LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS, 
217 
partiality in awarding the meed of preference to the theatrical 
corps of the Victory, for in our judgements we have generally, 
though perhaps not universally,been inclined to award the decree 
to nature, leaving art to move for a new trial, with the liberty 
*o challenge every Esquimaux, who is glaringly deficient in every 
inmg winch appertains to art, as an unfit person to form one of 
the jury. 
We will not take upon ourselves to insinuate that Capt. Ross 
as stage manager of the theatrical exhibition on board the Vic- 
tory, manifested the slightest intention to follow the example of 
the manager of the Opera House, or that when he had determined 
that the performances should take place, he had so far an eye 
upon the system adopted in that theatre, as to order that the 
opera, or the singing was to precede the ballot or the dancing, 
for we are by far too careful of the fame and reputation of Capt. 
Ross, and which in spite of all contradiction has been most espe¬ 
cially evinced in the progress of this work, as to attach to him 
the stigma of following in the track of others, when his own 
great and commanding genius was in itself all sufficient to strike 
out an original course for himself; in the present instance there¬ 
fore, it may have been the effect of mere chance, that the ballot 
of the Esquimaux was to succeed the opera, and accordingly, 
although neither Spagnoletti nor Mori was present to lead, nor 
in fact was there any proscenium to draw up; the dancers 
arranged themselves in their proper order, and the Taglioni, 
followed by the Brocard and Elsler, and all the corps de ballet 
were ready to display their graceful motions before the great 
commander of the Victory, and his enraptured crew. Had the 
bishop of London, or the Rev. Edward Irving; had Jeremy 
Taylor or John Wesley been present, they might have gazed at 
the exhibition, without the slightest wound being inflicted upon 
the extreme delicacy of their feelings—no tourbillons nor pirouett¬ 
ing was to be seen—no circumvolution of the petticoats, until 
they resembled one half of the unfortunate cylinders, which were 
then imbedded in the ice; they would only have seen a huge 
mass of human flesh covered with seal skin, attempting by a 
sudden jump to get nearer to heaven, and then coming down 
10 2 F 
