erms:

We saw, as in a dream (declared one of them), an Elssler or
a Taglioni descend from the clouds, under the traits of a
new dancer, whose fervent admirers lavished on her all the
enthusiasm and applause with which the rare perfection of
her predecessors has been rewarded.

On Saturday last, between the acts of the opera, Donna Lola
Montez was announced to appear on the programme at Her
Majesty's. A thousand ardent spectators were in feverish
anxiety to see her. Donna Lola enchanted everyone. There was
throughout a graceful flowing of the arms--not an angle
discernible--an indescribable softness in her attitude and
suppleness in her limbs which, developed in a thousand
positions (without infringing on the Opera laws), were the
most intoxicating and womanly that can be imagined. We never
remember seeing the _habitues_--both young and old--taken by
more agreeable surprise than the bewitching lady excited.
She was rapturously encored, and the stage strewn with
bouquets.

Lord Ranelagh and his friends must have grinned when they read this
gush.

"I saw Lumley immediately after the fall of the curtain," says a
reporter who was admitted behind the scenes. "He was surrounded by the
professors of morality from the omnibus-box, who said that Donna Lola
was positively not to reappear. They pointed out to him that it was
absolutely essential to have none but exemplary characters in the
ballet; but they did not tell him where he would procure females who
would have no objection to exhibiting their legs in pink silk
fleshings. As Lumley could not afford to offend his patrons, he was
compelled to accept the _fiat_ of these virtuous scions of a moral and
ultra-scrupulous aristocracy. Carlotta Grisi might have had a score of
lovers; but, then, she had never turned up her charming little nose at
my Lord Ranelagh."

It was an age when the theatre had to kow-tow to the patron. Unless My
Lord approved, Mr. Crummles had no choice but to ring down the
curtain. As the Ranelagh faction very emphatically disapproved, Lumley
was compelled to give the recruit her marching-orders.

Lola's _premiere_ had thus become her _derniere_.

By the way, a Sunday paper, writing some time afterwards, was guilty
of a serious slip in its account of the episode, and mistook Lord
Ranelagh for the Duke of Cambridge. "The newcomer," says this critic,
"was recogn