan
temple, forever consecrated to tender memories of his bright genius
and lovely character.

When first I knew Mrs. Grote, however, her artistic sympathies were
keenly excited in a very different direction; for she had
undertaken, under some singular impulse of mistaken enthusiasm, to
make what she called "an honest woman" of the celebrated dancer,
Fanny Ellsler, and to introduce her into London society,--neither of
them very attainable results, even for as valiant and enterprising
a person as Mrs. Grote. When first I heard of this strange
undertaking I was, in common with most of her friends, much
surprised at it; nor was it until some years after the entire
failure of this quixotic experiment, that I became aware that she
had been actuated by any motive but the kindliest and most mistaken
enthusiasm.

Mademoiselle Ellsler was at this time at the height of her great and
deserved popularity as a dancer, and whatever I may have thought of
the expediency or possibility of making what Mrs. Grote called "an
honest woman" of her, I was among the most enthusiastic admirers of
her great excellence in her elegant art. She was the only
intellectual dancer I have ever seen. Inferior to Taglioni (that
embodied genius of rhythmical motion) in lightness, grace, and
sentiment; to Carlotta Grisi in the two latter qualities; and with
less mere vigor and elasticity than Cerito, she excelled them all in
dramatic expression; and parts of her performance