[Transcriber's Note: Spelling and punctuation are unchanged. Exceptions are noted at the end of the text. ]

 [Illustration]

 A

 TREATISE

 on the

 ART

 of

 DANCING. 

 By _Giovanni-Andrea Gallini_. 

 _LONDON_:

 Printed for the AUTHOR; And Sold by R. DODSLEY, in _Pall-Mall_; T. BECKET and P. A. DE HONDT, in the _Strand_; J. DIXWELL, in _St. Martin's-Lane_, near _Charing-Cross_; and At Mr. BREMNER's Music Shop, opposite _Somerset-House_, in the _Strand_. 

 MDCCLXXII. 

 The TABLE

 of CONTENTS. 

 _Of the Antient Dance_ p. 17

 _Of Dancing in General_ 49

 _Of sundry Requisites for the Perfection of the Art of Dancing_ 89

 _Some Thoughts on the Utility of Learning to Dance, and especially upon the Minuet_ 139

 _Summary Account of various Kinds of Dances in different Parts of the World_ 181

 _Of Pantomimes_ 227

ADVERTISEMENT. 

What I have here to say is rather in the nature of an apologythan of a preface or advertisement. The very title of a Treatiseupon the art of dancing by a dancing-master, implicitlythreatens so much either of the exageration of the profession, or of the recommendation of himself, and most probably of both, that it cannot be improper for me to bespeak the reader'sfavorable precaution against so natural a prejudice. Myprincipal motive for hazarding this production is, indisputably, gratitude. The approbation with which my endeavours to please inthe dances of my composition have been honored, inspired me withno sentiment so strongly as that of desiring to prove to thepublic, that sensibility of its favor; which, in an artist, ismore than a duty. It is even one of the means of obtaining itsfavor, by its inspiring that aim at perfection, in order to thedeserving it, which is unknown to a merely mercenary spirit. Under the influence of that sentiment, it occurred to me, thatit might not be unpleasing to the public to have a fair state ofthe pretentions of this art to its encouragement, and even toits esteem, laid before it, by a practitioner of this art. Instating these pretentions, there is nothing I shall more avoidthan the enthusiasm arising from that vanity or self-conceit, which leads people into the ridicule of over-rating the meritor importance of their profession. I shall not, for example, presume to recommend dancing as a virtue; but I may, withoutpresumption, represent it as one of the principal graces, and, in the just light, of being employed in adorning and makingVirtue amiable, who is far from rejecting such assistence. Inthe view of a genteel exercise, it strengthens the body; in theview of a liberal accomplishment, it visibly diffuses a gracefulagility through it; in the view of a private or publicentertainment, it is not only a general instinct of nature, expressing health and joy by nothing so strongly as by dancing;but is susceptible withall of the most elegant collateralembellishments of taste, from poetry, music, painting, andmachinery. 

One of the greatest and most admired institutors of youth, whosefine taste has been allowed clear from the least tincture ofpedantry, Quintilian recommends especially the talent ofdancing, as conducive to the formation of orators; not, as hevery justly observes, that an orator should retain any thingof the air of a dancing-master, in his motion or gesture; butthat the impression from the graces of that art should haveinsensibly stoln into his manner, and fashioned it to please. 

Even that austere critic, Scaliger, made the principles of itso far his concern, that he was able personally to satisfy anEmperor's curiosity, as to the nature and meaning of the Pirrhicdance, by executing it before him. 

All this I mention purely to obviate the prepossession of theart being so frivolous, so unworthy of the attention of themanly and grave, as it is vulgarly, or on a superficial view, imagined. It is not high notions of it that I am so weak as toaim at impressing; all that I wish is to give just ones: itbeing perhaps as little eligible, for want of consideration, tosee less in this art than it really deserves, than, from a fondpartiality for it, to see more than there is in it. 

 A

 TREATISE

 on the

 ART of DANCING. 

 _Of the ANTIENT Dance. _

In most of the nations among the antients, dancing was not onlymuch practised, but constituted not even an inconsiderable partof their religious rites and ceremonies. The accounts we have ofthe sacred dances, of the Jews especially, as well as of othernations, evidently attest it. 

The Greeks, who probably took their first ideas of this art, as they did of most others, from Egypt, where it was in greatesteem and practice, carried it up to a very high pitch. Theywere in general, in their bodies, extremely well conformed, anddisposed for this exercise. Many of them piqued themselves onrivalling, in excellence of execution, the most celebratedmasters of the art. That majestic air, so natural to them, whilethey preserved their liberty, the delicacy of their taste, andthe cultivated agility of their limbs, all qualified them formaking an agreeable figure in this kind of entertainment. Nothing could be more graceful than the motion of their arms. They did not so much regard the nimbleness and capering withthe legs and feet, on which we lay so great a stress. Attitude, grace, expression, were their principal object. They executedscarce any thing in dancing, without special regard to thatexpression which may be termed the life and soul of it. 

Their steps and motions were all distinct, clear, and neat;proceeding from a strength so suppled, as to give their jointsall the requisite flexibility and obedience to command. 

They did not so much affect the moderately comic, or halfserious, as they did the great, the pompous, or heroic stile ofdance. They spared for no pains nor cost, towards the perfectionof their dances. The figures were exquisite. The least number ofthe figurers were forty or fifty. Their dresses were magnificentand in taste. Their decorations were sublime. A competent skillin the theatrical, or actor's art, and a great one in that ofdancing, was necessary for being admitted into the number offigurers. In short, every thing was in the highest order, andvery fit to prove the mistake of those who imagine that thedances are, in operas for example, no more than a kind ofnecessary expletive of the intervals of the acts, for the reposeof the singers. 

The Greeks considered dancing in another point of light; alltheir festivals and games, which were in greater number thanin other countries, were intermixed and heightened with dancespeculiarly composed in honor of their deities. From beforetheir altars, and from their places of worship, they were soonintroduced upon their theatres, to which they were undoubtedlya prior invention. The strophe, antistrophe, and epode, werenothing but certain measures performed by a chorus of dancers, in harmony with the voice; certain movements in dancingcorrespondent to the subject, which were all along consideredas a constitutive part of the performance. The dancing evengoverned the measure of the stanzas; as the signification of thewords strophe and antistrophe, plainly imports, they might beproperly called danced himns. The truth is, that tragedy andcomedy, made also originally to be sung, but which, in processof time, upon truer principles of nature, came to be acted anddeclaimed, were but super-inductions to the choruses, of which, in tragedy especially, the tragic-writers, could not well getrid, as being part of the religious ceremony. 

This solves, in a great measure, the seeming absurdity of theirinterference with the subject of the drama: being deemed soindispensable a part of the performance, that the scene itselfwas hardly more so: consequently, there was no secret supposedto be more violated by speaking before them, than before theinanimate scene itself. But what was at least excusable, on thisfooting, in the antients, would be an unpardonable absurdity inthe moderns. 

Athenæus, who has left us an account of many of the antientdances, as the _Mactrismus_, a dance entirely for the femalesex, the _Molossic_, the Persian _Sicinnis_, &c. Observes, thatin the earliest ages of antiquity, dancing was esteemed anexercise, not only not inconsistent with decency and gravity, but practised by persons of the greatest worth and honor. Socrates himself, learnt the art, when he was already advancedin years. 

Cautious as I am of using a false argument, I should say, thatthe making dances a part of their religious ceremonies, was amark of their attributing even a degree of sanctity to them; butthat I am aware there were many things that found a place intheir festivals and games, which, among those heathens, were sofar from having any thing of sacred in them, that they did noteven show a respect for common decency or morality. 

But as to dancing, it may be presumed, that that exercise wasconsidered as having nothing intrinsically in it, contrary topurity of manners or chastity, since it made a considerable partof the worship paid to the presiding goddess of that virtue, Diana, in the festivals consecrated to her. Her altar was heldin the highest veneration by the antients. Temples of thegreatest magnificence were erected in honor of this goddess. Whodoes not know the great Diana of Ephesus? The assemblies in hertemples were solemn, and at stated periods. None were admittedbut virgins of the most spotless character. They executed dancesbefore the altar, in honor of the deity, with a most gracefuldecency; invoking her continual inspiration of pure thoughts, and her protection of their chastity. Those of them, whodistinguished themselves above the rest, by superior graces ofperformance, received rewards not only from the priestess ofDiana, but from their own parents. Nor were the young men butcuriously inquisitive, as to who particularly excelled on theseoccasions. Distinction in these dances was a great incentive tolove, and produced many happy unions. 

Such of these virgins as married, retained, in quality of wives, such a veneration for this sort of worship, that they formed anassembly of matrons, who on set days, performed much the samedevotion, imploring, in concert, of the goddess, a continuanceof her gifts, and of that spirit of purity, the fittest to makethem edifying examples of conjugal love and maternal tenderness. 

Innocent amusements having been ever reputed allowable, and evennecessary expedients for relaxing both mind and body from thefatigue of serious or robust occupations, Diana had her temples, especially in countries proper for hunting, where the parentsused to resort with their children, and encouraged them topartake of the diversions in which dancing had a principalshare. 

The antients have left us an unaccountable description of theBacchanalians, whose deportment forms a striking contrast tothe decent regularity observed in the worship of Diana. TheBacchanalians strolled the country, and, in the course of thatvagabond scheme, erected temporary huts, their residence beingalways short wherever they came. In their intoxication theyseemed to defy all decency and order; affecting noise, anda kind of tumultuous, boisterous joy, in which there couldnever be any true pleasure or harmony. They were, in thelicentiousness of their manners, a nuisance to society; whichthey scandalized and disturbed by their riots, their madfrolics, and even by their quarrels. Their heads and waists werebound with ivy, and in their hands they brandished a thirsus, orkind of lance, garnished with vine-leaves. When by any foulnessof weather they were driven into their huts, they passed theirtime in a kind of noisy merriment, of shoutings and dithirambiccatches, accompanied by timpanums, by cymbals, by sistrums, andother instruments, in which noise was more consulted than music, and corresponded to the sort of time they kept to them, in thefrantic agitations of their Bacchic enthusiasm. The Corybanteswere called so from their disorderly dancing as they went along. 

The Pirrhic dance differs not much from Plato's military dance. The invention of it is most generally attributed to Pirrhus, sonof Achilles; at least this opinion is countenanced by Lucian, inhis treatise upon dancing; though it is most probably derivedfrom the Memphitic dance of Egypt. The manner of it was to dancearmed to the sound of instruments. Xenophon takes notice ofthese dances in armour, especially among the Thracians, who wereso warlike a people. In their dance to music, they exhibited theimitation of a battle. They executed various evolutions; theyseemed to wound each other mortally, some falling down as ifthey had received their death-wound; while those who had giventhe blow sung to the song of triumph, called _Sitalia_, andthen withdrew, leaving the rest to take up their seeming deadcomrade, and to make preparations for his mock-funeral, in thepantomime stile of dance. He has also described the dance of theMagnesians, in which they represented their tilling the ground, in an attitude, and in readiness for defence, against expectedmoroders. They put themselves in a posture of protecting theirplough, with other motions expressive of their resolution andcourage, all adapted to the sound of the flute. The morodersarrive, prevail, and bind the husbandmen to their plough, andthis terminates the dance. Sometimes the dance varies, and thehusbandmen prevailing, bind the moroders. 

The same author mentions also the Mysians who danced in armour, and used a particular sort of _peltæ_ or targets, on which theyreceived the blows. In short, these armed dances had differentnames bestowed upon them, according to the countries in whichthey were used. 

The Egyptians and Greeks were extravagantly expensive in theirpublic festivals, of which, dancing always constituted aconsiderable part. 

The Romans, among whom the more coarse and licentious dancesderived from the Hetruscans, had at first prevailed, came atlength to adopt the improvements of taste, and consequently ofdecency and regularity; the festivals, of which dancing was tocompose the principal entertainment, were adapted to the seasonof the year. 

Every autumn, for example, it was a constant custom, for thosewho could afford the expence, to build a magnificent saloon inthe midst of a delightful garden. This ball-room was decoratedin the most brilliant manner: At one end of the ball-room stooda statue of Pomona, surrounded with a great number of basketsmade in the neatest manner, and full of all the finest fruitsthat the season produced. These, with the statue, were placedunder a canopy hung round with clusters of real grapes andvine-leaves, so artfully disposed as to appear of the naturalgrowth. These served to refresh both the eye and mouth. Theperformers of the ball went up to this part of the saloon, incouples, processionally, to avoid confusion. Each youth tookcare to help his partner to what she liked best, and thenreturned, in the same regular manner, to the other end ofthe room, when they served what remained to the rest of thespectators. After which the ball immediately began. 

I was shown, by an Italian painter, a curious picture in hispossession, of the antients celebrating one of this kind offestivals. The attitudes into which the figures were put, andwhich appeared to have been drawn for the conclusion of theball, were beautiful beyond imagination. 

In winter there were balls in the city of Rome; for whichthe appropriated apartments were commodious; and where theilluminations were so great, that notwithstanding the usualrigor of that season, the room was sufficiently warm. 

Round the room there were tables and stands, on which was placedthe desert; and there were generally twelve persons chosen todistribute the refreshments, and do the honors of the ball. Thewhole was conducted with the utmost decency and regularity, while Rome preserved her respect for virtue and innocence ofmanners. 

By the best accounts procurable, their serious dances wereproperly interspersed and inlivened with comic movements. Theirfirst steps were solemn and majestic, and, by couples theyturned under each other's arms; and when the whole thus turnedtogether, they could not but afford a pleasing sight. Afterwhich they resumed the serious again, and so proceededalternately till they concluded the dance. 

In the spring, the country became naturally the scene of theirdances. The best companies resorted, especially to such villagesas were noted for the most pure and salubrious springs of water. If the weather was mild, they danced upon an open green; if not, they formed a large covered pavilion, in the middle of whichthey placed the statue of Flora, ornamented with flowers, roundwhich they performed their dances. First the youth, then thoseof riper years; and lastly, those of a more advanced age. Aftereach of these divisions had danced separately, they all joinedand formed one great circle. The most distinguished forexcellence in the performing these dances, had for reward theprivilege of taking a flower, with great solemnity, from thestatue of the goddess. This was esteemed so high an honor, thatit is scarce imaginable how great an emulation this inspired; asthis privilege was to be obtained by the impartial determinationof the best judges. 

Summer was however the season in which the pleasure of dancingwas carried to the highest pitch. For the scene of it, theychose a shady and delightful part of a wood, where the sunshinecould not incommode them, and where care was taken to clear theground underfoot, for their performance. A young lady of themost eminence for rank and beauty was chosen to personate thegoddess Ceres. Her dress was of an exquisite taste, ornamentedwith tufts of gold, in imitation of wheat-sheaves: while herhead was decked with a kind of crown composed of spangles, representing the ears of ripe corn, and perhaps, for the greatersimplicity, of the natural grain itself. Those who danced roundher, all wore wreaths of the choicest flowers, and were dressedin white, with their hair flowing loose, in the stile ofwood-nimphs. On this occasion, there was always a great croudof spectators; and the joy that appeared in each parent's eye, when their daughters were applauded, made no small part of theentertainment. As garlands, and wreaths of flowers composed theprincipal ornament of the persons who performed in this dance, such a respect was had for it by the people in general, thatthey abstained from gathering any flowers, till after thisfestival was over. 

I have myself seen a drawing of this rural dance, in which Icounted no less than sixty performers. 

The celebrated Pilades is mentioned to have been the greatimprover of this dance. He excluded from it all jumping orcapering, for fear of violating or of disfiguring the gracefulregularity of the whole, which he considered as the mostessential towards preserving a pleasing effect. 

Not less than two months were the usual time of preparation forthis dance, to which there was always a confluence of personsfrom all the neighbouring parts. But none were allowed theliberty of dancing, except persons of the first rank anddistinction in the country; the whole being regulated by someperson acting in quality of _choragus_, or director of thedance. 

The reign of Augustus Cæsar was undoubtedly the epoch, of theestablishment in Rome, of the art of dancing in its greatestsplendor. Cahusac, an ingenious French author, in his historicaltreatise of this art, assigns to that emperor a deep politicaldesign in giving it so great an encouragement as he undoubtedlydid; that of diverting the Romans from serious thoughts on theloss of their liberty; especially in fomenting a dissentionamong them, about so frivolous an object as the competitionbetween those two celebrated dancers, Pilades and Bathillus. That something of this sort might be the design of that emperor, is not to be doubted; but Cahusac, over-heated, perhaps, by hissubject, exagerates the importance of it beyond the bounds ofcool reason. So much however is true, that those two dancerswere extremely eminent in their art, and may be esteemed thefounders of that theatrical dancing, or pantomime execution, forwhich it is not sufficient to be only a good dancer, but thereis also required the being a good actor; in both which lights, these two artists were allowed to excel, Pilades in the seriousor tragic dance, Bathillus in the comic. 

These also founded a kind of academies of dancing, whichproduced several eminent artists, but none that ever equalledthemselves in performance or reputation. What history recordsof them, and of their powers, as well as of that theatricalpantomime dance, of which they were the introductors, in Rome, would exceed belief, if it was not attested by such a number ofauthors as leave no room to think it an imposition. 

But as to dancing itself, either considered in a religious, or in only an amusive light, it may be pronounced to have beenamong the Romans, as old as Rome itself, and like that rude inits beginnings, but to have received gradual improvement, asfast as the other arts and sciences gained ground. 

Processional dances were also much in vogue among that people. They had especially an anniversary ceremony or procession, called, from its pre-eminence, singly, POMPA, or the Pomp. 

It was celebrated, in commemoration of a victory obtained overthe Latians, the news of which was said to have been brought byCastor and Pollux, in person. This festival, was, at first, consecrated to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. But it was afterwardsmade more general, and celebrated in honor of all the Gods. Thisprocession was in the month of September. It began at the templeof _Jupiter Capitolinus_, proceeded to the _Forum Romanum_, fromthence to the _Velabrum_, and afterwards to the _Grand Circus_. You have in Onuphrius Panvinius, the order of this procession atlarge, of which the directors were the chief magistrates of thecity: the sons of the nobility leading the van. Those of theEquestrian order, whose fathers were worth a hundred and fiftythousand sesterces, followed on horseback. It would be hereforeign from my purpose to give the whole description of thisprocession, and of those who composed it. It is sufficient toobserve, that processional dancing constituted a considerablepart of it. The Pirrhic dance, executed to a martial air, calledthe _Proceleumaticus_, employed the men of arms. These werefollowed by persons who danced and leaped, in the manner ofSatirs, some of them in the dress ascribed to _Silenus_, attended by performers on instruments adapted to that characterof dance. These made the comic part of the procession, and thepersons representing Satirs, took care to divert the people byleaps, by a display of agility, and by odd uncouth attitudes, such as were in the character they had assumed. There were alsoin another part of the procession twelve _Salii_, or priests ofMars, so called from their making sacred dances in honor of thatGod, the most considerable part of their worship; these wereheaded by their master or _Præsul_, the leader of the dance, a term afterwards assumed by the Christian Prelates. There werealso the _Salian_ virgins, besides another division of the_Salii_ called _Agonenses_ or _Collini_. 

Nor is the processional dancing any thing surprizing; concerningthat among the heathens, and even among the Hebrews, they weregreatly in use. Who does not know that David's dancing beforethe arch was but in consequence of its being one of thereligious ceremonies on that occasion?

The heathens used especially to form dances before their altars, and round the statues of their gods. The _Salii_, or priests ofMars, whose dances were so framed as to give an idea of militaryexercise and activity, threw into their performance steps soexpressive and majestic, as not only to defend their motions andgestures from any idea of levity and burlesque, which it is sonatural for the moderns to associate with that of dancing, buteven to inspire the beholders with respect and a religious awe. The priests chosen for this function, were always persons of thenoblest aspect, suitable to the dignity of the sacerdotalministry. And so little needs that dignity of the heathenministry be thought to be wounded or violated by the act ofdancing, in religious worship, that dances were actually in useamong the primitive Christians, in their religious assemblies. There was a place in their churches, especially allotted forthese consecrated dances, upon solemn festivals, which evengave the name of _choir_ to those parts of the church now onlyappropriated to the reading of the divine service, and tosinging. In Spain, it long remained an established custom forChristians to assemble in the church-porches, where, in honor ofGod, they sang sacred himns, and to the tunes of them, performeddances, that were extremely pleasing, for the decent andbeautiful simplicity of the execution. All which I mentionpurely to salve that inconsistence, of the levity of dancingwith the gravity of divine worship. An inconsistence of whichthe antients had no idea; since, on that occasion, they almostconstantly joined dancing to singing. 

They are both natural expressions of joy and festivity; andas such they thought neither of them improper in an address ofgratulation to the deity, whom they supposed rather pleased atsuch innocent oblations of the heart, exulting in his manifoldbounties and blessings. 

From before the altar, among the heathens, the admission ofdances upon the theatre, was rather an extension of their powerto entertain, than a total change of their destination; sincethe theatres themselves were dedicated to the worship _of theheathen deities_, of which their making a part was one of theprincipal objections of the primitive Christians to the theatresthemselves. However, it was from the theatres that dancingreceived its great and capital improvement. 

As an exercise, the virtue of dancing was well known to theantients, for its keeping up the strength and agility of thehuman body. There is a remark which I submit to theconsideration of the reader, that it is not impossible butthat the antient Romans, who were, generally speaking, low instature, and yet were eminently strong, owed that advantage totheir cultivation of bodily exercise. This kept their limbssupple, and rendered their constitution stout and hardy. Now, very laborious exercises would rather wear out the machine thanthey would invigorate it, if there was not a due relaxation, which should not, however, be too abrupt a transition from themost fatiguing exercises to a state of absolute rest. Whereasthat dancing, of which they were so fond, afforded them, notonly a pleasing employ of vacant hours, but, withall, in itskeeping up the pliability of their limbs, made them find moreease in the application of themselves to more athletic, or tomore violent exercises, either of war or of the chace: while alltogether bred that firmness of their muscles, that robustcompactness and vigor of body, which enabled them to atchievethat military valor, to which they owed all their conquests andtheir glory. 

Certain it is then, that among the Romans, even in the mostmartial days of that republic, the art of dancing was taught, asone of the points of accomplishment necessary to the educationof youth; and was even practised among the exercises of theCircus. I need not observe, that there were also various abusesof dancing, which they very justly accounted dishonorable tothose who practised them, whether in public or private. These, in the degenerate days of Rome, grew to an enormous excess. ButI presume no one will judge of an art by the abuse that may bemade of it. 

 Of

 DANCING

 In General. 

This is one of the arts, in which, as in all the rest, the studyof nature is especially to be recommended. She is an unerringguide. She gives that harmony, that power of pleasing to theproductions of those who consult her, which such as neglect hermust never expect. They will furnish nothing but monsters anddiscordances; or, at the best, but sometimes lucky hits, withoutmeaning or connexion. 

All the imitative arts acknowledge this principle. 

In Poetry, a happy choice of the most proper words forexpressing the sentiments and images drawn from the observationof nature, constitutes the principal object of the poet. 

In Painting, the disposition of the subject, the resemblanceof the coloring to that of the original, in short the greatestpossible adherence to nature, is the merit of that art. 

In Music, that expression of the passions which should raise thesame in the hearer, whether of joy, affliction, tenderness, orpity, can never have its effect without marking and adopting therespective sounds of each passion as they are furnished bynature. 

In Dancing, the attitudes, gestures, and motions derive alsotheir principle from nature, whether they caracterise joy, rage, or affection, in the bodily expression respectively appropriatedto the different affections of the soul. A consideration this, which clearly proves the mistake of those, who imagine the artof dancing solely confined to the legs, or even arms; whereasthe expression of it should be pantomimically diffused throughthe whole body, the face especially included. 

Monsieur Cahusac, in his ingenious treatise on this art, hasvery justly observed, that both singing and dancing must haveexisted from the primeval times; that is to say, from the firstof the existence of human-kind itself. 

 "Observe, says he, the tender children, from their entry into the world, to the moment in which their reason unfolds itself, and you will see that it is primitive nature herself, that manifests herself in the sound of their, voice in the features of their face, in their looks, in all their motions. Mark their sudden paleness, their quick contortions, their piercing cries, when their soul is affected by a sensation of pain. Observe again, their engaging smile, their sparkling eyes, their rapid motions, when it is moved by a sentiment of pleasure. You will then be clearly persuaded of the principles of music and dancing proceeding from the beginning of the world down to us. "

Certain it is, that even in children, the motions and gesture, strongly paint nature; and their infantine graces are notunworthy the remarks of an artist, who will be sure to findexcellence in no way more obtainable than by a rational studyof her, where she is the purest. 

The cultivation of the natural graces, and a particular careto shun all affectation, all caricature, unless in comic orgrotesque dances, cannot be too much recommended to those whowish to make any figure in this art. It is doing a greatinjustice to it, to place its excellence in capers, in brilliantmotions of the legs, or in the execution of difficult steps, without meaning or significance, which require little more thanstrength and agility. 

I have already observed, that the Greeks, who were so famous forthis art, as indeed for most others, which is no wonder, sinceall the arts have so acknowledged an affinity with each other, studied especially grace and dignity in the execution of theirdances. That levity of capering, that nimbleness of the legs, which we so much admire, held no rank in their opinion. Theywere inconsistent with that clearness of expression, andneatness of motion, of which they principally made a point. Thegreat beauty of movements, or steps, is, for every one of themto be distinct; not huddled and running into one another, so asthat one should begin before the precedent one is finished. Thisso necessary avoidance of puzzled or ambiguous motion, can onlybe compassed by an attention to significance and justness ofaction. This simplicity will arise from sensibility, from beingactuated by feelings. No one has more than one predominantactual feeling at a time; when that is expressed clearly, theeffect is as sure as it is instantaneous. The movement it gives, neither interferes with the immediately precedent, nor theimmediately following one, though it is prepared or introducedby the one, and prepares or introduces the other. 

This the Greeks could the better effectuate, from theirpreference of the sublime, or serious stile; which, having somuch less of quickness or rapidity of execution, than the comicdance, admits of more attention to the neat expressiveness ofevery motion, gesture, attitude, or step. 

As to the great nicety of the Greeks, in the ordering anddisposing their dances, I refer to what I have before said, forits being to be observed, how much at present this art is fallenshort of their perfection in it, and how difficult it must befor a composer of dances to produce them in that masterly mannerthey were used to be performed among the antients. Let histalent for invention or composition be never so rich or fertile, it will be impossible for him to do it justice in the display, unless he is seconded by performers well versed in the art, andespecially expert in giving the expression of their part in thedance; not to mention the collateral aids of music, machinery, and decoration, which it is so requisite to adapt to thesubject. 

But where all these points so necessary are duly supplied, anddancing is executed in all its brilliancy, it would be no longerlooked upon, especially at the Opera, as merely an expletivebetween the acts, just to afford the singers a little breathingtime. The dances might recover their former lustre, and give thepublic the same pleasure as to the Greeks and Romans, who madeof them one of their most favorite entertainments, and carriedthem up to the highest pitch of taste and excellence. 

The Romans seem to have followed the Greeks, in this passionfor dancing; and the theatrical dances, upon the pantomime plan, were in Rome pushed to such a degree of perfection as is evenhard to conceive. Whole tragedies plaid, act by act, scene byscene, in pantomime expression, give an idea of this art, verydifferent from that which is at present commonly received. 

Every step in dancing has its name and value. But not one shouldbe employed in a vague unmeaning manner. All the movementsshould be conformable to the expression required, and in harmonywith one another. The steps regular, and properly varied, with agraceful suppleness in the limbs, a certain strength, address, and agility; just positions exhibited with ease, delicacy, andabove all, with propriety, caracterise the masterly dancer, andin their union, give to his execution its due beauty. The leastnegligence, in any of these points, is immediately felt, anddetracts from the merit of the performance. Every step or motionthat is not natural, or has any thing of stiffness, constraint, or affectation, is instinctively perceived by the spectator. Thebody must constantly preserve its proper position, without theleast contortion, well adjusted to the steps; while the motionof the arms, must be agreeable to that of the legs, and the headto be in concert with the whole. 

But in this observation I pretend to no more than justfurnishing a general idea of the requisites towards theexecution: the particulars, it is impossible, to give in verbaldescription, or even by choregraphy or dances in score. 

Many who pretend to understand the art of dancing, confoundmotions of strength, with those of agility, mistaking strengthfor slight, or slight for strength; tho' so different in theirnature. It is the spring of the body, in harmony with sense, that gives the great power to please and surprize. The same itis with the management of the arms; but all this requires boththe theory of the art, and the practice of it. One will hardlysuffice without the other; which makes excellence in it so rare. 

The motion of the arms is as essential, at least, as that ofthe legs, for an expressive attitude: and both receive theirjustness from the nature of the passions they are meant toexpress. The passions are the springs which must actuate themachine, while a close observation of nature furnishes the artof giving to those motions the grace of ease and expertness. Any thing that, on the stage especially, has the air of beingforced, or improper, cannot fail of having a bad effect. A frivolous, affected turn of the wrist, is surely no grace. 

One of the most nice and difficult points of the art of dancingis, certainly, the management and display of the arms; theadapting their motion to the character of the dance. In thismany are too arbitrary in forming rules to themselves, withoutconsulting nature, which would not fail of suggesting to themthe justest movements. For want of this appropriation ofgesture and attitude, the movements fit for one character areindistinctly employed in the representation of another. And intothis error those will be sure to fall, who deviate from theunerring principles of nature; which has for every character anappropriate strain of motion and gesture. 

Nothing then has a worse effect, than any impropriety in themanagement of the arms: it gives to the eye, the same pain thatdiscordance in music does to the ear. 

There are some who move their arms with a tolerably naturalgrace, without knowing the true rules rising out of nature intoart: but where the advantage of theory gives yet a greatersecurity, consequently a greater ease and a nobler freedom tothe motions of the performer; the performance cannot but meetwith fuller approbation. And yet it may be as bad to show toomuch art, as to have too little. The point is to employ no moreof art than just what serves to grace nature, but never to hideor obscure her. 

Great is the difference between the antient and the moderndances. The antient ones were full of sublime simplicity. But that simplicity was far from excluding the delicate, thegraceful, and even the brilliant. The moderns are so accustomedto those dances from which nature is banished, and falserefinements substituted in her room, that it is to be questionedwhether they would relish the returning in practice to the purerprinciples of the art. Myself knowing better, and sensible thatthe principles of nature are the only true ones, have beensometimes forced to yield to the torrent of fashion, and toadopt in practice those florishings of art, which in theoryI despised; and justly, for surely the plainest imitation ofnature must be the grounds from which alone the performance canbe carried up to any degree of excellence. It is with our art, as in architecture, if the foundation is not right, thesuperstructure will be wrong. 

This primitive source then must be studied, known, and wellattended to; or we only follow the art blindly, and withoutcertainty. Thence the common indifference of so many performers, who mind nothing more than a rote of the art, without tracing itto its origin, nature. 

To succeed, we must abandon the false taste, and embrace thetrue; which is not only the best guide to perfection; butwhen rendered familiar, by much the most easy and the mostdelightful. It has all the advantages that truth has overfalshood. 

The greater the simplicity of steps in a dance, the morebeautiful it is; and requires the more attention in theperformer to exactness and delicacy; for slowness and neatnessbeing in the character of simplicity, afford the spectator bothleisure and distinctness for his examination: whereas dances ofintricate evolutions, or quick motions, in their confusion andhurry, allow no clearness, or time for particular observation. 

If the merit of a theatrical dancer were to consist, as manyimagine, in nothing but in the motions of the legs, in cuttinglively or brilliant capers, in surprizing steps, in the agilityof the body, in vigorous springs, in vaulting, in a tolerablemanagement of the arms, and especially in being well acquaintedwith those parts of the stage where the perspective gives himthe greatest advantage; the art of dancing might be, as it isgenerally looked upon to be, an art easily acquired. Whereas, for the attaining to a just perfection in it, there are manyother points required, but none so much as the close imitationof beautiful nature; and that especially in its greatestsimplicity. 

Nor should it be imagined that the simplicity I recommend, tendsto save the composer of dances any trouble of invention: on thecontrary, that sort of simplicity of execution intended toproduce, by means of its adherence to nature, the greatesteffect, will cost him more pains, more exertion of genius, than those dances of which the false brilliants of extravagantdecoration, and of mere agility without meaning or expression, constitute the merit. It is with the composition of dances, aswith that of music, the plainest and the most striking, are everthe most difficult to the composer. 

The comic, or grottesque dancers, indeed are in possession of abranch of this art, in which they are dispensed from exhibitingthe serious or pathetic; however, they may be otherwise as wellacquainted with the fundamental principles of the art, as thebest masters. But as their success depends chiefly on awakeningthe risible faculty, they commonly chuse to throw their wholepowers of execution into those motions, gestures, grimaces, andcontortions, which are fittest to give pleasure by the raisinga laugh. And certainly this has its merit; but in no otherproportion to the truth of the art, which consists in movingthe nobler passions, than as farce is to tragedy or to genteelcomedy. They are in this art of dancing, what Hemskirk andTeniers are in that of painting. 

The painter, can only in his draught present one single unvariedattitude in each personage that he paints: but it is the dutyof the dancer, to give, in his own person, a succession ofattitudes, all like those of the painter, taken from nature. 

Thus a painter who should paint Orestes agitated by the furies, can only give him one single expression of his countenance andposture: but a dancer, charged with the representation of thatcharacter, can, seconded by a well-adapted music, execute asuccession of motions and attitudes, that will more strongly andsurely with more liveliness, convey the idea of that character, with all its transports of fury and disorder. 

It was in this light, that the antients required the union ofthe actor and of the dancer in the same person. They expected, on the theatre especially, dances of character, that shouldexpress to the eye the sensations of the soul: without which, they considered it as nothing but an art that had left naturebehind it; a mere corpse without the animating spirit; or at thebest, carrying with it a character of falsity or tastelessness. A thorough master of dancing, should, in every motion of everylimb, convey some meaning; or rather be all expression orpantomime, to his very fingers ends. 

How many requisites must concur to form an accomplishedpossession of this talent! It is not enough that the head shouldplay on the shoulders with all the grace of a fine connection;nor that his countenance should be enlivened with significanceand expression; that his eyes should give forth the justlanguage of the passions belonging to the character herepresents; that his shoulders have the easy fall they ought tohave; let even the motions of his arms be true; let his elbowsand wrists have that delicate turn of which the grace is sosensible; let the movement of the whole person be free, genteel, and easy; let the attitudes of the bending turn be agreeable;his chest be neither too full nor too narrow; his sides cleanmade, strong, and well turned; his knees well articulated, andsupple; his legs neither too large, nor too small, but finelyformed; his instep furnished with the strength necessary toexecute and maintain the springs he makes; his feet in justproportion to the support of the whole frame; all these, accompanied with a regularity of motion; and yet all these, however essential, constitute but a small part of the talent. Towards the perfection of it, there is yet more, much morerequired, in that sensibility of soul, which has in it so muchmore of the gift of nature, than of the acquisition of art; andis perhaps in this, what it is in most other arts and sciences, if not genius itself, an indispensable foundation of genius. There is no executing well with the body, what is not dulyfelt by the soul: sentiment gives life to the execution, andpropriety to the looks, motions and gestures. 

Those who would make any considerable progress in this art, should, above all things, study justness of action. They cannottherefore too closely attend to the representation of nature, either upon the stage, or in life. I cannot too often repeat it;those who keep most the great original, Nature, in view, willever be the greatest masters of this art. 

As to the different characters of dances, there are, properlyspeaking, four divisions of the characters of dances: theserious, the half serious, the comic, and the grottesque; butfor executing any of them with grace, the artist should be wellgrounded in the principles of the serious dance, which will givehim what may be called a delicacy of manner in all the rest. 

But as one of these divisions may be more adapted to the humor, genius, or powers of an artist, than another, he should, if heaims at excellence, examine carefully for which it is that he isthe most fit. 

After determining which, whatever imperfections he may have fromnature, he must set about correcting, as well as he can, by art. Nothing will hardly be found impossible for him to subdue, by anunshaken resolution, and an intense application. 

Happy indeed is that artist, in whom both the requisites ofnature and art are united: but where the first is not grosslydeficient, it may be supplemented by the second. However well abeginner may be qualified for this profession by nature, if hedoes not cultivate the talent duly, he will be surpassed byanother, inferior to him in natural endowments, but who shallhave taken pains to acquire what was wanting to him, or toimprove where deficient. The experience of all ages atteststhis. 

The helps of a lively imagination, joined to great and assiduouspractice, carry the art to the highest perfection. But practicewill give no eminent distinction without study. Whoever shallflatter himself with forming himself by practice alone, withoutthe true principles and sufficient grounds of the art, can onlyproceed upon a rote of tradition, which may appear infallibleto him. But this adoption of unexamined rules, and this ploddingon in a beaten track, will never lead to any thing great oreminent. It carries with it always something of the stiffnessof a copy, without any thing of the graceful boldness oforiginality, or of the strokes of genius. 

Vanity should never mislead a man in the judgment he formsof his own talents: much less should an artist resort to themeanness of depending in the support of cabals: it must be thegeneral approbation that must seal his patent of merit. 

I have before observed that the grave or serious stile ofdancing, is the great ground-work of the art. It is also themost difficult. Firmness of step, a graceful and regular motionof all the parts, suppleness, easy bendings and risings, thewhole accompanied with a good air, and managed with the greatestease of expertness and dexterity, constitute the merit of thiskind of dancing. The soul itself should be seen in every motionof the body, and express something naturally noble, and evenheroic. Every step should have its beauty. 

The painter draws, or ought to draw his copy, the actor hisaction, and the statuary his model, all from the truth ofnature. They are all respectively professors of imitative arts;and the dancer may well presume to take rank among them, sincethe imitation of nature is not less his duty than theirs; withthis difference, that they have some advantages of which thedancer is destitute. The Painter has time to settle and correcthis attitudes, but the dancer must be exactly bound to the timeof the music. The actor has the assistance of speech, and thestatuary has all the time requisite to model his work. Thedancer's effect is not only that of a moment, but he must everymoment represent a succession of motions and attitudes, adaptedto his character, whether his subject be heroic or pastoral, orin whatever kind of dancing he exhibits himself. He is by theexpressiveness of his dumb show to supplement the want ofspeech, and that with clearness; that whatever he aims atrepresenting may be instantaneously apprehended by thespectator, who must not be perplexed with hammering out tohimself the meaning of one step, while the dancer shall havealready begun another. 

In the half-serious stile we observe vigor, lightness, agility, brilliant springs, with a steadiness and command of the body. It is the best kind of dancing for expressing the more generaltheatrical subjects. It also pleases more generally. 

The grand pathetic of the serious stile of dancing is not whatevery one enters into. But all are pleased with a brilliantexecution, in the quick motion of the legs, and the high springsof the body. A pastoral dance, represented in all the pantomimeart, will be commonly preferred to the more serious stile, though this last requires doubtless the greatest excellence:but it is an excellence of which few but the connoisseurs arejudges; who are rarely numerous enough to encourage the composerof dances to form them entirely in that stile. All that he cando is to take a great part of his attitudes from the seriousstile, but to give them another turn and air in the composition;that he may avoid confounding the two different stiles ofserious and half-serious. For this last, it is impossible tohave too much agility and briskness. 

The comic dancer is not tied up to the same rules orobservations as are necessary to the serious and half seriousstiles. He is not so much obliged to study what may be callednature in high life. The rural sports, and exercises; thegestures of various mechanics or artificers will supply him withideas for the execution of charracters in this branch. The morehis motions, steps, and attitudes are taken from nature, themore they will be sure to please. 

The comic dance has for object the exciting mirth; whereas, on the contrary, the serious stile aims more at soothing andcaptivating by the harmony and justness of its movements; by thegrace and dignity of its steps; by the pathos of the execution. 

The comic stile, however its aim may be laughter, requirestaste, delicacy, and invention; and that the mirth it createsshould not even be without wit. This depends not only upon theexecution, but on the choice of the subject. It is not enough tovalue oneself upon a close imitation of nature, if the subjectchosen for imitation is not worth imitating, or improper torepresent; that is to say, either trivial, indifferent, consequently uninteresting; or disgustful and unpleasing. The one tires, the other shocks. Even in the lowest classes oflife, the composer must seize only what is the fittest to givesatisfaction; and omit whatever can excite disagreeable ideas. It is from the animal joy of mechanics or peasants in theircessations from labor, or from their celebration of festivals, that the artist will select his matter of composition; not fromany circumstances of unjoyous poverty or loathsome distress. Hemust cull the flowers of life, not present the roots with thesoil and dirt sticking to them. 

Even contrasting characters, which are so seldom attempted onthe stage, in theatrical dances, might not have a bad effect;whereas most of the figures in them are simmetrically coupled. Of the first I once saw in Germany a striking instance; aninstance that served to confirm that affinity between the artswhich renders them so serviceable to one another. 

Passing through the Electorate of Cologne, I observed a numberof persons of all ages, assembled on a convenient spot, anddisposed, in couples, in order for dancing; but so odly pairedthat the most ugly old man, had for his partner the mostbeautiful and youngest girl in the company, while, on thecontrary, the most decrepid, deformed old woman, was led by themost handsome and vigorous youth. Inquiring the reason of sostrange a groupe of figures, I was told that it was the humor ofan eminent painter, who was preparing a picture for the galleryat Dusseldorp, the subject of which was to be this contrast; andthat in order to take his draught from nature, he had given atreat to this rustic company, in the design of exhibiting at oneview, the floridness of youth contrasted to the weakness andinfirmities of old age, in a moral light, of exposing theimpropriety of those matches, in which the objection of adisparity of years should not be duly respected. 

I have mentioned this purely to point out a new resourceof invention, that may throw a pleasing variety into thecomposition of dances; and save them from too constant asimmetry, or uniformity, either of dress or figure, in thepairing the dancers: by which I am as far from meaning that thatsimmetry should be always neglected, as that it should be alwaysobserved. 

The comic dance, having then the diversion of the spectator, in the way of laughing, for its object, should preserve amoderately buffoon simplicity, and the dancer, aided by anatural genius, but especially by throwing as much nature aspossible into his execution, may promise himself to amuse andplease the spectator; even though he should not be very deep inthe grounds of his art; provided he has a good ear, and somepretty or brilliant steps to vary the dance. The spectatorsrequire no more. 

As to the grotesque stile of dance, the effect of it chieflydepends on the leaps and height of the springs. There is more ofbodily strength required in it than even of agility and flight. It is more calculated to surprize the eye, then to entertain it. It has something of the tumbler's, or wire-dancer's merit ofdifficulty and danger, rather than of art. But the worst of itis, that this vigor and agility last no longer than the seasonof youth, or rather decrease in proportion as age advances, and, by this means, leave those who have trusted solely to that vigorand agility deprived of their essential merit. Whereas such asshall have joined to that vigor and agility, a proper study ofthe principles of their art; that talent will still remain as aresource for them. Commonly those dancers who have from natureeminently those gifts which enable them to shine in thegrottesque branch, do not chuse to give themselves the troubleof going to the bottom of their art, and acquiring itsperfection. Content with their bodily powers, and with theapplause their performances actually do receive from the public, they look no further, and remain in ignorance of the rest oftheir duty. Against this dissipation then, which keeps themalways superficial, they cannot be too much, for their ownadvantage, admonished. 

They will not otherwise get at the truth of their art, like himwho qualifies himself for making a figure in the serious, andhalf-serious stiles, which also contribute to diffuse a graceover every other kind of dancing, however different from them. 

But though the grotesque may be a caricature of nature, it isnever to lose sight of it. It must ever bear a due relation tothe objects of which it attempts to exhibit the imitation, however exagerated. But in this it is for genius to direct theartist. And it is very certain that this kind of dancing, wellexecuted, affords to the public, great entertainment in the way, if what may be called broad mirth; especially where the figureof the grotesque dancer, his gestures, dress, and thedecorations, all contribute to the creation of the laugh. Hemust also avoid any thing studied or affected in his action. Every thing must appear as natural as possible, even amidst thegrimaces, contortions, and extravagancies of the character. 

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I have already observed how necessary it is that all the steps, in the theatrical dances, which have imitation for their object, should be intelligible at the first glance of the eye. Thiscannot be too much inculcated. The passions and manners ofmankind, have all a different expression, which cannot bepresented too plain, and too obvious. The adjustment of themotions to the character must be observed through every stile ofdancing, the serious, the half-serious, the comic, and thegrotesque. The various beauties of these different kinds ofdances, all center in the propriety or truth of nature. Looks, movements, attitudes, gestures, should in the dancer, allhave an appropriate meaning; so plainly expressed as to beinstantaneously understood by the spectator, without giving himthe trouble of unriddling them: otherwise, it is like talking tothem in a foreign language for which an interpretor is needed. 

But to give a sentiment, a man must have it first: where apathetic sentiment is well possessed of the mind, the expressionof it is diffused over the whole body. 

The theatre shows to advantage a well proportioned dancer. A tall person appears the more majestic on it; but those of amiddling stature are more generally fit for every character;and may make up in gracefulness what they want in size. Theremarkably tall commonly want the graces to be seen in those ofthe more general standard. 

A young dancer who displays a dawn of genius, cannot be too muchexhorted to deliver himself up to the power of nature; so thatacquiring a particular manner of his own, he may himself proceedon original. If he would hope to arrive at any eminence in theart, he must break the shackles of a servile imitation, andpreserve nothing but the principles and grounds of his art, which will be so far from fettering him, that they will assisthis soaring upon the wings of his own genius. 

Where a dancer undertakes to represent a subject on the theatre, he must ground his plan of performance on the selecting all themost proper situations for furnishing the most strikinglypictures, prospects, and consequently, producing the greatesteffect. 

This was doubtless the great secret of Pilades, the founder, atleast in Rome, of the pantomime art. It was on this choice ofsituations, that the understanding whole pieces, both tragic andcomic, executed in dances, entirely depends. 

And here, upon mentioning the pantomime art, be it allowed meto defend it against the objections made to it, by those whoconsider it only under a partial or vulgar point of view. 

If any one should pretend that the pantomime art is superior tothe actor's power of representation in tragedy or comedy, orthat such an entertainment of dumb show ought to exclude that ofspeaking characters; nothing could be more ridiculous or absurdthan such a proposition. 

That indeed would be rejecting one of the most nobleimprovements of nature, in favor of an art rather calculated forthe relaxation of the mind than for the instruction of it; inwhich it can only claim a subordinate share. 

Those subjects, whether serious or comic, which are executed bydances, or in the pantomime strain, are chiefly intended for thethrowing a variety into theatrical entertainments, withoutdisputing any honors of rank. 

The very same person who shall have at one time, taken pleasurein seeing and hearing the noble and pathetic sentiments oftragedy, or the ridicule of human follies in a good comedy, finely represented, may, without any sort of inconsistence, notbe displeased at seeing, at another time, a subject executed indances, while the music, the decorations, all contribute to thehappy diversification of his entertainment. Ought he thereforeeither to call his own taste to an account for his beingpleased, or to grudge to others a pleasure, which nature itselfjustifies, in his having given to mankind a love of variety?

Nor is there perhaps, in the world, an art more the genuineoffspring of Nature, more under her immediate command, thanthe art of dancing. For to say nothing of that dancing, whichhas no relation to the theatre, and which is her principaldemonstrations of joy and festivity, the theatrical branchacknowledges her for its great and capital guide. All themotions, all the gestures, all the attitudes, all the looks, canhave no merit, but in their faithful imitation of Nature: whileman himself, man, the noblest of her productions, is ever thesubject which the dancer paints through all his passions andmanners. 

The painter presents man in one fixed attitude, with no more oflife than the draught and colors can give to his figure: thedancer exhibits him in a succession of attitudes, and, insteadof painting with the brush, paints, surely more to the life, with his own person. A dance in action, is not only a movingpicture, but an animated one: while to the eloquence of thetongue, it substitutes that of the whole body. 

The art, viewed in this light, shows how comparatively littlethe merely mechanical part of it, the agility of the legs andbody, contributes to the accomplishment of the dancer; howevernecessary that also is. We might soon form a dancer, if the artconsisted only in his being taught to shake his legs in cadence, to ballance his body, or to move his arms unmeaningly. But if hehas not a genius, susceptible of cultivation, and which isitself far the most essential gift, he will make no progresstowards the desirable distinction: he is a body without a soul:his performance will have more of the poppet moved by wires, than of the actor giving that life to the character, whichhimself receives from the sensibility of genius. 

There are many young beginners, who, looking on this art as agood way of livelihood, enter on the rudiments of it, with greatardor. But this ardor soon abates, in proportion, as theyadvance, and find there is more study and pains required fromthem than they expected to find, towards their arrival at anytolerable degree of perfection. Having considered this art aspurely a mechanical one, they are surprised at the discovery ofits exacting thought and reflection, for which their ideas of ithad not prepared them. A man who has not sufficient share ofgenius to attempt the vanquishing these difficulties, of which, in his false conception of things, he has formed to himself nonotion; either treats these great essentials of the art, asinnovations, and such as he is not bound to admit, or in thedespair of acquiring them, sits down contented with hismediocrity. It is well if he does not rail at, or attempt toturn into ridicule, perfections which are beyond his reach. Andto say the truth, the art has not greater enemies than thoseprofessors of it, who stick at the surface, and want the spiritnecessary to go to the bottom of it. In vain does the publicrefuse its applause to their indifferent, ordinary, uninteresting performance: rather than allow the fault to be inthemselves, their vanity will lay it on the public: they neverrefuse themselves that approbation which others can see noreason for bestowing on them. They are perfectly satisfied withhaving executed in their little manner, the little they know orare capable of; they have no idea of any thing beyond theirshort reach. 

Certainly the best season of life, for the study of this art, is, as for that of most others, for obvious reasons, the time ofone's youth. It is the best time of laying the foundation bothof theory and practice. 

But the theory should especially be attended to, without howeverneglecting the practice. For though a dancer, by an assiduouspractice, may, at the first unexamining glance, appear as wellin the eyes of the public, as he who possesses the rules; theillusion will not be lasting; it will soon be dissipated, especially where there is present an object of comparison. Hewhose motions are dirrected only by rote and custom, will soonbe discovered essentially inferior to him whose practice isgoverned by a knowledge of the principles of his art. 

A master does not do his duty by his pupil, in this art, if hefails of strongly inculcating to him the necessity of studyingthose principles; and of kindling in him that ardor forattaining to excellence, which if it is not itself genius, itis certain that no genius will do much without it. 

Invention is also as much a requisite in our art as in anyother. But to save the pains of study, we often borrow and copyfrom one another. Indolence is the bane of our art. The troubleof thinking necessary to the invention and composition ofdances, appears to many too great a fatigue: this engages themto appropriate to themselves the fruits of other peoplesinvention; and they appear to themselves well provided at asmall expence, when they have made free with the productions ofothers. Some again, instead of cultivating their talent, chuseindolently to follow the great torrent of the fashion, and stickto the old tracks, without daring to strike out any thing new, so that their prejudices are, in fact, the principles by whichthey are governed, and which sometimes serves them for theirexcuse; since they know better, but do not care to givethemselves the trouble of acting up to their knowledge. Thusthey plod in the safe, and broad road of mediocrity, but withoutany reputation or name. They are neither envied nor applauded. 

As for those who borrow from others, content with being copies, when they ought to strive to be originals; nothing can moreobstruct their progress in the discoveries of the depths oftheir art, than this scheme of subsisting on the merit ofothers. 

Many, besides those who are incapable of invention, are temptedat once by their indolence, and by the hope of not beingdiscovered or minded in their borrowing from others, to givestale or hackneyed compositions, which having seen in onecountry, they flatter themselves they may palm for new andoriginal upon the public in another. Thence it is that theaudience is cloyed with repetitions of pantomime dances; perhapssome of them very pretty at their first appearance, but whichcannot fail of tiring when too often repeated; or when the samegrounds or subject of action is only superficially or slightlydiversified. 

It is this barrenness of invention that the ingenious Goldonihas so well exposed in one of his plays, in the followingspeech, addressed to a young man. 

 "[*] For example, you, as the female dancer will come upon the stage, with a distaff, twirling it, or with a pail to draw water; or with a spade for digging. Your companion will come next perhaps driving a wheel-barrow, or with a sickle to mow corn, or with a pipe a-smoaking; and though the scene should be a saloon, no matter, it will come soon to be filled with rustics or sailors. Your companion to be sure will not have seen you, at first; that is the rule; upon which you will make up to him, and he will send you a packing. You will tap him on the shoulder with one hand, and he will give a spring from you to the other side of the stage. You will run after him; he, on his part will scamper away from you, and you will take pet at it. When he sees you angry, he will take it into his head to make peace; he will sue to you, and you in your turn will send him about his business. You will run from him, and he after you. He will be down on his knees to you; peace will be made; then, shaking your footsies, you will invite him to dance. He also will answer you with his feet, as much as to say, come, let us dance. "

 "Then handing you backwards to the top of the stage, you will begin gaily a _Pas-de-deux_, or Duet dance. The first part will be lively, the second grave; the third a jig. You will have taken care to procure six or seven of the best airs for a dance, put together, that can be imagined. You will execute all the steps that you are mistress of; and let your character in the Pas-de-deux, be that of a country wench, a gardener's servant, a granadier's trull, or a statue; the steps will be always the same; and the same actions for ever repeated; such as running after one another, dodging, crying, falling in a passion, making peace again, bringing the arms over the head, jumping in and out of time, shaking legs and arms, the head, the body, the shoulders, and especially smirking and ogling round you; not forgetting gentle inflexions of the neck, as you pass close under the lights, nor to make pretty faces to the audience, and then, hey for a fine curtesy at the end of the dance!"

 [Footnote *: Per esempio vendra fora la ballerina, colla rocca, filando, ò con un secchio à trar l'acqua, ò con una zappa à zappar. El vostro compagno vendra fora ò colla cariola à portar qualche cosa, ò colla falce à tagliar il grano, ò colla pipa a fumar, e si ben, che la scena fosse una sala, tanto e tanto, se vien a far da contadini ò da marinari. El vostro compagno non vi vedra: voi andarete a cercarlo, e el vi scacciera via. Gli batterete una man su la spalla, ed el con un salto anderà dall'altra banda. Voi gli correrete dietro, lui se scampera, e voi anderete in collera. Quando voi sarete in collera, a lui le vendra la voglia di far pace, e lui vi preghera, voi lo scacciarete. Scamparete via, e lui vi correra dietro. El se inginocchiera, farete pace, voi, menando I pedini, l'invitarete a ballar: anche ello, menando I piedi, a segni dira, "balliamo, " e tirandovi indietro allegramente cominciarete el _Pas-de-deux_. La prima parte allegra, la segonda grave, la terza una giga. Procurarete di cacciargli dentro sei o sette delle migliori arie di ballo che s'abbiano sentito; farete tutti i passi che sapete fare, e che sia il _Pas-de-deux_ o da paesana, o da giardinera, o da Granatiera, o da statue, i passi saranno sempre gli istessi, correrse dietro, scampar, pianger, andar in collera, far pace, tirar i bracci sopra la testa, saltar in tempo e fora di tempo, menar gli bracci, e le gambe, e la testa, e la vita, e le spalle, e sopra tutto rider sempre col popolo, e storcer un pochetto il collo quando si passa prossimo i lumi, e fare delle belle smorfie all udienza, e una bella riverenza in ultima. ]

Nothing however would more obstruct the progress of this art, than thus contenting one self with adopting the productionsof others. It even would, in the disgust which repetitionoccasions, bring on the decline of this entertainment, in theopinion of a public which is always fond of novelty. 

And of novelty, the beauties of nature furnish an inexhaustiblefund, in their infinite variety. Among these it is the businessof the artist to chuse such as can be brought upon the scene, and theatrically adapted to the execution of his art. But forthis he must be possessed of taste, which is a qualification asnecessary to him, as a composer, as that of the graces are tohim as a performer. Both are gifts. But if a due exercise ofthe art can add to the natural graces, taste does not standless in need of cultivation: it refines itself by a judiciousobservation of the beauties and delicacies of nature. These hemust incessantly study, in order to transplant into his art suchas are capable of producing the most pleasing effect. He mustparticularly consult the fitness of time, place and manners;otherwise what would please in one dance might displease inanother. Propriety is the great rule of this art, as of allothers. A discordance in music hurts a nice ear; a falseattitude or motion in dancing equally offends the judicious eye. 

The looks of the dancer are far from insignificant to thecharacter he is representing. Their expression should bestrictly conformable to his subject. The eye especially shouldspeak. Thence it is that the Italian custom of dancing withuncovered faces, cannot but be more advantageous than that ofdancing masked, as is commonly done in France; when the passionscan never be so well represented as by the changes ofexpression, which the dancer should throw into his countenance. 

And it is by these changes of countenance, as well as ofattitude and gesture, that the dancer can express the gradationsof the passions; whereas the painter is confined intirely to onepassion, that of the particular moment in which he will havechosen to draw a character. For example, a painter, who means torepresent a country-maid, under the influence of the passion oflove, can only aim at expressing some particular degree of thatpassion, suitable to the circumstances of the rest of hispicture, or to the situation in which he shall have placed her. But a dancer may successively represent all the gradations oflove; such as surprize at first sight, admiration, timidity, perplexity, agitation, languor, desire, ardor, eagerness, impatience, tumultous transports, with all the external simptomsof that passion. All these may be executed in the most livelymanner, in time and cadence, to a correspondent music orsimphany. And so of all the other passions, whether of fear, revenge, joy, hatred, which have all their subdivisionsexpressible, by the quick shift and succession of steps, gestures, attitudes, and looks, respectively adapted to eachgradation. 

A mask then cannot but hide a great part of the necessaryexpression, or justness of action. It can only be favorable tothose who have contracted ill habits of grimacing or ofcontortions of the face while they perform. 

There are however some characters in which a mask is evennecessary: but then great care should be taken to model and fitit as exactly as possible to the face, as well as to have itperfectly natural to the character represented. The French areparticularly, and not without reason, curious in this point. 

The female dancers have naturally a greater ease of expressionthan the men. More pliable in their limbs, with more sensibilityin the delicacy of their frame; all their motions and actionsare more tenderly pathetic, more interesting than in our sex. Weare besides prepossessed in their favor, and less disposed toremark or cavil at their faults. While on the other hand, thatso natural desire they have of pleasing, independently of theirprofession, makes them studiously avoid any motion or gesturethat might be disagreeable, and consequently any contortion ofthe face. They, instinctively then, one may say, make a point ofthe most graceful expression. 

A woman, who should only depend on the exertion of strength inher legs or limbs, without attention to expression, wouldpossess but a very defective talent. Such an one might surprizethe public, by the masculine vigor of her springs; but shouldshe attempt to execute a dance, where tender expressions arerequisite, she would certainly fail of pleasing. 

The female dancers have also an advantage over the men, in thatthe petticoat can conceal many defects in their execution; even, if the indulgence due to that amiable sex, did not only makegreat allowances, but give to the least agreeable steps in them, the power of obtaining applause. 

At the Italian theatres at Rome, in the Carnaval, where thefemale dancers are not suffered to perform the dances, and wherethe parts of the women are perform'd by men in the dresses ofwomen, it appears plainly, how much the execution suffers bythis expedient. However well they may be disguised, there is aninherent clumsiness in them, which it is impossible for them toshake off, so as to represent with justness the sprightly gracesand delicacy of the female sex. The very idea of seeing meneffeminated by such a dress, invincibly disgusts. An effeminateman appears even worse than a masculine woman. 

But however the consulting a looking-glass gives to men, ingeneral, the air of fops or coxcombs; it is to those who wouldmake a figure in dancing a point of necessity. A glass is tothem, what reflexion is to a thinking person; it serves to makethem acquainted with their defects, and to correct them. Topractice then before it is even recommendable, that practicewill give the advantage of expertness, and expertness will givethe grace of ease, which is invaluable; nothing being such anenemy to the graces as stiffness or affectation. This is ageneral rule both for composition and performance. 

Education has doubtless a great share in giving early to thebody a command of graceful positions, especially for the grandand serious dances, which, as I have before observed, are theprincipal grounds of the art. And once more, the great point isnot to stick at mediocrity; but to aim at an excellence in theart, that may give at least the best chance for not beingconfounded with the croud. If it is true, that, among thetalents, those which are calculated for pleasing, are not thosethat are the least sure of encouragement; it is also equallytrue, that for any dependence to be had on them, it is somethingmore than an ordinary degree of merit in them that is required. 

In support of this admonition, I am here tempted to enliven thisessay with the narrative of an adventure in real life, that mayserve to break the too long a line of an attempt at instruction. 

A celebrated female dancer in Italy, designing to perform at acertain capital, wrote to her correspondent there to provide heran apartment suitable to the genteel figure which she had alwaysmade in life. On her arrival, her acquaintance seeing she hadbrought nothing with her, but her own person and two servants, asked her when she expected her baggage. She answered, with asmile, "If you will come to-morrow morning and breakfast withme, you, and whoever you will bring with you, shall see it, andI promise you it is worth your while seeing, being a sort ofmerchandize that is very much in fashion. "

Curiosity carried a number early to the rendezvous, where, afteran elegant breakfast, she got up, and danced before them in amost surprizingly charming manner. 

"These, said she, (pointing at her legs, ) are all the baggage Ihave left; the Alps have swallowed up all the rest. " The truthwas, she had been really robbed of her baggage in her journey, and the merchandize on which she now depended, was her talent atdancing. Nor was she deceived, for her inimitable performance, joined to the vivacity with which she bore her misfortunes, inthe spirit of the old Philosopher, who valued himself uponcarrying his all about him, made her many friends, whosegenerous compassion soon enabled her to appear in her formerstate. 

As to the composition of dances, it is impossible for aprofessor of this art, to make any figure without a competentstock of original ideas, reducible into practice. A dance shouldbe a kind of regular dramatic poem to be executed by dancing, ina manner so clear, as to give to the understanding of thespectator no trouble in making out the meaning of the whole, orof any part of it. All ambiguity being as great a fault of stilein such compositions, as in writing. It is even harder to berepaired; for a false expression in the motions, gestures, orlooks, may confuse and bewilder the spectator so as that he willnot easily recover the clue or thread of the fable intended tobe represented. 

Clearness then is one of the principal points of merit which thecomposer should have in view; if the effect, resulting from thechoice and disposition of the ground-work of his drama, doeshonor to his inventiveness or taste; the justness, with whichevery character is to be performed, is not less essential to thesuccess of his production, when carried into execution. 

To be well assured of this, it cannot but be necessary that thecomposer of the dance or ballet-master, should be himself a goodperformer, or at least understand the grounds of his art. 

He must also, in his composition, be pre-assured of all thenecessaries for their complete execution. Otherwise decorationseither deficient or not well adapted; an insufficient number ofperformers, or their being bad ones; or, in short, the fault ofa manager, who, through a misplaced economy, would not allow therequisite expences; all these, or any of these, might ruin thecomposition, and the composer might, after taking all imaginablepains to please, find his labor abortive, and himself condemnedfor what he could not help. There is no exhibiting with successany entertainment of this sort without having all the necessaryperformers and accompaniments. It will be in a great measureperfect or imperfect in proportion as they are supplied orwithheld. 

A good ballet-master must especially have regard to bothpoetical and picturesque invention; his aim being to unite boththose arts under one exhibition. The poetical part of thecomposition being necessary to furnish a well-composed piecethat shall begin with a clear exposition, and proceed unfoldingitself to the conclusion, in situations well chosen, and wellexpressed. The picturesque part is also highly essential for theformation of the steps, attitudes, gestures, looks, grouping theperformers, and planning their evolutions; all for the greatestand justest effect. 

He should himself be thoroughly struck with his initial idea, which will lead him to the second, and so on methodically untilthe whole is concluded, without having recourse to a methodjustly exploded by the best masters, that of choregraphy ornoting dances, which only serves to obstruct and infrigidate thefire of composition. When he shall have finished hiscomposition, he may then coolly review it, and make whatdisposition and arrangement of the parts shall appear the bestto him. Every interruption is to be avoided, in those moments, when the imagination is at its highest pitch of inventing andprojecting. There are few artists who have not, at times, experienced in themselves a more than ordinary disposition oraptitude, for this operation of the mind; and it is thesecritical moments, which may otherwise be irretrievable, theyought particularly to improve, with as little diversion fromthem as possible. They should pursue a thought, or a hint of athought, from its first crudity to its utmost maturity. 

A man of true genius in any of the imitative arts, and there isnot one that has a juster claim to that title than the art ofdancing, sensible that nature is the varied and abundant springof all objects of imitation, considers her and all her effectswith a far different eye from those who have no intention ofavailing themselves of the matter she furnishes for observation. He will discover essential differences between objects, where asuperficial beholder sees nothing but sameness; and in hisimitation he will so well know how to render those differencesdiscernible, that in the composition of his dance, the mosttrite subject will assume the air of novelty with the grace ofvariety. 

There is nothing disgusts so much as repetitions of the samething; and a composer of dances will avoid them as studiously aspainters do in their pieces, or writers tautology. 

The public complains, with great reason, that dances arefrequently void of action, which is the fault of the performersnot giving themselves the trouble to study just ones: satisfiedwith the more mechanical part of dancing, they never think ofconnecting the part of the actor with it, which however isindispensably necessary to give to their performance, spirit, and animation. 

A dance without meaning is a very insipid botch. The subject ofthe composition should always be strictly connected to thedances, so as that they should be in equal correspondence to oneanother. And, where a dance is expletively introduced in theintervals of the acts, the subject of it should have, at least, some affinity to the piece. A long custom has made the want ofthis attention pass unnoticed. It is surely an absurd and anunnatural patchwork, between the acts of a deep tragedy, tobring on, abruptly by way of diversion, a comic dance. By thiscontrast both entertainments are hurt; the abruptness of thetransition is intolerable to the audience; and the thread, especially of the tragic fable, is unpleasingly broken. Thespectators cannot bear to be so suddenly tossed from the seriousto the mirthful, and from the mirthful to the serious. In short, such an heterogeneous adulteration has all the absurdityreproached to the motley mixture in tragi-comedy, without anything of that connection which is preserved in that kind ofjustly exploded dramatic composition. How easy too to avoid thisdefect, by adapting the subjects of the dances to the differentexigences of the different dramas, whether serious, comic, orfarcical!

One great source of this disorder, is probably the managersconsidering dances in nothing better than in the light of merelya mechanical execution for the amusement of the eye, andincapable of speaking to the mind. And in this mistake they arecertainly justifiable by the great degeneracy of this art, fromthe pitch of perfection to which it was antiently carried, andto which the encouragement of the public could not fail torestore it. The managers would then see their interest tooclearly in consulting the greater pleasure of the public, not toafford to this art, the requisite cultivation and means ofimprovement. 

The composer, who must even have something of the poet in him;the musician, the painter, the mechanic, are essentiallynecessary to the contribution of their respective arts, towardsthe harmony and perfection of composition, in a fine dramaticdance; even the dresses are no inconsiderable part of theentertainment. The _costume_, or in a more general term, propriety, should have the direction of them. It is notmagnificence, that is the great point, but their being wellassorted to character and circumstances. The French arenotoriously faulty in over-dressing their characters, and inmaking them fine and showy, where their simplicity would betheir greatest ornament. I do not mean a simplicity that shouldhave any thing mean, low or indifferent in it; but, for example, in rural characters, the simplicity of nature, if I may use theexpression, in her holy-day-cloaths. 

As to the decorations and machines especially, I know of noplace where there is less excuse for their being deficient inthem than in London, where they are too manifestly, to bear anysuspicion of flattery in the attributing it to them, executed toa perfection that is not known in any other part of Europe. Thequickness with which the shifts and deceptions in the pantomimeentertainments are performed here, have been attempted in manyother parts; but the persons there employed, not having the sameskill and depth in mechanics as the artists here, cannot come upto them in this point. And it is in this point precisely that acomposer of dances may be furnished with great assistence in theeffects from the theatrical illusion. And in an entertainment, where by an established tacit agreement between the audience andperformers, there is such a latitude of introducing superhumanpersonages, either of the heathen deities, or of fairy-hood, inchanters, and the like, those transformations and deceptionsof the sight are even in the order of natural consequences, fromthe pre-supposed and allowed power of such characters to operatethem. At the same time the rules of probability must even therebe observed. Nor is it amiss to be very sparing and reserved inthe composition of those dances, grounded on the introduction ofpurely imaginary beings, such as the allegorical impersonationof the moral Beings, whether the Virtues or the Vices. Unlessthe invention is very interesting indeed, the charactersdistinctly marked, and the application very just and obvious;their effect is rarely answerable to expectation, especially onthe audiences of this country. The taste here for those airyideal characters is not very high, and perhaps not the worse fornot being so. 

Among the many losses which this art has sustained, one surely, not the least regrettable, even for our theatres, was that ofthe dances in armour, practised by the Greeks, which they usedby way of diversion and of _exercise_ for invigorating theirbodies. Sometimes they had only bucklers and javelins in theirhands: but, on certain occasions they performed in panoply, orcomplete suits of armour. Strengthened by their daily andvarious manly exercises, they were enabled to execute thesedances, with a surprising exactness and dexterity. The martialsimphony that accompanied them, was performed by a numerous bandof music; for the clash of their arms being so loud, would elsehave drowned the tune or airs of the musicians. It is impossibleto imagine a more sublime, splendid and picturesque sight thanwhat these dances afforded, in the brilliancy of their arms, andthe variety of their evolutions; while the delight they took init, inspired them with as much martial fire, as if they had beenactually going to meet the enemy. And indeed this diversion wasso much of the nature of the military exercise, that none couldbe admitted who were not thoroughly expert in all martialtraining. In time of peace, this kind of dance was considered aseven necessary to keep up that suppleness and athleticdisposition of body, to bear action and fatigue, essential tothe military profession. If the practice had been neglected, butfor a few days, they observed a numbness insensibly diffuseitself over the whole body. They were persuaded then that thebest way of preserving their health, and fitness for action, andconsequently to qualify them for the most heroic enterprizes, was to keep up this kind of exercise, in the form of diversion. 

These martial dances, have, in some operas of Italy, beenattempted to be imitated, with some degree of success: but asthe performers had not been trained up to such an exercise, likethe Greeks, it was not to be expected that the representationshould have the same perfection, or color of life. 

The composition of the music, and the suiting the airs to theintended execution of a dance, is a point of which it is scarceneedful to insist on the importance, from its being so obviousand so well known. Nothing can produce a more disagreeablediscordance than a performer's dancing out of time. And here itmay be observed, how much lies upon a dancer, in his being atonce obliged to adapt his motions exactly to the music and tothe character: which forms a double incumbence, neither point ofwhich he can neglect, without falling into unpardonable errors. 

Where dances are well composed, they may give a picture, to thelife, of the manners and genius of each nation and each age, inconformity to the subject respectively chosen. But then thetruth of the _costume_, and of natural and historicalrepresentation must be strictly preserved. Objects must beneither exagerated beyond probability, nor diminished so as notto please or affect. A real genius will not be affraid ofstriking out of the common paths, and, sensible thatinventiveness is a merit, he will create new theatricalsubjects, or produce varied combinations of old ones. And wherethe decorations, or requisite accompaniments are not supplied ashe could wish, he must endeavour to make the most of what he canget, towards the exhibition of his production; if not with allthe advantage of which it is susceptible, at least with allthose he can procure for it. Where the best cannot be obtained, he must be content with the least bad. But especially a composerof dances should never lose sight of his duty in preserving tohis art its power of competition, as well as its affinity withthe other imitative arts, in the expression of nature; all thepassions and sentiments being manifestly to be marked by motion, gestures, and attitudes, to the time of a correspondent and welladapted music. While all this aided and set off, by theaccompaniments of proper decorations of painting, and, wherenecessary, of machinery, makes that, a well composed dance, mayvery justly be deemed a small poem, thrown into the most livelyaction imaginable; into an action so expressive as not to needthe aid of words, for conveying its meaning; but to make thewant of them rather a pleasure than matter of regret; from itsexercising, without fatiguing, the mind of the spectator, towhich it can never be but an agreeable entertainment, to havesomething left for its own making out, always provided thatthere be no perplexing difficulty or ambiguity. Nothing of whichis impossible to an artist who has the talent of making a rightchoice among the most pleasing objects of nature; ofsufficiently feeling what he aims at expressing; of knowing howfar it is allowable for his art, to proceed towards theembellishing nature, and where it should stop to avoid itsbecoming an impertinence; and especially of agreeably disposinghis subject, in the most neat and intelligible manner that canbe desired. 

 Some

 THOUGHTS

 On the UTILITY of

 LEARNING TO DANCE, And Especially upon the

 MINUET. 

Was I, in quality of a dancing-master, to offer even thestrongest reasons of inducement to learn this art, they couldnot but justly lose much, if not all, of their weight, from mysupposed interest in the offering them; besides the partialityevery artist has for his art. 

It would however exceed the bounds prescribed to modesty itself, were I to neglect availing myself of the authority of others, who were not only far from being professors of this art, but whohold the highest rank in the public opinion for solidity ofunderstanding, and purity of morals, and who yet did not disdainto give their opinion in favor of an art only imaginedfrivolous, for want of considering it in a just and inlargedview. 

After this introduction, I need not be ashamed of quoting Mr. Locke, in his judicious treatise of education. 

 "Nothing (says he) appears to me to give children so much becoming confidence and behaviour, and so to raise them to the conversation of those above their age, as dancing. I think they should be taught to dance as soon as they are capable of learning it; for though this consists only in outward gracefulness of motion, yet, I know not how, it gives children manly thoughts and carriage more than any thing. "

In another place, he says, "Dancing being that which gives graceful motions to all our lives, and above all things, manliness, and a becoming confidence to young children, I think it cannot be learned too early, after they are once capable of it. But you must be sure to have a good master, that knows and can teach what is graceful and becoming, and what gives a freedom and easiness to all the motions of the body. One that teaches not this, is worse than none at all; natural awkwardness being much better than apish affected postures: and I think it much more passable, to put off the hat, and make a leg like an honest country-gentleman, than like an ill-fashioned dancing-master. For as for the jigging, and the figures of dance, I count that little or nothing better than as it tends to perfect graceful carriage. "

The Chevalier De Ramsay, author of Cyrus's travels, in his planof education for a young Prince, has (page 14. ) the followingpassage to this purpose. 

 "To the study of poetry, should be joined that of the three arts of imitation. The antients represented the passions, by gests, colors and sounds. Xenophon tells us of some wonderful effects of the Grecian dances, and how they moved and expressed the passions. We have now lost the perfection of that art; all that remains, is only what is necessary to give a handsome action and airs to a young gentleman. This ought not to be neglected, because upon the external figure and appearance, depends often the regard we have to the internal qualities of the mind. A graceful behaviour, in the house of Lords or Commons, commands the attention of a whole assembly. "

And most certainly in this last allegation of advantage to beobtained by a competent skill, or at least tincture of the art, the Chevalier Ramsay, has not exagerated its utility. Quintilianhas recommended it, especially in early years, when the limbsare the most pliable, for procuring that so necessaryaccomplishment, in the formation of orators gesture: observingwithall, that where that is not becoming, nothing else hardlypleases. 

But even independent of that consideration, nothing is moregenerally confessed, than that this branch of breeding qualifiespersons for presenting themselves with a good grace. To whom canit be unknown that a favorable prepossession at the first sightis often of the highest advantage; and that the power of firstimpressions is not easily surmountable?

In assemblies or places of public resort, when we see a personof a genteel carriage or presence, he attracts our regard andliking, whether he be a foreigner or one of this country. Atcourt, even a graceful address, and an air of ease, will moredistinguish a man from the croud, than the richest cloaths thatmoney may purchase; but can never give that air to be acquiredonly by education. 

There are indeed who, from indolence or self-sufficiency, affecta sort of carelessness in their gait, as disdaining to beobliged to any part of their education, for their externalappearance, which they abandon to itself under the notion of itsbeing natural, free, and easy. 

But while they avoid, as they imagine, the affectation ofover-nicety, they run into that of a vicious extreme ofnegligence, which proves nothing but either a deficiency ofbreeding, or if not that, a high opinion of themselves, withwhat is not at all unconsequential to that, a contempt ofothers. 

Such are certainly much mistaken, if they imagine that an art, which is principally designed to correct defects, should leaveso capital an one subsisting as that of want of ease, andfreedom, in the gesture and gait. On the contrary, it is asgreat an enemy to stiffness, as it is to looseness of carriage, and air. It equally reprobates an ungainly rusticity, and amincing, tripping, over-soft manner. Its chief aim is to bringforth the natural graces, and not to smother them withappearances of study and art. 

But of all the people in the world, the British would certainlybe the most in the wrong for not laying a great enough stress onthis part of education; since none have more conspicuously themerit of figure and person; and it would in them be a sort ofingratitude to Nature, who has done so much for them, not to doa little more for themselves, in acquiring an accomplishment, the utility of which has been acknowledged in all ages, and inall countries, and especially by the greatest and most sensiblemen in their own. 

As to the ladies, there is one light in which perhaps they wouldnot do amiss to view the practice of this art, besides that ofmere diversion or improvement of their deportment: it is that ofits being highly serviceable to their health, and to what it cannever be expected they should be indifferent about, theirbeauty, it being the best and surest way of preserving, or evengiving it to their whole person. 

It is in history a settled point, that beauty was no where moreflorishing, nor less rare, than among such people as encouragedand cultivated exercise, especially in the fair sex. The variousprovinces and governments in Greece, all agreed, some in a less, some in a greater degree, in making exercise a point of femaleeducation. The Spartans carried this to perhaps an excess, sincethe training of the children of that sex, hardly yielded to thatof the male in laboriousness and fatigue. Be this confessed tobe an extreme: but then it was in some measure compensated byits being universally allowed, that the Spartan women owed to itthat beauty in which they excelled the rest of the Grecianwomen, who were themselves held, in that point, preferable tothe rest of the world. Hellen was a Spartan. Yet the legislatorof that people, did not so much as consider this advantage amongthe ends proposed in prescribing so hardy an education to theweaker sex. His views were for giving them that health and vigorof body, which might enable them to produce a race of men thefittest to serve their country in war. 

But as the best habit of body is ever inseparable from thegreatest perfection of beauty, of which its possessor issusceptible, it very naturally followed, that the good plight towhich exercise brought and preserved the females, gave also totheir shape, that delicacy and suppleness, and to their everymotion, that graceful agility which caracterized the Grecianbeauties, and distinguished them for that nymph-stile of figure, which we to this day admire in the description of theirhistorians, of their poets, or in the representations that yetremain to us in their statues, or other monuments of antiquity. 

But omitting to insist on the Spartan austerity, and especiallyon their gimnastic training for both sexes, and to take themilder methods of exercise in use among the Grecians, we findthat the chace, that foot-races, and especially dancing, principally composed the amusement of the young ladies of thatcountry; where, in the great days of Greece, no maxim ever morepractically prevailed, than that sloth or inactivity was equallythe parent of diseases of the body, as of vices of the mind. Agreeable to which idea, one of the greatest physicians now inEurope, the celebrated Tronchin, while at Paris, vehementlydeclaimed against this false delicacy and aversion againstexercise; from which the ladies, especially of the higher rankof life, derived their bad habits of body, their pale color, with all the principles of weakness, and of a puny diseasedconstitution, which they necessarily intail on their innocentchildren. Thence it was that he condemned the using oneself toomuch to coaches or chairs, which, he observed, lowers thespirits, thickens the humors, numbs the nerves, and cramps theliberty of circulation. 

Considering the efficacy of exercise, and that fashion hasabolished or at least confined among a very few, the more robustmethods of amusement, it can hardly not be eligible to cultivateand encourage an art, so innocent and so agreeable as that ofdancing, and which at once unites in itself the three greatends, of bodily improvement, of diversion, and of healthyexercise. As to this last especially, it has this advantage, itsbeing susceptible at pleasure, of every modification, of beingcarried from the gentlest degree of motion, up to that of themost violent activity. And where riding is prescribed purely forthe sake of the power of the concussion resulting from it, toprevent or to dissipate obstructions, the springs and agitationsof the bodily frame, in the more active kind of dances, canhardly not answer the same purpose, especially as the motion ismore equitably diffused, and suffers no checks or partialityfrom keeping the seat, as either in riding, or any other methodof conveyance. At least, such an entertainment, one wouldimagine, preferable, for many reasons, to an excess of suchsedentary amusements as those of cards, and the like. 

Certainly those of the fair sex who use exercise, will, in theirexemption from a depraved or deficient appetite, in thefreshness or in the glow of their color, in the firmness oftheir make, in the advantages to their shape, in the goodness ingeneral of their constitution, find themselves not ill repaidfor conquering any ill-habit of false delicacy and sloth, towhich so many, otherwise fine young ladies, owe the disorders oftheir stomach, their pale sickly hue, and that languid state ofhealth which must poison all their pleasures, and even endangertheir lives. These are not strained nor far-fetchedconsequences. 

But even as to those of either sex, the practice of dancing isattended with obviously good effects. Such as are blessed bynature with a graceful shape and are clean-limbed, receive stillgreater ease and grace from it; while at the same time, itprevents the gathering of those gross and foggy humors which intime form a disagreeable and inconvenient corpulence. On theother hand, those whose make and constitution occasion a kind ofheavy proportion, whose muscular texture is not distinct, whosenecks are short, shoulders round, chest narrow, and who, inshort are, what may be called, rather clumsy figures; these willgreatly find their account in a competent exercise of the art ofdancing, not only as it will give them a freedom and ease onewould not, at the first sight, imagine compatible with theirfigure, but may contribute much to the cure, or at least to theextenuation of such bodily defects, by giving a more freecirculation to the blood, a habit of sprightliness and agilityto the limbs, and preventing the accumulation of gross humors, and especially of fat, which is itself not among the leastdiseases, where it prevails to an excess. Not that I here meanany thing so foolishly partial, as that nothing but dancingcould operate all this; but only place it among not the leastefficacious means. 

Nothing is more certain than that exercises in general, diversions, such as that of hunting, and the games of dexterity, keep up the natural standard of strength and beauty, whichluxury and sloth are sure to debase. 

Dancing furnishes then to the fair-sex, whose sphere of exerciseis naturally more confined than that of the men, at once asalutary amusement, and an opportunity of displaying theirnative graces. But as to men, fencing, riding and many otherimprovements have also doubtless their respective merit, andanswer very valuable purposes. 

But where only the gentlest exercise is requisite, the minuetoffers its services, with the greatest effect; and whenelegantly executed, forms one of the most agreeable fightseither in private or public assemblies, or, occasionally, evenon the theatre itself. 

Yet I speak not of this dance here with any purpose ofspecifying rules for its attainment. Such an attempt would bevain and impracticable. Who does not know that almost everyindividual learner requires different instructions? The laying astress on some particular motion or air which may be proper tobe recommended to one, must be strictly forbidden to another. Insome, their natural graces need only to be called forth; inothers the destroying them by affectation is to be carefullychecked. Where defects are uncurable, the teacher must show howthey may be palliated and sometimes even converted into graces. It will easily then be granted that there is no such thing aslearning a minuet, or indeed any dance merely by book. Thedead-letter of it can only be conveyed by the noting ordescription of the figure and of the mechanical part of it; butthe spirit of it in the graces of the air and gesture, and thecarriage of the dancer can only be practically taught by a goodmaster. 

I have mentioned the distinction of a good master, most assuredly not in the way of a vain silly hint ofself-recomdation; but purely for the sake of giving a caution, too often neglected, against parents, or those charged with theeducation of youth, placing children, at the age when theirmuscles are most flexible, their limbs the most supple, andtheir minds the most ductile, and who are consequentlysusceptible of the best impressions, under such pretendedmasters of this art, who can only give them the worst, and who, instead of teaching, stand themselves in need of being taught. The consequence then of such a bad choice, is, that young peopleof the finest disposition in the world, contract, under suchteachers, bad, awkward habits, that are not afterwards easilycurable. 

Those masters who possess the real grounds of their art, find intheir uniting their practice with their knowledge, resourceseven against the usual depredations of age; which, though it maydeprive them of somewhat of their youthful vigor, has scarce asensible influence on their manner of performance. There willstill long remain to them the traces of their former excellence. 

I have myself seen the celebrated Dupré, at near the age ofsixty, dance at Paris, with all the agility and sprightliness ofyouth, and with such powers of pleasing, as if the graces _inhim_ had braved superannuation. 

Such is the advantage of not having been content with asuperficial tincture of this art; or with a mere rote ofimitation, without an aim at excellence or originality. 

But though there is no necessity for most learners to enter sodeep into the grounds and principles of the art, as those whoare to make it their profession, it is at least but doingjustice to one's scholars to give them those essentialinstructions as to the graces of air, position, and gesture;without which they can never be but indifferent performers. 

For example, instead of being so often told to turn their toesout, they should be admonished to turn their knees out, whichwill consequently give the true direction to the feet. A dueattention should also be given to the motion of the instep, tothe air of sinking and rising; to the position of the hips, shoulders, and body; to the graceful management of the arms, andparticularly to the giving the hand with a genteel manner, tothe inflections of the neck and head, and especially to the socaptivating modesty of the eye; in short, to the diffusing overthe whole execution, an air of noble ease, and of naturalgracefulness. 

It might be too trite to mention here what is so indispensableand so much in course, the strict regard to be paid to thekeeping time with the music. 

Nothing has a better effect, nor more prepossessing in favor ofthe performance to follow, than the bow or curtsy at the openingthe dance, made with an air of dignity and freedom. On thecontrary, nothing is more disgustful than that initial step ofthe minuet, when auckwardly executed. It gives such an illimpression as is not easily removed by even a good performancein the remaining part of the dance. 

There is another point of great importance to all, but to theladies especially, which is ever strictly recommended in theteaching of the minuet; but which in fact, like most of theother graces of that dance, extends to other occasions ofappearance in life. This point is the easy and noble port of thehead. Many very pretty ladies lose much of the effect of theirbeauty, and of the signal power of the first impressions, asthey enter a room, or a public assembly, by a vulgar or impropercarriage of the head, either poking the neck, or stooping thehead, or in the other extreme, of holding it up too stiff, onthe Mama's perpetually teizing remonstrance, of "hold up yourhead, Miss, " without considering that merely bridling, withoutthe easy grace of a free play, is a worse fault than that ofwhich she will have been corrected. 

Certainly nothing can give a more noble air to the whole personthan the head finely set, and turning gracefully, with everynatural occasion for turning it, and especially withoutaffectation, or stifly pointing the chin, as if to show whichway the wind sits. 

But it must be impossible for those who stoop their heads down, to give their figure any air of dignity, or grace of politeness. They must always retain something of ignoble in their manner. Nothing then is more recommendable than for those who arenaturally inclined to this defect, to endeavor the avoiding itby a particular attention to this capital instruction inlearning the minuet. It is also not enough to take theminuet-steps true to time, to turn out their knees, and to slidetheir step neatly, if that flexibility, or rise and fall fromthe graceful bending of the instep, is not attended to, whichgives so elegant an air to the execution either of the minuet, or of the serious theatrical dances. Nothing can more than that, set off or show the beauty of the steps. 

It should also be recommended to the dancers of the minuet, everto have an expression of that sort of gaity and chearfulness inthe countenance, which will give it an amiable and even a noblefrankness. Nothing can be more out of character, or evendispleasing, than a froward or too pensive a look. There may bea sprightly vacancy, an openness in the face, without the leasttincture of any indecent air of levity: as there may be acaptivating modesty, without any of that bashfulness whicharises either from low breeding, wrong breeding, or no breedingat all. 

But to execute a minuet in a very superior manner, it isrecommendable to enter into some acquaintance, at least, withthe principles of the serious or grave dances, with a naturallygenteel person, a superficial knowledge of the steps, and asmattering of the rules, any one almost may soon be made toacquit himself tolerably of a minuet; but to make adistinguished figure, some notion of the depths and refinementsof the art, illustrated by proper practice, are required. 

It is especially incumbent on an artist, not to rest satisfiedwith having pleased: he should, from his knowledge of thegrounds of his art, be able to tell himself why he has pleased;and thus by building upon solid principles, preferably to merelucky hits, or to transient and accidental advantages of form ormanner, insure the permanency of his power to please. 

There is a vice in dancing, against which pupils cannot be toocarefully guarded; it is that of affectation. It is essentiallydifferent from that desire of pleasing, which is so natural andso consistent even with the greatest modesty, in that it alwaysbuilds on some falsity, mistaken for a means of pleasing, thoughnothing can more surely defeat that intention; there is not anaxiom more true than that the graces are incompatible withaffectation. They vanish at the first appearance of it: and thecurse of affectation is, that it never but lets itself be seen, and wherever it is seen, it is sure to offend, and to frustrateits own design. 

The simplicity of nature is the great fountain of all thegraces; from which they flow spontaneous, when unchecked byaffectation, which at once poisons and dries them up. 

Nature does not refuse cultivation, but she will not bear beingforced. The great art of the dancing-master is not to givegraces, for that is impossible, but to call forth into a noblymodest display those latent ones in his scholars, which may havebeen buried for want of opportunities or of education to breakforth in their native lustre, or which have been spoiled orperverted, by wrong instruction, or by bad models of imitations. In this last case, the master's business is rather to extirpatethan to plant; to clear the ground of poisonous exotics, and tomake way for the pleasing productions of nature. 

This admirable prerogative of pleasing, inseparable from thenatural graces, unpoisoned by affectation, is in nothing morestrongly exemplified, than in the rural dances, where simplicityof manners, a sprightly ease, and an exemption from all designbut that of innocent mirth, give to the young and handsomevillagers, or country-maids, those inimitable graces for everunknown to artifice and affectation. Not but, even in thoserural assemblies, there may be found some characters taintedwith affectation; but then in the country they are exceptions, whereas in town they constitute the generality, who are so aptto mistake airs for graces, though nothing can be moreessentially different. 

But how shall those masters guard a scholar sufficiently againstaffectation, who are themselves notoriously infected with it?Nay, this is so common to them, that it is even the foundationof a proverbial remark, that no gentleman can be said to dancewell, who dances like a dancing-master. Those false refinements, that finical, affected air so justly reproached to thegenerality of teachers, a master should correct in himselfbefore he can well give lessons for avoiding them to his pupils. And, in truth, they are but wretched substitutes to the truegrounds and principles of the art, in which nothing is morestrongly inculcated than the total neglect of them, and thereliance on the engaging and noble simplicity of nature. 

It is then no paradox to say that the more deep you are in theart, the less will it stifle nature. On the contrary, it will, in the noble assurance which a competent skill is sure to bringwith it, give to the natural graces a greater freedom and easeof display. Imperfection of theory and practice cramps thefaculties; and gives either an unpleasing faulteringness to theair, steps, and gestures, or wrong execution. And as the minuetderives its merit from an observation of the most agreeablesteps, well chosen in nature and well combined by art, there isno inconsistence in avering that art may, in this, as in manyother objects of imitative skill, essentially assist nature, andplace her in the most advantageous point of light. 

The truth of this will be easily granted, by numbers who havefelt the pleasure of seeing a minuet gracefully executed by acouple who understood this dance perfectly. Nay, excellence inthe performance of it, has given to an indifferent figure, atleast a temporary advantage over a much superior one in point ofperson only; and sometimes an advantage of which the impressionhas been more permanent. 

But besides the effect of the moment in pleasing the spectators;the being well versed in this dance especially contributesgreatly to form the gait, and address, as well as the manner inwhich we should present ourselves. It has a sensible influencein the polishing and fashioning the air and deportment in alloccasions of appearance in life. It helps to wear off any thingof clownishness in the carriage of the person, and breathesitself into otherwise the most indifferent actions, in a genteeland agreeable manner of performing them. 

This secret and relative influence of the minuet, _Marcel_, myever respected master, whom his own merit in his profession, andthe humorous mention of him by _Helvetius_, in his famous bookDE L'ESPRIT, have made so well known, constantly kept in view, in his method of teaching it. His scholars were generally knownand distinguished from those of other masters, not only by theirexcellence in actual dancing, but by a certain superior air ofeasy-genteelness at other times. He himself danced the minuet toits utmost perfection. Not that he confined his practice to thatdance alone; on the contrary, he confessed himself obliged forhis greatest skill in that, to his having a general knowledge ofall the other dances, which he had practised, but especiallythose of the serious stile. 

But certainly it is not only to the professed dancer, thatdancing in the serious stile, or the minuet, with grace andease, is essential. The possessing this branch of dancing is ofgreat service on the theatre, even to an actor. The effect of itsteals into his manner, and gait, and gives him an air ofpresenting himself, that is sure to prepossess in his favor. Persons of every size or shape are susceptible of grace andimprovement from it. The shoulders so drawn back as not toprotuberate before, but as it were, to retreat from sight, or asthe French express it _bien effacées_, the knees well turningoutwards, with a free play; the air of the shape noble anddisengaged; the turns and movements easy; in short, all thegraces that characterise a good execution of the minuet, will, insensibly on all other occasions, distribute through every limband part of the body, a certain liberty and agreeableness ofmotion easier to be conceived than defined. To the actor, in allcharacters, it gives, as I have just before observed, a gracefulmien and presence; but, in serious characters, it especiallysuggests that striking portliness, that majestic tread of thestage, for which some actors from the very first of theirappearance so happily dispose the public to a favorablereception of their merit in the rest of their part. An influenceof the first impression, which a good actor will hardly despise, especially with due precaution against his contracting any thingforced or affected in his air or steps, from his attention tohis improvement by dancing, as the very best things may be evenpernicious by a misuse. Whatever is not natural, free, and easy, will undoubtedly, on the stage, as every where else, have a badeffect. A very little matter of excess will, from his aim at agrace, produce a ridiculous caricature. Too stiff a regulationof his motions or gestures, by measure and cadence, would evenbe worse than abandoning every thing to chance; which might, like the Eolian harp, sometimes suffer lucky hits to escape him;whereas affectation is as sure forever to displease, as it isnot to escape the being seen where it exists. 

Among the many reasons for this dance of the minuet havingbecome general, is the possibility of dancing it to so manydifferent airs, though the steps are invariable. If one tunedoes not please a performer, he may call for another; the minuetstill remaining unalterable. 

There is no occasion however for a learner to be confined tothis dance. He should rather be encouraged, or have a curiositybe excited in him, to learn especially those dances, which areof the more tender or serious character, contributing, as theygreatly do, to perfect one in the minuet; independently of thepleasure they besides give both in the performance and to thesight. The dances the most in request are, the _Saraband_, the_Bretagne_ the _Furlana_, the _Passepied_, the _Folied'Espagne_, the _Rigaudon_, the _Minuet du Dauphin_ the_Louvre_, _La Mariée_, which is always danced at the Opera ofRoland at Paris. Some of these are performed solo, others areduet-dances. The _Louvre_ is held by many the most pleasing ofthem all, especially when well executed by both performers, in ajust concert of motions; no dance affording the arms moreoccasion for a graceful display of them, or a more delicateregularity of the steps; being composed of the most select onesfrom theatrical dances, and formed upon the truest principles ofthe art. This dance is executed in most countries of Europewithout any variation. It is generally followed or terminated bya minuet; and these two dances, the Louvre and the minuet, areat present the most universally in fashion, and will, in allprobability, continue so, from their being both pleasing beyondall others, to the performers, as well as to the spectators, andfrom their not being difficult to learn, if the scholar has butcommon docility. 

Youth being for learning this art undoubtedly the best season, for reasons as I have before observed, too obvious to needinsisting on, the master cannot pay too much attention to theavailing himself of the pliancy of that age, to give hisscholars the necessary instructions for preparing andwell-disposing their limbs. This holds good, particularly withregard to that propensity innate to most persons of turning intheir toes. I have already mentioned the expediency of curingthis defect, by the directing them to acquire a habit of turningthe knees outward, to which I have to add, that on the properturn of the knee, chiefly depend the graces of the under part ofthe figure, that is to say, from the foot to the hip. 

Frequent practice also of dancing, or of any salutary exercise, is also highly recommendable for obtaining a firmness of body;for a tottering dancer can never plant his steps so as to afforda pleasing execution. It may sound a little odd, but, the truthis, that in dancing, sprightliness and agility are principallyproduced by bodily strength; while on the contrary, weakness, orinfirmity, must give every step and spring, not only atottering, but a heavy air. The legs that bear with the mostease the weight of the body, will naturally make it seem thelightest. 

 A

 SUMMARY ACCOUNT

 Of various kinds of

 DANCES

 In different Parts of the WORLD. 

 _Cantatur et saltatur apud omnes gentes, aliquo saltem modo_, QUINT. 

 In EUROPE. 

As almost every country has dances particular to it, or, atleast, so naturalized by adoption from others, that in length oftime they pass for originals; a slight sketch of the mostremarkable of them may serve to throw a light upon this subject, entertaining to some, and both entertaining and useful toothers. 

In BRITAIN, you have the hornpipe, a dance which is held anoriginal of this country. Some of the steps of it are used inthe country-dances here, which are themselves a kind of danceexecuted with more variety and agreeableness than in any part ofEurope, where they are also imitatively performed, as in Italy, Germany and in several other countries. Nor is it without reasonthey obtain, here the preference over the like in other places. They are no where so well executed. The music is extremely welladapted, and the steps in general are very pleasing. Someforeign comic dancers, on their coming here, apply themselveswith great attention to the true study of the hornpipe, and byconstant practice acquire the ability of performing it withsuccess in foreign countries, where it always meets with thehighest applause, when masterly executed. There was an instanceof this, sometime ago at Venice, at an opera there, when thetheatre was as well provided with good singers and dancers, asany other. But they had not the good fortune to please thepublic. A dancer luckily for the manager, presented himself, whodanced the hornpipe in its due perfection. This novelty took so, and made such full houses, that the manager, who had begun withgreat loss, soon saw himself repaired, and was a gainer when helittle expected it. 

It is to the HIGHLANDERS in North-Britain, that I am told we areindebted for a dance in the comic vein, called the _ScotchReel_, executed generally, and I believe always in _trio_, or bythree. When well danced, it has a very pleasing effect: andindeed nothing can be imagined more agreeable, or more livelyand brilliant, than the steps in many of the Scotch dances. There is a great variety of very natural and very pleasing ones. And a composer of comic dances, might, with great advantage tohimself, upon a judicious assemblage of such steps as he mightpick out of their dances, form a dance that, with well adapteddresses, correspondent music, and figures capable of a justperformance, could hardly fail of a great success upon thetheatre. 

I do not know whether I shall not stand in need of an apologyfor mentioning here a dance once popular in England, but towhich the idea of low is now currently annexed. It wasoriginally adapted from the Moors, and is still known by thename of Morris-dancing, or Moresc-dance. It is danced withswords, by persons odly disguised, with a great deal of anticrural merriment: it is true that this diversion is now almostexploded, being entirely confined to the lower classes of life, and only kept up in some counties. What the reason may be of itsgoing out of use, I cannot say; but am very sure, there was notonly a great deal of natural mirth in it, but that it issusceptible enough of improvement, to rescue it from thecontempt it may have incurred, through its being chiefly in useamong the vulgar; though most probably it may have descendedamong them from the higher ranks. For certainly of them it wasnot quite unworthy, for the Pirrhic or military air it carrieswith it, and which probably was the cause of its introductionamong so martial a people. Rude, as it was, it might requirerefinement, but it did not, perhaps, deserve to become quiteobsolete. 

In SPAIN, they have a dance, called, _Les Folies d'Espagne_, which is performed either by one or by two, with castanets. There is a dress peculiarly adapted to it, which has a verypleasing effect, as well as the dance itself. 

In FRANCE, their _Contre-dances_, are drawn from the trueprinciples of the art, and the figures and steps are generallyvery agreeable. No nation cultivates this art with more tasteand delicacy. Their _Provençale_ dance, is most delightfullysprightly, and well imagined. The steps seem to correspond withthe natural vivacity and gaiety of the Provençals. This dance iscommonly performed to the pipe and tabor. 

The FLEMISH dances run in the most droll vein of true ruralhumor. The performers seem to be made for the dances, and thedances for the performers; so well assorted are the figures tothe representation. Several eminent painters in the grotesquestile, Teniers especially, have formed many diverting picturestaken from life, upon this subject. 

At NAPLES, they have various grotesque dances, which areoriginals in their kind, being extremely difficult to execute, not only for the variety of the steps, but for the intricacy anduncommonness, or rather singularity of them. 

But while I am mentioning Naples, I ought not to omit thateffect of dancing, which is attributed to it, upon those who arebitten with the _Tarantula_. The original of this opinion, wasprobably owing to some sensible physician, prescribing such aviolent motion, more likely to be kept up in the patient, by thepower of music, than by any thing else, as might enable him toexpel the poison, by being thereby thrown into a copious sweat, and by other benefits from such a vehement agitation. This, itis supposed, was afterwards abused and turned into a mere trick, to assemble a croud and get money, either by sham bites, or bymaking a kind of show of this method of practice in real ones. However, that may be, the various grimaces or contortions, leapsand irregular steps, commonly used on this occasion, to beexecuted to that sort of music, or airs adapted to it, mightafford a good subject for a grotesque dance, to be formed uponthe plan of a burlesque or mock-imitation: and I am not quitesure that the idea of such a dance, has not been already carriedinto execution. 

The castanets the NEAPOLITANS most frequently use, are of thelargest size. It is also from Naples that we have taken thePunchinello dance. 

At FLORENCE, they have a dance, called, _il Treschone_. Thecountry-women, in the villages, are very fond of it. They aregenerally speaking, very robust, and capable of holding out thefatigue of this dance, for a long time. To make themselves morelight for it, they often pull off their shoes. The dance isopened by a couple, one of each sex. The woman holds in her handa handkerchief, which she flings to him whom she chuses for hernext partner, who, in his turn has an equal right to dispose ofit in the same manner, to any woman of the company he chuses. Thus is the dance carried on without any interruption till theassembly breaks up. 

The favorite dance of the VENETIANS, is what they call the_Furlana_, which is performed by two persons dancing a-roundwith the greatest rapidity. Those who have a good ear, keep timewith the crossing their feet behind; and some add a motion oftheir hands, as if they were rowing or tugging at an oar. Thisdance is practiced in several other parts of Italy. 

The Peasants of TIROL, have one of the most pleasant andgrotesque dances that can be imagined. They perform it in a sortof holy-day dress, made of skins, and adorned with ribbons. Theywear wooden shoes, not uncuriously painted; and the womenespecially express a kind of rural simplicity and frolic mirth, which has a very agreeable effect. 

The GRISONS are in possession of an old dance, which is notwithout its merit, and which they would not exchange for thepolitest in Europe; they being as invariably attached to it, asto their dress. 

The HUNGARIANS are very noisy in their dances, with their ironheels, but when they are of an equal size, and dressed in theiruniforms, the agility of their steps, and the regularity ofdress in the performers, render them not a disagreeable sight. 

The GERMANS have a dance called the _Allemande_, in which themen and women form a ring. Each man holding his partner roundthe waist, makes her whirl round with almost inconceivablerapidity: they dance in a grand circle, seeming to pursue oneanother: in the course of which they execute several leaps, andsome particularly pleasing steps, when they turn, but so verydifficult as to appear such even to professed dancersthemselves. When this dance is performed by a numerous company, it furnishes one of the most pleasing sights that can beimagined. 

The POLISH nobility have a dance, to which the magnificence oftheir dress, and the elegance of the steps, the gracefulness ofthe attitudes, the fitness of the music, all contribute toproduce a great effect. Were it performed here on the theatre, it would hardly fail of a general applause. 

The COSSACS, have, amidst all their uncouth barbarism, a sort ofdancing, which they execute to the sound of an instrument, somewhat resembling a Mandoline, but considerably larger, andwhich is highly diverting, from the extreme vivacity of thesteps, and the oddity of the contortions and grimaces, withwhich they exhibit it. For a grotesque dance there can hardly beimagined any thing more entertaining. 

The RUSSIANS, afford nothing remarkable in their dances, whichthey now chiefly take from other countries. The dance of dwarfswith which the Czar Peter the Great, solemnized the nuptials ofhis niece to the Duke of Courland, was, probably rather aparticular whim of his own, than a national usage. 

 In ASIA. 

In TURKY, dances have been, as of old in Greece, and elsewhereinstituted in form of a religious ceremony. The _Dervishes_ whoare a kind of devotionists execute a dance, called the _Semaat_in a circle, to a strange wild-simphony, when holding oneanother by the hand, they turn round with such rapidity, that, with pure giddiness, they often fall down in heaps upon oneanother. 

They have also in Turky, as well as India and Persia, professeddancers, especially of the female sex, under the name ofdancing-girls, who are bred up, from their childhood, to theprofession; and are always sent for to any great entertainment, public or private, as at feasts, weddings, ceremonies ofcircumcision, and, in short, on all occasions of festivity andjoy. They execute their dances to a simphony of variousinstruments, extremely resembling the antient ones, the_tympanum_, the _crotala_, the _cimbals_, and the like, as wellas to songs, being a kind of small dramatic compositions, orwhat may properly be called _ballads_, which is a true word fora song at once sung and danced: _ballare_ signifying to dance;and _ballata_, a song, composed to be danced. It is probablethat from these eastern kind of dances, which are undoubtedlyvery antient, came the name, among the Romans, of _balatrones_. Nothing can be imagined more graceful, nor more expressive, thanthe gestures and attitudes of those dancing-girls, which mayproperly be called the eloquence of the body, in which indeedmost of the Asiatics and inhabitants of the southren climatesconstitutionally excel, from a sensibility more exquisite thanis the attribute of the more northern people; but a sensibilityballanced by too many disadvantages to be envied them. TheSiamese, we are told, have three dances, called the _Cone_, the_Lacone_, and the _Raban_. The _Cone_ is a figure-dance, inwhich they use particularly a string-instrument in the nature ofa violin, with some others of the Asiatic make. Those who danceare armed and masked, and seem to be a fighting rather thandancing. It is a kind of Indian Pirrhic. Their masks representthe most frightful hideous countenances of wild-beasts, ordemons, that fancy can invent. In the _Lacone_ the performerssing commutually stanzes of verses containing the history oftheir country. The Raban is a mixed dance, of men and women, notmartial, nor historical, but purely gallant; in which thedancers have all long false nails of copper. They sing in thisdance, which is only a slow march without any high motions, butwith a great many contortions of body and arms. Those who dancein the Raban and Cone have high gilt caps like sugar-loaves. Thedance of the _Lacone_ is appropriated to the dedication of theirtemples, when a new statue of their _Sommona-codom_ is set up. 

In many parts of the East, at their weddings, in conducting thebride from her house to the bridegroom's, as in Persiaespecially, they make use of processional music and dancing. But, in the religious ceremonies of the Gentoos, when, at statedtimes, they draw the triumphal car, in which the image of thedeity of the festival is carried, the procession is intermixedwith troops of dancers of both sexes, who, proceed, in chorus, leaping, dancing, and falling into strange antics, as theprocession moves along, of which they compose a part; theseadapt their gestures and steps to the sounds of variousinstruments of music. 

Considering withal that the Romans, in their most solemnprocessions, as in that called the _Pompa_, which I have beforementioned, in which not only the Pirrhic dance wasprocessionally executed, but other dances, in masquerade, by menwho, in their habits, by leaping and by feats of agility, represented satirs, the _Sileni_, and _Fauni_, and were attendedby minstrels playing on the flute and guitar; besides which, there were _Salian_ priests, and _Salian_ virgins, who followed, in their order, and executed their respective religious dances;it may bear a question whether not an unpleasing use might notbe made, on the theatres, of processional dances properlyintroduced, and connected, especially in the burlesque way. Inevery country, and particularly in this, processions areesteemed an agreeable amusement to the eye; and certainly theymust receive more life and animation from a proper intermixtureof dances, than what a mere solemn march can represent, wherethere is nothing to amuse but a long train of personages invarious habits, walking in parade. I only mention this howeveras a hint not impossible to be improved, and reduced intopractice. 

But even, where it might be improper or ridiculous to think ofmixing dances with a procession, though it were but inburlesque, which must, if at all, be the preferable way ofmixing them, the pleasure of those who delight in seeingprocessions and pageantry exhibited on the theatre, might begratified, without any violence to propriety, by making themintroductory to the dances of the grandest kind. For example;where a dance in Chinese characters is intended, a processionmight be previously brought in, of personages, of whom thehabits, charactures, and manners might be faithfully copied fromnature, and from the truth of things, and convey to thespectator a juster notion, of the people from which therepresentation was taken, of their dress and public processions, than any verbal description, or even prints or pictures. Afterwhich, the dance might naturally take place, in celebration ofthe festival, of which, the procession might be supposed theoccasion. 

In order to give a more distinct idea of this hint, I havehereto annexed the print of a Chinese procession taken from thedescription of a traveller into that country; by which a goodcomposer would well know how to make a proper choice of whatmight be exhibited, and what was fit to be left out; especiallyaccording as the dance should be, serious or burlesque. In thelast case; even the horses might be represented by a theatricalimitation. And certainly, bringing the personages on in such aregular procession at first, would give a better opportunity ofobserving their dresses, than in the huddled, confused manner ofgrouping them, that has been sometimes practised: to say nothingof the pleasure afforded to the eye by the procession itself. 

The print annexed represents the procession of a ChineseMandarin of the first order. First appear two men who strikeeach upon a copper instrument called a gongh, resembling ahollow dish without a border, which has pretty much the effectof a kettle-drum. 

Follow the ensign-bearers, on whose flags are written in largecharacters the Mandarin's titles of honour. Next fourteenstandards, upon which appear the proper simbols of his office, such as the dragon, tiger, phoenix, flying tortoise, and otherwinged creatures of fancy, emblematically exhibited. 

Six officers, bearing a staff headed by an oblong square board, raised high, whereon are written in large golden characters theparticular qualities of this Mandarin. 

Two others bear, the one a large umbrella of yellow silk (theimperial color) of three folds, one above the other; the otherofficer carries the case in which the umbrella is kept. 

Two archers on horseback, at the head of the chief guard: thenthe guards, armed with large hooks, adorned with silk fringe, infour rows one above another; two other files of men in armor, some bearing maces with long handles; others, maces in the formof a hand, or of a serpent: others, equipped with large hammersand long hatchets like a crescent. Other guards bearing sharpaxes: some, weapons like scythes, only strait. Soldiers carryingthree-edged halberds. 

Two porters, carrying a splendid coffer, containing the seal ofhis office. 

Two other men, beating each a _gongh_, which gives notice of theMandarin's approach. 

Two officers, armed with staves, to keep off the croud. 

Two mace-bearers with gilt maces in the shape of dragons, and anumber of officers of justice, some equiped with bamboes, a kindof flat cudgels, to give the bastinado: others with chains, whips, cutlasses, and hangers. 

Two standard-bearers, and the captain of the guard. 

All this equipage precedes the Mandarin or Viceroy, who iscarried in his chair, surrounded with pages and footmen, havingnear his person an officer who carries a large fan in the shapeof a hand-fire-screen. 

He is followed by guards, some armed with maces, and others withlong-handled sabres; after whom come several ensigns andcornets, with a great number of domestics on horseback, everyone bearing some necessary belonging to the Mandarin: as forexample, a particular Tartarian cap, if the weather shouldoblige him to change the one he has on. 

From the above, it may appear, what scope or range a composermay have for the exhibition of processions and pageantry ofother nations, as well as of the Chinese; in all which, nothingis more recommendable than adhering, in the representation, asmuch as the limitations of the theatre will admit, to the truthof things, as they actually pass in the countries where thescene is laid: which is but, in saying other words, in this, asin every other imitative branch, strike to nature as close aspossible. 

 In AFRICA. 

The spirit of dancing prevails, almost beyond imagination, amongboth men and women, in most parts of Africa. It is even morethan instinct, it is a rage, in some countries of that part ofthe globe. 

Upon the Gold-coast especially, the inhabitants are sopassionately fond of it, that in the midst of their hardestlabor, if they hear a person sing, or any musical instrumentplaid, they cannot refrain from dancing. 

There are even well attested stories of some Negroes flingingthemselves at the feet of an European playing on a fiddle, entreating him to desist, unless he had a mind to tire them todeath; it being impossible for them to cease dancing, while hecontinued playing. Such is the irresistible passion for dancingamong them. 

With such an innate fondness for this art, one would imaginethat children taken from this country, so strong-made and sowell-limbed as they generally are, and so finely disposed bynature, might, if duly instructed, go great lengths towardsperfection in the art. But I do not remember to have heard thatthe experiment was ever made upon any of them, by some mastercapable of giving them such an improvement, as one would supposethem susceptible of. 

Upon the Gold-coast, there long existed and probably stillexists a custom, for the greater part of the inhabitants of atown or village to assemble together, most evenings of the year, at the market-place to dance, sing, and make merry for an houror two, before bed-time. On this occasion, they appear in theirbest attire. The women, who come before the men, have a numberof little bells tinkling at their feet. The men carry littlefans or rather whisks in their hand made of the tails ofelephants and horses, much like the brushes used to brushpictures; only that theirs are gilt at both ends. They meetusually about sunset. Their music consists of horn-blowers ortrumpeters, drummers, players on the flute, and the like; beingplaced a-part by themselves. The men and women, who compose thedance, divide into couples, facing each other, as in ourcountry-dances, and forming a general dance, fall into many wildridiculous postures, advancing and retreating, leaping, stampingon the ground, bowing their heads, as they pass, to each other, and muttering certain words; then snapping their fingers, sometimes speaking loud, at other times whispering, moving nowslow, now quick, and shaking their fans. 

Artus and Villault add, that they strike each another'sshoulders alternately with those fans; also that the women, laying straw-ropes in circles on the ground, jump into or danceround them; and clicking them up with their toes, cast them inthe air, catching them as they fall with their hands. 

They are strangely delighted with these gambols; but do not careto be seen at them by strangers, who can scarce refrainlaughing, and consequently putting them out of countenance. 

After an hour or two spent in this kind of exercise, they retireto their respective homes. 

Their dances vary according to times, occurrences, and places. Those which are in honor of their religious festivals, are moregrave and serious. There have been sometimes public dancesinstituted by order of their Kings, as at Abrambo, a large townin Widaw, where annually, for eight days together, thereresorted a multitude of both sexes from all parts of thecountry. This was called the dancing-season. To this solemnityall came dressed in the best manner, according to theirrespective ability. The dance was ridiculous enough; but itserved to keep up their agility of body. And amidst all theuncouth barbarism of their gestures and attitudes, nature breaksout into some expressions of joy, or of the passions, that wouldnot be unworthy of an European's observation. 

They have also their kind of Pirrhic dances, which they executeby mock-skirmishing in cadence, and striking on their targetswith their cutlasses. 

I have already mentioned that it is from Africa, theMoresc-dances originally came. But what is somewhat surprising, the Portugueze themselves, among whom I will not however includethe higher ranks of life in that nation, but, at least, thenumber of the people who adopted, from the Caffrees, or Negroesof their African possessions, a dance called by them_LasCheganças_, (Approaches) was so great that the late King ofPortugal was obliged to prohibit it by a formal edict. Thereason of which was, that some of the motions and gestures hadso lascivious an air, and were so contrary to modesty, that thecelebrated _Frey Gaspar_, a natural son, if I mistake not, ofthe late King of Portugal, represented so efficaciously to hisPortugueze Majesty, the shame and scandal of this dance beingany longer suffered, that it was put down by royal authority. Nor was this done without occasioning heavy complaints against_Frey Gaspar_, against whom there were lampoons and balladspublickly sung, upon his having used his influence to procurethat prohibition. 

 In AMERICA. 

In this part of the world, so lately discovered, nothing is astronger proof of the universality of dancing, of its being, inshort, rather an human instinct, than an art, than the fondnessfor dancing every where diffused over this vast continent. 

In BRAZIL, the dancers, whether men or women, make a point ofdancing bare-headed. The reason of this is not mentioned: itcannot however be thought a very serious one, since nothing canbe more comical than their gestures, their contortions of body, and the signs they make with the head to each other. 

In MEXICO, they have also their dances and music, but in themost uncouth and barbarian stile. For their simphony they havewooden drums, something in form of a kettle-drum, with a kind ofpipe or flageolet, made of a hollow cane or reed, but verygrating to an European ear. It is observed they love every thingthat makes a noise how disagreeable soever the sound is. Theywill also hum over something like a tune, when they dance thirtyor forty in a circle, stretching out their hands, and layingthem on each others shoulders. They stamp and jump, and use themost antic gestures for several hours, till they are heartilyweary. And one or two of the company sometimes step out of thering, to make sport for the rest, by showing feats of activity, throwing up their lances into the air, catching them again, bending backwards, and springing forwards with great agility. Then when they are in a violent sweat, from this exercise, theywill frequently jump into the water, without the least badconsequences to their health. Their women have their dancing andmusic too by themselves; but never mingle in those of the men. 

In VIRGINIA, according to the author of the history of thatcountry, they have two different kinds of dancing; the first, either single, or at the most in small companies; or, secondly, in great numbers together, but without having any regard eitherto time or figure. 

In the first kind one person only dances, or two, or three atmost. While during their performance, the rest, who are seatedround them in a ring, sing as loud as they can scream, and ringtheir little bells. Sometimes the dancers themselves sing, dartterribly threatening looks, stamp their feet upon the ground, and exhibit a thousand antic postures and grimaces. 

In the other dance, consisting of a more numerous company ofperformers, the dance is executed round stakes set in the formof a circle, adorned with some sculpture, or round about a fire, which they light in a convenient place. Every one has his littlebell, his bow and arrow in his hand. They also cover themselveswith leaves, and thus equipped, begin their dance. Sometimesthey set three young women in the midst of the circle. 

In PERU, the manner of dancing has something very particular. Instead of laying any stress on the motion of the arms, in mostof their dances, their arms hang down, or are wrapped up in akind of mantle, so that nothing is seen but the bending of thebody, and the activity of the feet; they have however manyfigure-dances, in which they lay aside their cloaks or mantles, but the graces they add, are rather actions than gestures. 

The PERUVIAN Creolians dance after the same manner, withoutlaying aside their long swords, the point of which they contriveto keep up before them so that it may not hinder them fromrising, or in coupeeing, which is sometimes to such a degreethat it looks like kneeling. 

They have a dance there, adopted from the natives, which theycall _Zapatas_, (shoes) because in dancing they alternatelystrike with the heels and toes, taking some steps, andcoupeeing, as they traverse their ground. 

Among the savages of North-America, we are told there arevarious dances practised, such as that of the calumet, theleaders dance, the war-dance, the marriage-dance, thesacrifice-dance, all which, respectively differ in themovements, and some, amidst all the wildness of theirperformance, are not without their graces. But the dance of thecalumet is esteemed the finest; this is used at the reception ofstrangers whom they mean to honor, or of ambassadors to them onpublic occasions. This dance is commonly executed in an ovalfigure. 

The AMERICANS, in some parts, prescribe this exercise by way ofphisic, in their distempers: a method of treatment, not, itseems unknown to the antients: but, in general, their motive fordancing, is the same as with the rest of the world, to givedemonstrations of joy and welcome to their guests, or to divertthemselves. On some occasions indeed, they make them part of theceremony at their assemblies upon affairs, when even theirpublic debates are preceded by dancing, as if they expected thatthat exercise would rouse their mental faculties, and cleartheir heads. The war-dance is also used by them, by way ofproclamation of war against their enemies. 

The foregoing summary sketch of some of the various dances, which are practised in different parts of the globe, and which, to describe universally and minutely, would fill whole volumes, may serve to show that nature has, in all parts of the inhabitedworld, given to man the instinct of dancing, as well as ofspeaking, or of singing. But it certainly depends on the nationswho encourage the polite arts, once more to carry it up to thatpitch of excellence, of which the history of the Greeks andRomans shows it to have been susceptible, among the antients, however the moderns may have long fallen short of it. There hasindeed lately appeared a dawning hope of its recovery; which, that it may not be frustrated, is the interest of all who wishwell to an innocent and even useful pleasure. 

 Of PANTOMIMES. 

As this branch of the art of dancing is often mentioned, especially in this country, without a just idea being affixed toit, or any other idea than what is vulgarly taken from a speciesof compositions which are sometimes exhibited after the play, onthe theatre here, (not to mention Sadler's wells) and go by thename of pantomime entertainments; it may not be unacceptable tothe reader, my laying down before him the true grounds andnature of this diversion, which once made so great a figure inthe theatrical sphere of action. 

And as, on this point, Monsieur Cahusac, an ingenious Frenchwriter, has treated the historical part of it with so muchaccuracy, that it was hardly possible to offer any thing newupon it, beyond what he has furnished; and that not to make useof his researches would only betray me into a fruitlessaffectation of originality, I am very ready to confess, that forthe best and greatest part of what I am now going to offer uponthis subject I am indebted to his production. 

That prodigious perfection to which the antients carried thepantomime art, appeared so extraordinary to the celebrated abbotDu Bos, that, not being able to contradict the authorities whichestablish the truth of it, he was tempted to consider the art ofdancing in those times as something wholly different from whatis at present understood by dancing. 

The chevalier Ramsay places it also among the lost arts. Both, no doubt, grounding their opinion on that deficiency ofexecution on the modern theatres, compared to what isincontestably transmitted to us, by history, of the excellenceof the antient pantomimes. 

But none have more contributed to establish the opinion of thepantomime art being an art totally different from that ofdancing, and not merely an improvement of it, as was certainlythe case, than some of the professors of the art themselves, whoeven exclaimed against M. Cahusac, for his attempts to givejuster notions, and to recommend the revival of it. 

We are too apt to pronounce upon possibilities from our ownmeasure of knowledge, or of capacity. Nothing is more commonthan to hear men of a profession declare loudly against anypractice attempted to be established for the improvement oftheir art, and peremptorily to aver such a practice beingimpossible, for no other reason than that their own study andefforts had not been able to procure them the attainment of it. In this too they are seconded by that croud of superficialpeople who frequent the theatres, and who can believe nothingbeyond what themselves have seen: any thing above the reach ofwhat they are accustomed or habituated to admire, always seemsto them a chimera. 

The reproach of incredulity is commonly made to men of thegreatest knowledge, because they are not over-apt to admit anyproposition without proof: but this reproach may, with morejustice, be oftenest made to the ignorant, who generally reject, without discussion, every thing beyond their own narrowconception. 

To these it may sound more than strange; it may appearincredible, that on the theatre of Athens, the dance of theEumenides, or Furies, had so expressive a character, as tostrike the spectators with irresistible terror. The Areopagusitself shuddered with horror and affright; men grown old in theprofession of arms, trembled; the multitude ran out; women withchild miscarried; people imagined they saw in earnest thosebarbarous deities commissioned with the vengeance of heaven, pursue and punish the crimes of the earth. 

This passage of history is furnished by the same authors, whotell us, that Sophocles was a genius; that nothing couldwithstand the eloquence of Demosthenes; that Themistocles was ahero; that Socrates was the wisest of men; and it was in thetime of the most famous of the _Greeks_ that even upon thosehighly privileged souls, in sight of irreproachable witnesses, the art of dancing produced such great effects. 

At Rome, in the best days of this art, all the sentiments whichthe dancers expressed, had each a character of truth, so great apower, such pathetic energy, that the multitude was more thanonce seen hurried away by the illusion, and mechanically to takepart in the different emotions presented to them by the animatedpicture with which they were struck. In the representation of_Ajax in a frenzy_, the spectators took such violent impressionsfrom the acting-dancer who represented him, that they perfectlybroke out, into outcries; stripped, as it were, to fight, andactually came to blows among each other, as if they had caughttheir rage from what was passing on the theatre. 

At another time they melted into tears at the tender afflictionof Hecuba. 

And upon whom were these lively impressions produced? Upon thecotemporaries of Mecenas, of Lucullus, Augustus, Virgil, Pollio;upon men of the most refined taste, whose criticism was assevere as their approbation honorable; who never spared theircensure nor their applause, where either was due. How, especially under the eyes of Horace, could any thing pass theapprobation of the public, unless under the seal of excellencein point of art and good taste? Would Augustus have declaredhimself the special patron of a kind of entertainment that hadbeen deficient as to probability and genius? Would Mecenas, theprotector of Virgil, and of all the fine arts, have been pleasedwith a sight that was not a striking imitation of beautifulnature?

The proofs shown of the perfection of dancing at Athens, andunder the reign of Augustus, being incontestable, it is plainthat what now passes for the art of dancing, is as yet only inits infancy. To display the arms gracefully, to preserve theequilibrium in the positions, to form steps with a lightness ofair; to unfold all the springs of the body in harmony to themusic, all these points, sufficient to what may be calledprivate, or to assembly-dancing, are little more than thealphabet of the theatrical dances, or of pantomime execution. The steps and figures are but the letters and words of this art. A writing-master is one who teaches the mechanical part offorming letters. A mere dancing-master is an artist who teachesto form steps. But the first is not more different from what wecall a man of letters, or a _writer_, than the second is fromwhat may deserve on the theatre, the name of principal dancer. 

Besides the necessity of learning his art elementally, a dancer, like a writer, should have a stile of his own, an originalstile: more or less valuable, according as he can exhibit, express, and paint with elegance a greater or lesser quantity ofthings admirable, agreeable, and useful. 

Speech is scarce more expressive, than the gestual language. Theart of painting, which places before our eyes the most pathetic, or the most gay images of human life, composes them of nothingbut of attitudes, of positions of the arms, expressions of thecountenance, and of all these parts dancing is composed, as wellas painting. 

But, as I have before observed, painting can express no morethan an instant of action. Theatrical dancing can exhibit allthe successive instants it chuses to paint. Its march proceedsfrom picture to picture, to which, motion gives life. Inpainting, life is only imitated; in dancing, it is always thereality itself. 

Dancing is, evidently, in its nature, an action upon thetheatres; nothing is wanting to it but meaning: it moves to theright, to the left; it retrogrades, it advances, it forms steps, it delineates figures. There is only wanting to all this anarrangement of the motions, to furnish to the eye a theatricalaction upon any subject whatever. 

The history of the art proves that the dancers of genius, had noother means or assistance in the world but this to express allthe human passions, and the possibilities of it are in alltimes, the very same. 

Both here, and in France, there have been some of these dramaticpieces in action, by dance, attempted, which have been wellreceived by the public. 

Some years ago, the Dutchess of Maine ordered simphonies to becomposed for the scene of the fourth act of the _Horatii_; inwhich the young Horatius kills Camilla. Two dancers, one of eachsex, represented this action at _Sceaux_; and their dancepainted it with all the energy and pathos of which it wassusceptible. 

In Italy especially many subjects of a what may be called lowcomedy, are very naturally expressed by dancing. In short, thereis hardly any comic action but what they represent upon theirtheatres, if not with perfection, at least satisfactorily. Andcertainly the dance in action has the same superiority oversheer unmeaning dancing, that a fine history-piece has overcutting flowers in paper. In the last there is little morerequired than mechanical nicety, and, at the best, it affords nogreat pretention to merit. But it is only for genius to order, distribute and compose, in the other. A Raphael is allowed totake place in the Temple of Fame, by a Virgil; and the art ofdancing is capable of having its Raphaels too. Pilades, andBathillus were painters, and great ones, in their way. Picturesque composition is not less the duty of a composer ofdances, than of a painter. 

Among the antients, that _Protheus_, of whom fabulous historyrecords such wonders, was only one of their dancers, who, by therapidity of his steps, by the strength of his expression, and bythe employment of the theatrical deceptions, seemed at everyinstant, to change his form. The celebrated _Empusa_ was afemale dancer, whose agility was so prodigious that she appearedand vanished like a spirit. 

But it was at Rome that the Pantomime art received its highestimprovement. Pilades born in Cilicia, and Bathillus ofAlexandria, where the two most surprising geniuses, who, underthe reigns of Augustus Cæsar, displayed their talents in theirutmost lustre. The first invented the solemn, grave and patheticdances. The compositions of Bathillus were in the lively, gay, and sprightly stile. 

Bathillus had been the slave of Mecenas, who had given him hisfreedom in favor of his talents. Having seen Pilades in Cilicia, he engaged him to come to Rome, where he had disposed Mecenas inhis favor, who, becoming the declared protector of both, procured to them the encouragement of the Emperor. 

A theatre was built for them: the Romans flocked to it, and saw, with surprise, a complete tragedy; all the passions painted withthe most vigorous strokes of representation: the exposition, plot, catastrophe expressed in the clearest and most patheticmanner, without any other means or assistence but that ofdancing, executed to the simphonies the best adapted, and farsuperior to any that had been before heard in Rome. 

Their surprise was not to end here. To this a secondentertainment succeeded; in which an ingenious action, withoutneeding the voice or speech, presented all the characters, allthe pleasant strokes, and humorous pictures of a good comedy. 

And in both these kinds, the executive talents of Pilades andBathillus corresponded to the boldness and beauty of the kind ofcompositions they had ventured to bring on the stage. 

Pilades especially, who was at the head of this project, was themost singular man that had till then appeared on the theatre. His fertile imagination constantly supplied him with new meansof perfecting his art and embellishing his entertainments. Athenæus mentions his having written a book much esteemed on thedepths and principles of his art. 

Before him, some flutes composed the orchestra of the Romans. Hereinforced it with all the known instruments. He added chorusesof dances to his representations, and took care that their stepsand figures, should always have some relation or affinity to theprincipal action. He provided them with dresses in the highesttaste of propriety, and omitted nothing towards producing, keeping up, and pushing to the highest pitch, the charm of thetheatrical illusion. 

The actions on the Roman theatres were tragic, comic, orsatirical; these last pretty nearly answering to what weunderstand by grotesque or farcical. 

Esopus and Roscius had been, from their excellence indeclamation, the delight and admiration of Rome. But on theirleaving no successors to their degree of merit; the taste fordramatic poetry which was no longer supported by actors equal tothem, began to decline; and the theatrical dances under suchgreat masters as Pilades and Bathillus, either by their novelty, or by their merit, or by both, made the Romans the less feeltheir loss of those incomparable actors. The gestual languagetook place of that which was declaimed; and produced regularpieces acted in the three kinds of tragedy, comedy, and farce orgrotesque. The spectators grew pleased with such an exercise oftheir understanding. Steps, motions, attitudes, figures, positions, now were substituted to speech; and there resultedfrom them an expression so natural, images so resembling, a pathos so moving, or a pleasantry so agreeable, that peopleimagined they heard the actions they saw. The gestures alonesupplied the place of the sweetness of the voice, of the energyof speech, and of the charms of poetry. [*]

 [Footnote *: Hanc partem Musicæ disciplinæ Majores mutam nominârunt, quæ ore clauso loquitur, et quibusdam gesticulationibus facit intelligi, quod vix narrante lingua, aut scripturæ textu possit agnosci. 

 _Cassiod_, var. 1. 20. 

 Loquacissimas manus, linguosos digitos, silentium clamosum, expositionem tacitam. 

 _Idem. _]

This kind of entertainment, so new, though formed upon aground-work already known, planned and executed by genius, andadopted with a passionate fondness by the Romans, was called the_Italic dance_; and in the transports of pleasures it causedthem, they gave to the actors of it, the title of _Pantomimes_. This was no more than a lively, and not at all exageratedexpression, of the truth of their action, which was onecontinual picture to the eyes of the spectators. Their motion, their feet, their hands, their arms, were but so many differentparts of the picture; none of them were to remain idle; but all, with propriety, were to concur to the formation of thatassemblage, from which result the harmony, and, with pardon forthe expression, the happy _all-together_ of the composition andperformance. A dancer learned from his very name of _pantomime_, that he could be in no esteem in Rome, but so far as he shouldbe _all the actor_. 

And, in fact, this art was carried to a point of perfection hardto believe; but for such a number of concurrent and authentictestimonies. 

It appears also clearly from history, that this art, in itsorigin, (so favored by an arbitrary prince, and who also madesome use of it, towards establishing his despotism, nay evenprimordially introduced by Bathillus, a slave) could no longerpreserve its great excellence, than the spirit of liberty wasnot wholly worn out in the Roman breasts; and, like its othersister arts, gradually decayed and sunk under the subsequentemperors. 

Pilades gave a memorable instance of the (as yet) unextinguishedspirit of liberty, when, upon his being banished Rome, for sometime, by Augustus Cesar, upon account of the disturbances thepantomime parties occasioned, he told him plainly to his face, that he was ungrateful for the good his power received, by thediversion to the Romans from more serious thoughts on the lossof their liberty. "Why do not you, " says he, "let the peopleamuse themselves with our quarrels?"

This dancer had such great powers in all his tragedies, that hecould draw tears from even those of the spectators the leastused to the melting mood. 

But in truth, the effect of these pantomimes, in general, wasprodigious. Tears and sobs interrupted often the representationof the tragedy of _Glaucus_, in which the pantomime Plancusplayed the principal character. 

Bathillus, in painting the amours of Leda, never failed ofexciting the utmost sensibility in the Roman ladies. 

But what is more surprising yet, _Memphir_, a Pithagoreanphilosopher, as Athenæus tells us, expressed, by dancing, allthe excellence of the philosophy of Pithagoras, with moreelegance, more clearness and energy, than the most eloquentprofessor of philosophy could have done. 

Upon considering all this, one is almost tempted to say, with M. Cahusac, "We have, upon the stage, excellent feet, lively legs, admirable arms: what a pity it is, that with all this we have solittle of the art of dancing!"

Our tragedy and our comedy have an extent and duration which aresupported by the charms of speech, by the interestingness ofnarration, by the variety of the sallies of wit. The action isdivided into acts, each act into scenes, these scenessuccessively present new situations, and these situations keepup the warmth of interest and attention, form the plot, lead tothe conclusion or unravelment, and prepare it. 

Such must have been, or such must be, (but with more precisionand markingness) tragedies or comedies represented by dancing;as gesture is something more marking and succinct than speech. There are required many words to express a thought, but onesingle motion may paint several thoughts, and situations. 

In such compositions, then, made to be danced, the theatricalaction must go forward with the utmost rapidity: there must notbe one unmeaning entry, figure, or step in them. Such a pieceought to be a close crouded abstract of some excellent writtendramatic piece. 

Dancing, like painting, can only present situations to the eye;and every truly theatrical situation is nothing but a livingpicture. 

If a composer of dances should undertake to represent upon thestage any great action or theatrical subject, he must begin bymaking an extract from it, of all the most picturesquesituations. No other parts beside these can enter into his plan;all the others are defective or useless, they can only embarras, perplex, confound, and render it cold and insipid. 

Whereas, if the situations succeed one another naturally, and ingreat number; if their being well linked together conducts themwith rapidity, from the first situation to the last, which mustclearly and strikingly unravel the whole; the choice iscomplete, and the theatrical effect will be sure. 

It is that final effect, of which, in the execution, thecomposer and performer must never lose sight. Successivepictures must be exhibited, and animated with all the expressionthat can result from the impassioned motions of the dance. 

This was doubtless the great secret of the art of Pilades, whoso highly excelled in his ideas of theatrical expression: thisis, perhaps, too for all kinds of theatrical composition, whether to be declaimed, or to be executed by dancing, a generalrule that is not to be slighted. 

One instance of the regard shewn by Pilades to theatricalpropriety is preserved to us, and not unworthy of attention. Hehad been publickly challenged by Hilas, once a pupil of his, torepresent the greatness of Agamemnon: Hilas came upon the stagewith buskins, which, in the nature of stilts, made him of anartificial height; in consequence of which he greatlyover-topped the croud of actors who surrounded him. This passedwell enough, 'till Pilades appeared with an air, stern andmajestic. His serious steps, his arms a-cross, his motionsometimes slow, sometimes animated, with pauses full of meaning, his looks now fixed on the ground, now lifted to heaven, withall the attitudes of profound pensiveness, painted strongly aman taken up with great things, which he was meditating, weighing, and comparing, with all the dignity of kinglyimportance. The spectators, struck with the justness, with theenergy and real elevation of so expressive a portraiture, unanimously adjudged the preference to Pilades, who, coollyturning to Hilas, said to him, "_Young man, we had to representa king who commanded over twenty kings: you made him tall:I showed him great. _"

It was in the reign of Nero, that a cinical mock-philosopher, called Demetrius, saw, for the first time, one of thesepantomime compositions. Struck with the truth of therepresentation, he could not help expressing the greatest marksof astonishment: but whether his pride made him feel a sort ofshame for the admiration he had involuntarily shewn, or whethernaturally envious and selfish, he could not bear the cruel painof being forced to approve any thing but his own singularities;he attributed to the music the strong impression that has beenmade upon him: as, in that reign, a false philosophy verynaturally had a greater influence than the real, this man was, it seems, of consequence enough for the managers of the dancesto take notice of this partiality, or at least to be piquedenough, for their own honor, to lay a scheme for undeceivinghim. He was once more brought to their theatre, and seated in aconspicuous part of the house, without his having beenacquainted with their intention. 

The orchestra began: an actor opens the scene: on the moment ofhis entrance, the simphony ceases, and the representationcontinues. Without any aid but that of the steps, the positionsof the body, the movements of the arms, the piece is performed, in which are successively represented the amours of Mars andVenus, the Sun discovering them to the jealous husband of thegoddess, the snares which he sets for his faithless spouse andher formidable gallant, the quick effect of the treacherous net, which, while it compleats the revenge of Vulcan, only publisheshis shame, the confusion of Venus, the rage of Mars, the archmirth of the gods, who came to enjoy the sight. 

The whole audience gave to the excellence of the performance itsdue applause, but the Cinic, out of himself, could not helpcrying out, in a transport of delight; "_No! this is not arepresentation; it is the very thing itself. _"

Much about the same time a dancer represented the _labors of_Hercules. He retraced in so true a manner all the differentsituations of that hero, that a king of Pontus, then at Rome, and who had never seen such a sight before, easily followed thethread of the action, and charmed with it, asked with greatearnestness of the emperor, that he would let him have with himthat extraordinary dancer, who had made such an impression uponhim. 

 "Do not, says he to Nero, be surprised at my request. I have for borderers upon my kingdom, some Barbarian nations whose language none of my people could understand, nor they learn ours. Such a man as this dancer would be an admirable interpreter between us. "

It would then surely be a great error to imagine, that anhabitual dexterity, a daily practice, with their arms, theirlegs and feet, were the only talents of these pantomime dancers. Their execution, without doubt, required all these advantages ofthe body in the most eminent degree; but their compositionssupposed, and indispensably implied an infinite number ofcombinations which belong intirely to the mind, or intellectualfaculties; as for example, especially an attentive and judiciousdiscernment of the most interesting truths of human nature. Howextensive a study this exacts, it is more easy to conceive thanto attain. 

And surely there is an evident necessity for studying men, before one can undertake to paint or represent them. It is nottill after a profound examination of the passions, that oneought to flatter one's self with characterising them purely bythe powers of external signs of actions. All the passions haveaffinities to each other, which it is only for a great justnessof understanding to seize; they have shades that distinguishthem, which nothing but a nice eye can perceive, and whicheasily escape a superficial observer. 

In serious dancing, where the character of a hero is to begiven, there are in his actions, in the course of his life, certain marking strokes, certain incidents or extraordinarypassages, which are subjects proper for the stage, and whichmust be separated from others perhaps more brilliant in history, but which would infrigidate a theatrical composition. 

In the state of dancing of our days, the dancers, and even thecomposers of dances, aspire to little more than the mechanicalpart of their art; and, indeed, they hardly know any thingbeyond that, and cannot in course, cultivate what they have noconception of. 

When M. Cahusac wrote, he observed that this was sufficient forthe spectators, who required nothing more than a brilliantexecution from the dancers in the old track of steps and capers;and this is, in fact, true of the greater number now. Butlately, the taste for dances of action, animated with meaningand conveying the idea of some fable or subject, has begun togain ground. People are less tired with a dance, in which theunderstanding is exercised, without the fatigue of perplexity, than by merely seeing a succession of lively steps, andcabriols, however well executed; which, in point of merit, bearno more proportion to that of a well-composed dance, than atiresome repetition of vignettes, of head-pieces andtail-pieces, would do to the gravings of historical pieces aftera Raphael, a Michael Angelo, or a Correggio. 

As hitherto the composer of the dances of action, have not beenable to recover that height of perfection to which the antientpantomimes carried their art; the most that any composers coulddo, I mean with success, (for there have been some attemptsmade, that, for want of a proper plan and execution, failed, )was to furnish certain dances, in the nature of _poemetti_ orsmall dramatic poems, which, where the subject of action hasbeen clearly and intelligibly executed, have ever been receivedwith the most encouraging applause by the public. 

And here the ingenious author to whom I am so much obliged inthis chapter, furnishes me with rules of composition for thedances of action, which can hardly be too much recommended. 

All theatrical compositions ought to have three essential parts. 

By a lively dialogue, in a piece made to be spoken, or by anincident dextrously introduced in one made for a dance inaction, the spectator is to be prepared for the subject that isto be represented, and to have some acquaintance of thecharacter, quality, and manners of the persons of the drama:this is what is called _the exposition_. 

The circumstances, the obstacles which arise out of theground-work of the subject, embroil it, and retard its marchwithout stopping it. A sort of embarrasment forms itself out ofthe actions of the characters, which perplexes the curiosity ofthe spectators, from whose even guess-work, the manner how allis to be ultimately unravelled is to be kept as great a secretas possible: and this embarrasment is what is called _the plot_. 

From this embarrasment, one sees successively break forthlights, the more unexpected, the better. They unfold the action, and conduct it by insensible degrees to an ingenious conclusion:this is what is called _the unravelment_. 

If any of these three parts is defective, the theatrical meritis imperfect. If they are all three in due proportion, theaction is complete, and the charm of the representation isinfallible. 

As the theatrical dance then is a representation, it must beformed of these three essentially constitutive parts. Thus itwill be more or less perfect, according as its exposition shallbe more or less clear, its plot more or less ingenious, itsunravelment more or less striking. 

But this division is not the only one that should be known andpractised. A dramatic work is commonly composed of five or feweracts; and an act is composed of scenes in dialogue or soliloquy. Now every act, every scene, should have, subordinately, itsexposition, its plot, and its unravelment, just as the total ofthe piece has, of which they are the parts. 

So ought, also every representation in dancing to have thosethree parts, which constitute every thing that is action. Without their union, there is no action that is perfect: a faultin one of those parts will have a bad effect on the others; thechain is broke; the picture, whatever beauty it may have inother respects, is without any theatrical merit. 

Besides these general laws of the theatre, which are in commonto those compositions of dances, that are to be executed on it, they are subjected to other particular rules, which are derivedfrom the primitive principles of the art. 

As the art of dancing essentially consists in painting bygestures and attitudes, there is nothing of what would berejected by a painter of good taste, that the dancer can admit;and, consequentially, every thing that such a painter wouldchuse, ought to be laid hold of, distributed, and properlyplaced in a dance of action. 

Here, on this point, recurs that never too often repeated rule, as infallible as it is plain: _let nature, in every thing, bethe guide of art; and let art, in every thing, aim at imitatingnature_: a rule this, than which there is not one more trite, more hackneyed in the theory, nor less regarded in the practice. 

Nature then being always Nature, always invariable in heroperations and productions; there is no false conclusion, norstraining inferences, in avering, that the art of dancing couldnot but be a great gainer by a revival of the taste of theantients for the pantomime branch; which, upon the theatre, converted a transient flashy amusement of the eye, into arational or sensible entertainment, and made of dancers, who areotherwise, a mere mechanical composition of feet, legs, andarms, without spirit or meaning, artists formed to paint withthe most pathetic expression, the most striking situations ofhuman nature: I am not afraid of using here the term of the mostpathetic expression, injuriously to the great power oftheatrical declamation; because the great effect and charm ofthe moment is, evidently, the more likely to be produced byattitudes or gestures alone, unseconded by the voice; for thatthe pleasure of the spectator will have been the greater for thequickness of his apprehension not having needed that help tounderstand the meaning of them. And this is so true of the forceof impression depending on that part of bodily eloquence, thateven in oratory, action was, by one of the greatest judges ofthat art, pronounced to be the most essential part of it. 

This may be, perhaps, an exaggeration: but when people resort toa theatre to unbend, or relax, they will hardly think theirpleasure tastelesly diversified by a fine pantomime execution ofa dramatic composition, to the perfection of which, poetry, music, painting, decoration, and machinery will have allcontributed their respective contingents. 

For the subjects of these poetical dances, the composer willundoubtedly find those which are the most likely to please, infabulous history, especially for the serious, or pathetic stile. This we find was the great resource of the antients, who had, inthat point, a considerable advantage, from which the moderns areexcluded, by the antient mithology having lost that effect, andwarmth of interest, which accompanied all transactions takenfrom it by their poets, and brought upon the theatre. The heroesof antiquity, the marvellous of their deities, and the historiesof their amours, or of their exploits, can never make the sameimpression on the moderns so thoroughly differing in manners andways of thinking, from those, to whom such exhibitions were akind of domestic, and even religious remembrancers. Thespectators of those times were more at home to what they sawrepresented upon their theatres; the ground-work of the fablerepresented to the audience being generally foreknown, contributed greatly to the quickness of their apprehension; andits being part of their received theology, and often of thehistory of their own country, procured it the more favorableattention. 

The greatest part of these advantages are wanting in theemployment of these fictions among the moderns; and to whichhowever they are, in some measure, compelled to have recourse, for want of theatrical subjects striking enough to be agreeablythrown into a dance; by which I do not mean to exclude allsubjects that have not those poetical fictions of Greek andRoman antiquity for a basis; on the contrary, it might justlypass for a barrenness of invention, the being reduced constantlyto borrow from them, but purely to point out a treasure, everopen to the artist who shall know how to make a selection withjudgment and taste: always remembering, that the moreuniversally the fable is foreknown, the more easy will the taskbe of rendering it intelligible in the execution. 

There are, doubtless, some parts of the antient mithology soobscure, and so little known, that any plan taken from them, would, to the generality of the spectators, be as great anovelty, as if the composer had himself invented the subject. There are others again of which all the interest is entirelyantiquated and exploded. 

As to the pieces of composition in the comic vein, there isnothing like taking the subject of them from the most agreeableand the most marking occurrences in real, current life; and thestronger they are of the manners and practice of the times, thenearer they will seem to the truth of nature, and the surer atonce to be understood, and to have a pleasing effect. 

And here I shall take the liberty of concluding with offeringtwo instances of poetic dances; the one in the serious, theother in the comic vein, which are furnished rather as hints ofthe improvable nature of such compositions, than in the leastmeant for models of them. 

 The first has for title, VENUS and ADONIS. 

The decoration represents a wood intersected by several walks, which form an agreeable perspective of distances. At the bottomof the theatre, and in the middle, there is a grand walk, terminated by a small mount, on the summit of which is seen acolonnade, that forms the peristile of a temple. 

Venus, preceded by the Graces and several nimphs, comes out ofthe temple, descends the mount, and advances to the front of thewood; the simphony to be the most agreeable and melodiousimaginable, to announce the arrival of the goddess of love. 

The Graces and the nimphs open the action, and, by theirgestures and steps, express their endeavour to sooth theimpatience of Venus on the absence of Adonis. The agitation inwhich she is, ought to be painted on her countenance, andexpressed by the discomposure of her steps, marking her anxietyand desire of seeing her lover. 

The sound of the chace is heard, which betokens the approach ofAdonis. Joy breaks forth in the eyes, the gestures, and steps ofVenus and her train. 

Adonis, followed by several hunters, enters through one of theside-walks of the wood. Venus runs to meet him, and seems tochide him for having been so long away. He shows her the head ofa stag, which he has killed, and which is carried, as intriumph, upon a hunting-pole, by one of the hunters; and offersit, as the fruit of his chace, in homage to the goddess, who ispresently appeased, and graciously receives his offering. Thesetwo lovers then express in a _pas-de-deux_, their mutualsatisfaction. 

The hunters mix with the Graces and nimphs, and form a dancewhich characterises their harmony. 

Soon a noisy simphony, of military instrumental music, giveswarning of the arrival of Mars. Venus, Adonis, the Graces, thenimphs, and hunters, show signs of uneasiness and terror. 

Mars, followed by several warriors, enters precipitately througha walk opposite to that by which Adonis and the hunters came. Venus separates from Adonis, having insisted on his getting outof the way of the formidable god of war. He withdraws with histrain by the same way as he came. Mars, inraged with jealousy, makes a shew of going to pursue Adonis. Venus stops him, andemploys, in her soothing and caresses, all the usual arts ofappeasing and blinding a jealous lover. She prevails at length, not only to dissipate his passion, but to make him believehimself in the wrong for having been jealous. 

The warriors address themselves to the Graces and nimphs, andform together a dance expressive of a sort of reconciliation;after which Mars and his train return by the same way as theycame. 

Venus, the Graces, and the nimphs, see them go, and when theyare got a little distance from them, testify their satisfactionat having got so well over this interruption. 

Adonis returns alone: Venus springs to meet him, and gives himto understand that he has now nothing to fear; that Mars willnot return in haste. 

In the same walk from which Adonis came, the hunters of histrain are seen pursuing a wild boar, that tries to escape justby where the Graces and the nimphs are, who, in their fright, attempt to fly from him: but he is already so near them, thatthey do not know how to avoid him. Adonis runs hastily to piercethe boar with his javelin; but the boar gets him himself down. The hunters arrive at that instant, and kill the boar; butAdonis is nevertheless mortally wounded, and expires. 

Here it is that the music and the dance are to display theirrespective powers: the one by the most plaintive mournfulsounds; the other by gestures and steps in which grief anddespair are strongly characterised, ought to express theprofound affection into which Venus is plunged, and the sharethe Graces, the nimphs, and the hunters take in it. 

Venus appears to implore the aid of all the gods, to restore herlover to her. She bathes him with her tears, and those precioustears have such a virtue, that Adonis appears all of a suddentransformed into an anemony or wind-flower. 

The Graces and the nimphs express their surprise; but theastonishment of the hunters should be yet more strongly marked. 

Venus herself is not the more comforted by this metamorphosis. A flower cannot well supply the place of her lover. She turnsthen her eyes towards the earth, and seems to invoke the powerof some deity inhabitant of its bowels. 

The flower disappears; the earth opens, and Proserpine rises outof it, sitting on a chariot drawn by black horses, and having ather side Adonis restored to life. 

It is natural to imagine the joy that is at this to beexpressed, by the simphony, by the gestures, and steps of Venus, of the Graces, the nimphs, and hunters. 

Proserpine, getting out of her chariot, holding Adonis by thehand, presents him to Venus. A _pas-de-trois_ or trio-dancefollows, in which the joy of the two lovers at seeing oneanother again is to be characterised by all the expression, andall the graces of the most pleasing dance, while Proserpinetestifies her satisfaction at having produced the re-union:after which, she gets into her chariot, and re-descends into theearth. 

The Graces, the nimphs, and hunters, express how highly they arecharmed at seeing Adonis again; Venus and Adonis form a_pas-de-deux_, or duet-dance, in which the Goddess takes off hergirdle or _cestus_, and puts it upon Adonis, in the way of ashoulder-belt, or as now the ribbons of most orders ofknight-hood are worn, which is to him a simbol of immortality. 

The Graces and nimphs testify to Adonis how pleased they are tosee him received into the number of the demi-gods: the hunterspay their homage to him, and the whole concludes by a generalcountry-dance. 

 The other specimen has for title, The COQUETTE PUNISHED. 

The decoration represents a delicious garden, in which thereare several compartments, separated by canals and _jet-d'eaux_. This scenery should exhibit the prospect of at once apleasure-garden, and a fruit-one. 

In the bottom of this perspective, there appear severalgardeners busied, some in pruning the hedges, others in sowingand planting: more towards the front are seen, some women atwork, tying up the flowers, or cleaning them from perniciousleaves; others setting roots in vases. All this forms thescenical picture at the drawing up the curtain. 

A simphony mixed with the most rural instruments of music, begins with soft and soothing airs. 

One of the female gardeners, more showishly dressed than theothers, and who is employed upon some necessary task about theflower-vases, seems however more attentive to the admiring theflowers, than to do her work: and as she is standing near acanal, she is, when she imagines none are taking notice of her, looking _at_ her figure in the watery mirror, admiring herself, and adjusting her dress. Though she does all this by stealth, her companions remark her coquettry, make signs to each other, and point her out to the gardeners, who join the laugh at her, without the coquet's perceiving it, who is too much taken upwith herself. 

The simphony should express by the sounds, as nearly aspossible, the mockery and bursts of laughter from the rest ofthe gardeners. 

The coquet is sadly tempted to gather some of the flowers forher own use, but dares not. In the moment that she is expressingthe greatest mind for it, enters a gardener, who is not one ofthose employed at work, and who makes up to her, shows her afine nosegay, and signifies to her that he is come on purpose tooffer it her. The coquet immediately leaves off her work; andthis _pas-de-deux_ begins by all the little grimaces and falsecoyness that the coquette opposes to her acceptance of thenosegay, but which at the same time only the more betray themind she has for it. The gardener keeps pressing her to receiveit. Her companions, curious to see how this will end, advancelittle by little towards them: the gardeners follow them; andall surrounding the coquette and her swain, form a dance, inwhich the men seem to excite the lover not to take a denial, andthe women want to engage the coquette to receive the nosegay;but all this, with a bantering air: at length the coquetteaccepts it, sticks some of the flowers in her hair, and the restin her bosom. Her companions and the gardeners, shew by theirsigns, that they were very sure she would take the nosegay andreturn to their, work. 

Another gardener now enters, on the side opposite to that onwhich the first came, and advancing with an air of gaiety, presents to the coquette, a small basket of fine fruit. In this_pas-de-trois_, she a-fresh makes a great many faces, aboutwhether she will take the fruit or not. The swain of the nosegayexpresses his vexation at the intervention of this rival, butthe coquette manages so well that she pacifies his jealousy, andaccepts the other's basket of fruit, which she hangs upon herarm. The gardeners do not quit their work, but they give tounderstand by shrewd signs, what they think of the coquette'sgame. 

It is easy to conceive, that the composer of this music will, inthe airs made for the _pas-de-deux_, and _pas-de-trois_, payattention to the different affections that are to becharacterised by the dance. 

While the gardener who brought the nosegay, and the other whopresented the fruit, and the coquette, are all seemingly in goodharmony, enters a third gardener, gallantly dressed, of a mostengaging figure, having in his hands some pink-and-silverribbons. 

The simphony should announce the arrival of this amiablegardener, by an air all expressive of briskness and gaygallantry. 

The gallant gardener approaches the coquette, and shews herthose glittering ribbons, which at once catch her eye, and giveher a violent longing for them. This new-comer takes notice ofthe flowers in her hair and bosom, and of the fruit-basket hungupon her arm. He gives her plainly to understand that she mustreturn all this to his rivals, if she has a mind to have theribbons. These begin to express their resentment; but thecoquette is so transported with the pleasure of bedizeningherself with those ribbons, that no regard can with-hold her:she returns the flowers to the one, and the fruit to the other, and takes the ribbons. The two gardeners, who see themselvesslighted in this manner, threaten him who has given the ribbons, and throw themselves into attitudes of falling upon him; atwhich he puts on a resolute look, and does not seem to fearthem. Her companions and the gardeners leave their work, andadvance some steps forwards, being curious to see how the scenewill end. 

The simphony should here express, by different airs, theresentment of the two first swains, and the resentment of thegallant gardener. 

The coquette uses her best arts to pacify the two angrygardeners; but it is all in vain; they express theirindignation, and are determined to take their revenge upon theirrival. Just in the instant that they are preparing to attackhim, and that he is stoutly standing upon his defence, comes ina female gardener, amiable, lively, but without any mark ofcoquettry in her looks or dress; who, by the eager andfrightened air with which she interposes, and places herselfbetween the gallant gardener and the others, to prevent theirhurting him, discovers the tender regard she has for him. 

The two others, in respect to this charming girl, dare notproceed; but they give her to understand that the coquette hasbeen so base as to return the flowers to the one, and the fruitto the other, that she might get the ribbons from the gardenerwhom she is protecting from their just resentment. 

At this the offended fair one expresses to her lover herindignation, but does not the less for that make the otherssensible that she will not suffer them to hurt him. She snatchesnext, from the coquette, the ribbons. The whole company roundtestify their approbation of what she has done, even the twogardeners, who were, the moment before, so angry, burst outa-laughing for joy, to see the coquette so well punished, beingnow left without flowers, fruit, or ribbons; at which shewithdraws, overwhelmed with confusion, and with the loud laughand rallying gestures of her companions and the other gardeners. 

The gay gardener, vexed at having been surprised by hismistress, in an act of gallantry to another woman, wants to passit off to her as merely a scheme to amuse himself, and to laughat the coquette. At first she will not hear him; she treads theribbons under her feet, and is going away in a passion. He stopsher, and entreats her forgiveness with an air so moving andpenetrated, that, little by little, she is disarmed of heranger, and pardons him, in sign of which she gives him her hand. 

There is no need of specifying here what the dance in action, accompanied by the music, should express in this _pas-de-deux_;it is too obvious. 

The gardeners, men and women, testify their rejoicing at thisreconciliation, and the dance becomes general. 

 _FINIS. _

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

SPELLING NOTES:

The word "Salii" was consistently printed as Salü (u with umlaut);it has been corrected for the e-text. The word "Præsul" was printedin italics and may have read "Proesul" (oe for ae ligature);it is here given the standard spelling. 

A number of words usually spelled with "y" are written with "i" in thistext: nimph, mith, simbol; and names such as Pilades, Hilas. 

The form "Hetruscans" is used consistently. 

Some Variations and Anomalies:

 "character" is sometimes spelled "charracter" or "caracter" "direct" and "dirrect" both occur "withall" is more common than "withal" "embarras" is consistently spelled with one "s" "exagerate" is almost always spelled with one "g"

 "choregraphy" is always written without the second "o" "gestual" is not an error for "gestural" but a different word

ERRORS, noted or corrected:

 _All duplications occur across a line break ("of / of . .. "). _

 diverting the Romans from serious thoughts [thoughs] twirling it, or with a pail to draw water [a a pail] Voi gli correrete dietro [Voigli] "Then handing you backwards [_catchword has "There" for "Then"_] specifying rules for its attainment [for for] must be strictly forbidden [fobidden] a vain silly hint of self-recomdation; [_text unchanged: "recom/dation" at line break_] nothing is more strongly inculcated [stongly] Persons of every size or shape [of of] inhabitants of the southren climates [_spelling unchanged_] called by them _LasCheganças_, [_spacing unchanged_] (not to mention Sadler's wells) [_capitalization unchanged_] not being able to contradict the authorities [_printed "be/ing" at line break without hyphen_] adopted with a passionate fondness by the Romans [adoped] the obstacles which arise out of the ground-work [_printed "our of", corrected by hand to "out of"_] and steps of Venus [of of]