the scene, was attracted towards a box near us, which
was occupied by a noble English family just arrived at Milan. In the
front of the box sat a beautiful girl apparently not fifteen, with
laughing lips and dimpled cheeks, the very personification of
blooming, innocent, _English_ loveliness. I watched her (I could not
help it, when my interest was once awakened) through the whole scene.
I marked her increased agitation: I saw her cheeks flush, her eyes
glisten, her bosom flutter, as if with sighs I could not overhear,
till at length, overpowered with emotion, she turned away her head,
and covered her eyes with her hand. Mothers!--English mothers! who
bring your daughters abroad to finish their education--do you well to
expose them to scenes like these, and _force_ the young bud of early
feeling in such a precious hot-bed as this? Can a finer finger on the
piano,--a finer taste in painting, or any possible improvement in
foreign arts and foreign graces, compensate for one taint on that
moral purity, which has ever been (and may it ever be!) the boast,
the charm of Englishwomen? But what have I to do with all this?--I
came here to be amused and to forget;--not to moralize or to
criticise.

Vigano, who is lately dead, composed the _Didone Abbandonata_ as well
as _La Vestale_, Otello, Nina, and others. All his ballets are
celebrated for their classical beauty and interest. This man, though
but a dancing-master, must have had the soul of a painter, a musician,
and a poet in one. He must have been a perfect master of design,
grouping, contrast, picturesque, and scenic effect. He must have had
the most exquisite feeling for musical expression, to adapt it so
admirably to his purposes; and those gestures and movements with which
he has so gracefully combined it, and which address themselves but too
powerfully to the senses and the imagination--what are they, but the
very "poetry of motion," _la poesie mise en action_, rendering words a
superfluous and feeble medium in comparison?

I saw at the Mint yesterday the medal struck in honour of Vigano,
bearing his head on one side, and on the other, Prometheus chained; to
commemorate his famous ballet of that name. One of these medals,
struck in gold, was presented to him in the name of the government:--a
singular distinction for a dancing-master;--but Vigano was a
dancing-master of _genius_; and this is the land, where genius in
every shape is deified.

The enchanting music of