Chapter II: Part 2

Passing through the Electorate of Cologne, I observed a number of persons of all ages, assembled on a convenient spot, and disposed, in couples, in order for dancing; but so odly paired that the most ugly old man, had for his partner the most beautiful and youngest girl in the company, while, on the contrary, the most decrepid, deformed old woman, was led by the most handsome and vigorous youth. Inquiring the reason of so strange a groupe of figures, I was told that it was the humor of an eminent painter, who was preparing a picture for the gallery at Dusseldorp, the subject of which was to be this contrast; and that in order to take his draught from nature, he had given a treat to this rustic company, in the design of exhibiting at one view, the floridness of youth contrasted to the weakness and infirmities of old age, in a moral light, of exposing the impropriety of those matches, in which the objection of a disparity of years should not be duly respected.

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

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

As to the grotesque stile of dance, the effect of it chiefly depends on the leaps and height of the springs. There is more of bodily 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 of difficulty and danger, rather than of art. But the worst of it is, that this vigor and agility last no longer than the season of youth, or rather decrease in proportion as age advances, and, by this means, leave those who have trusted solely to that vigor and agility deprived of their essential merit. Whereas such as shall have joined to that vigor and agility, a proper study of the principles of their art; that talent will still remain as a resource for them. Commonly those dancers who have from nature eminently those gifts which enable them to shine in the grottesque branch, do not chuse to give themselves the trouble of going to the bottom of their art, and acquiring its perfection. Content with their bodily powers, and with the applause their performances actually do receive from the public, they look no further, and remain in ignorance of the rest of their duty. Against this dissipation then, which keeps them always superficial, they cannot be too much, for their own advantage, admonished.

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

But though the grotesque may be a caricature of nature, it is never to lose sight of it. It must ever bear a due relation to the objects of which it attempts to exhibit the imitation, however exagerated. But in this it is for genius to direct the artist. And it is very certain that this kind of dancing, well executed, affords to the public, great entertainment in the way, if what may be called broad mirth; especially where the figure of the grotesque dancer, his gestures, dress, and the decorations, all contribute to the creation of the laugh. He must also avoid any thing studied or affected in his action. Every thing must appear as natural as possible, even amidst the grimaces, contortions, and extravagancies of the character.

Of

SUNDRY REQUISITES,

for

PERFECTION OF THE

ART

of

DANCING.

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. This cannot be too much inculcated. The passions and manners of mankind, have all a different expression, which cannot be presented too plain, and too obvious. The adjustment of the motions to the character must be observed through every stile of dancing, the serious, the half-serious, the comic, and the grotesque. The various beauties of these different kinds of dances, all center in the propriety or truth of nature. Looks, movements, attitudes, gestures, should in the dancer, all have an appropriate meaning; so plainly expressed as to be instantaneously understood by the spectator, without giving him the trouble of unriddling them: otherwise, it is like talking to them in a foreign language for which an interpretor is needed.

But to give a sentiment, a man must have it first: where a pathetic sentiment is well possessed of the mind, the expression of 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 a middling stature are more generally fit for every character; and may make up in gracefulness what they want in size. The remarkably tall commonly want the graces to be seen in those of the more general standard.

A young dancer who displays a dawn of genius, cannot be too much exhorted to deliver himself up to the power of nature; so that acquiring a particular manner of his own, he may himself proceed on original. If he would hope to arrive at any eminence in the art, he must break the shackles of a servile imitation, and preserve nothing but the principles and grounds of his art, which will be so far from fettering him, that they will assist his 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 the most proper situations for furnishing the most strikingly pictures, prospects, and consequently, producing the greatest effect.

This was doubtless the great secret of Pilades, the founder, at least in Rome, of the pantomime art. It was on this choice of situations, that the understanding whole pieces, both tragic and comic, executed in dances, entirely depends.

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

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

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

Those subjects, whether serious or comic, which are executed by dances, or in the pantomime strain, are chiefly intended for the throwing a variety into theatrical entertainments, without disputing any honors of rank.

The very same person who shall have at one time, taken pleasure in seeing and hearing the noble and pathetic sentiments of tragedy, or the ridicule of human follies in a good comedy, finely represented, may, without any sort of inconsistence, not be displeased at seeing, at another time, a subject executed in dances, while the music, the decorations, all contribute to the happy diversification of his entertainment. Ought he therefore either to call his own taste to an account for his being pleased, or to grudge to others a pleasure, which nature itself justifies, in his having given to mankind a love of variety?

Nor is there perhaps, in the world, an art more the genuine offspring of Nature, more under her immediate command, than the art of dancing. For to say nothing of that dancing, which has no relation to the theatre, and which is her principal demonstrations of joy and festivity, the theatrical branch acknowledges her for its great and capital guide. All the motions, all the gestures, all the attitudes, all the looks, can have no merit, but in their faithful imitation of Nature: while man himself, man, the noblest of her productions, is ever the subject which the dancer paints through all his passions and manners.

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

The art, viewed in this light, shows how comparatively little the merely mechanical part of it, the agility of the legs and body, contributes to the accomplishment of the dancer; however necessary that also is. We might soon form a dancer, if the art consisted only in his being taught to shake his legs in cadence, to ballance his body, or to move his arms unmeaningly. But if he has not a genius, susceptible of cultivation, and which is itself far the most essential gift, he will make no progress towards 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, which himself receives from the sensibility of genius.

There are many young beginners, who, looking on this art as a good way of livelihood, enter on the rudiments of it, with great ardor. But this ardor soon abates, in proportion, as they advance, and find there is more study and pains required from them than they expected to find, towards their arrival at any tolerable degree of perfection. Having considered this art as purely a mechanical one, they are surprised at the discovery of its exacting thought and reflection, for which their ideas of it had not prepared them. A man who has not sufficient share of genius to attempt the vanquishing these difficulties, of which, in his false conception of things, he has formed to himself no notion; either treats these great essentials of the art, as innovations, and such as he is not bound to admit, or in the despair of acquiring them, sits down contented with his mediocrity. It is well if he does not rail at, or attempt to turn into ridicule, perfections which are beyond his reach. And to say the truth, the art has not greater enemies than those professors of it, who stick at the surface, and want the spirit necessary to go to the bottom of it. In vain does the public refuse its applause to their indifferent, ordinary, uninteresting performance: rather than allow the fault to be in themselves, their vanity will lay it on the public: they never refuse themselves that approbation which others can see no reason for bestowing on them. They are perfectly satisfied with having executed in their little manner, the little they know or are capable of; they have no idea of any thing beyond their short 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 of one's youth. It is the best time of laying the foundation both of theory and practice.

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

A master does not do his duty by his pupil, in this art, if he fails of strongly inculcating to him the necessity of studying those principles; and of kindling in him that ardor for attaining to excellence, which if it is not itself genius, it is certain that no genius will do much without it.

Invention is also as much a requisite in our art as in any other. But to save the pains of study, we often borrow and copy from one another. Indolence is the bane of our art. The trouble of thinking necessary to the invention and composition of dances, appears to many too great a fatigue: this engages them to appropriate to themselves the fruits of other peoples invention; and they appear to themselves well provided at a small expence, when they have made free with the productions of others. Some again, instead of cultivating their talent, chuse indolently to follow the great torrent of the fashion, and stick to the old tracks, without daring to strike out any thing new, so that their prejudices are, in fact, the principles by which they are governed, and which sometimes serves them for their excuse; since they know better, but do not care to give themselves the trouble of acting up to their knowledge. Thus they plod in the safe, and broad road of mediocrity, but without any 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 more obstruct their progress in the discoveries of the depths of their art, than this scheme of subsisting on the merit of others.

Many, besides those who are incapable of invention, are tempted at once by their indolence, and by the hope of not being discovered or minded in their borrowing from others, to give stale or hackneyed compositions, which having seen in one country, they flatter themselves they may palm for new and original upon the public in another. Thence it is that the audience is cloyed with repetitions of pantomime dances; perhaps some of them very pretty at their first appearance, but which cannot fail of tiring when too often repeated; or when the same grounds or subject of action is only superficially or slightly diversified.

It is this barrenness of invention that the ingenious Goldoni has so well exposed in one of his plays, in the following speech, 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 productions of others. It even would, in the disgust which repetition occasions, bring on the decline of this entertainment, in the opinion of a public which is always fond of novelty.

And of novelty, the beauties of nature furnish an inexhaustible fund, in their infinite variety. Among these it is the business of the artist to chuse such as can be brought upon the scene, and theatrically adapted to the execution of his art. But for this he must be possessed of taste, which is a qualification as necessary to him, as a composer, as that of the graces are to him as a performer. Both are gifts. But if a due exercise of the art can add to the natural graces, taste does not stand less in need of cultivation: it refines itself by a judicious observation of the beauties and delicacies of nature. These he must incessantly study, in order to transplant into his art such as are capable of producing the most pleasing effect. He must particularly consult the fitness of time, place and manners; otherwise what would please in one dance might displease in another. Propriety is the great rule of this art, as of all others. A discordance in music hurts a nice ear; a false attitude or motion in dancing equally offends the judicious eye.

The looks of the dancer are far from insignificant to the character he is representing. Their expression should be strictly conformable to his subject. The eye especially should speak. Thence it is that the Italian custom of dancing with uncovered faces, cannot but be more advantageous than that of dancing masked, as is commonly done in France; when the passions can never be so well represented as by the changes of expression, which the dancer should throw into his countenance.

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

A mask then cannot but hide a great part of the necessary expression, or justness of action. It can only be favorable to those who have contracted ill habits of grimacing or of contortions of the face while they perform.

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

The female dancers have naturally a greater ease of expression than the men. More pliable in their limbs, with more sensibility in the delicacy of their frame; all their motions and actions are more tenderly pathetic, more interesting than in our sex. We are besides prepossessed in their favor, and less disposed to remark or cavil at their faults. While on the other hand, that so natural desire they have of pleasing, independently of their profession, makes them studiously avoid any motion or gesture that might be disagreeable, and consequently any contortion of the face. They, instinctively then, one may say, make a point of the most graceful expression.

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

The female dancers have also an advantage over the men, in that the petticoat can conceal many defects in their execution; even, if the indulgence due to that amiable sex, did not only make great 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 the female dancers are not suffered to perform the dances, and where the parts of the women are perform'd by men in the dresses of women, it appears plainly, how much the execution suffers by this expedient. However well they may be disguised, there is an inherent clumsiness in them, which it is impossible for them to shake off, so as to represent with justness the sprightly graces and delicacy of the female sex. The very idea of seeing men effeminated by such a dress, invincibly disgusts. An effeminate man appears even worse than a masculine woman.

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

Education has doubtless a great share in giving early to the body a command of graceful positions, especially for the grand and serious dances, which, as I have before observed, are the principal grounds of the art. And once more, the great point is not to stick at mediocrity; but to aim at an excellence in the art, that may give at least the best chance for not being confounded with the croud. If it is true, that, among the talents, those which are calculated for pleasing, are not those that are the least sure of encouragement; it is also equally true, that for any dependence to be had on them, it is something more than an ordinary degree of merit in them that is required.

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

A celebrated female dancer in Italy, designing to perform at a certain capital, wrote to her correspondent there to provide her an apartment suitable to the genteel figure which she had always made in life. On her arrival, her acquaintance seeing she had brought nothing with her, but her own person and two servants, asked her when she expected her baggage. She answered, with a smile, "If you will come to-morrow morning and breakfast with me, you, and whoever you will bring with you, shall see it, and I promise you it is worth your while seeing, being a sort of merchandize that is very much in fashion."

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

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

As to the composition of dances, it is impossible for a professor of this art, to make any figure without a competent stock of original ideas, reducible into practice. A dance should be a kind of regular dramatic poem to be executed by dancing, in a manner so clear, as to give to the understanding of the spectator no trouble in making out the meaning of the whole, or of any part of it. All ambiguity being as great a fault of stile in such compositions, as in writing. It is even harder to be repaired; for a false expression in the motions, gestures, or looks, may confuse and bewilder the spectator so as that he will not easily recover the clue or thread of the fable intended to be represented.

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

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

He must also, in his composition, be pre-assured of all the necessaries for their complete execution. Otherwise decorations either deficient or not well adapted; an insufficient number of performers, or their being bad ones; or, in short, the fault of a manager, who, through a misplaced economy, would not allow the requisite expences; all these, or any of these, might ruin the composition, and the composer might, after taking all imaginable pains to please, find his labor abortive, and himself condemned for what he could not help. There is no exhibiting with success any entertainment of this sort without having all the necessary performers and accompaniments. It will be in a great measure perfect or imperfect in proportion as they are supplied or withheld.

A good ballet-master must especially have regard to both poetical and picturesque invention; his aim being to unite both those arts under one exhibition. The poetical part of the composition being necessary to furnish a well-composed piece that shall begin with a clear exposition, and proceed unfolding itself to the conclusion, in situations well chosen, and well expressed. The picturesque part is also highly essential for the formation of the steps, attitudes, gestures, looks, grouping the performers, and planning their evolutions; all for the greatest and justest effect.

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

A man of true genius in any of the imitative arts, and there is not one that has a juster claim to that title than the art of dancing, sensible that nature is the varied and abundant spring of all objects of imitation, considers her and all her effects with a far different eye from those who have no intention of availing themselves of the matter she furnishes for observation. He will discover essential differences between objects, where a superficial beholder sees nothing but sameness; and in his imitation he will so well know how to render those differences discernible, that in the composition of his dance, the most trite subject will assume the air of novelty with the grace of variety.

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

The public complains, with great reason, that dances are frequently void of action, which is the fault of the performers not giving themselves the trouble to study just ones: satisfied with the more mechanical part of dancing, they never think of connecting the part of the actor with it, which however is indispensably necessary to give to their performance, spirit, and animation.

A dance without meaning is a very insipid botch. The subject of the composition should always be strictly connected to the dances, so as that they should be in equal correspondence to one another. And, where a dance is expletively introduced in the intervals of the acts, the subject of it should have, at least, some affinity to the piece. A long custom has made the want of this attention pass unnoticed. It is surely an absurd and an unnatural patchwork, between the acts of a deep tragedy, to bring on, abruptly by way of diversion, a comic dance. By this contrast both entertainments are hurt; the abruptness of the transition is intolerable to the audience; and the thread, especially of the tragic fable, is unpleasingly broken. The spectators cannot bear to be so suddenly tossed from the serious to the mirthful, and from the mirthful to the serious. In short, such an heterogeneous adulteration has all the absurdity reproached to the motley mixture in tragi-comedy, without any thing of that connection which is preserved in that kind of justly exploded dramatic composition. How easy too to avoid this defect, by adapting the subjects of the dances to the different exigences of the different dramas, whether serious, comic, or farcical!

One great source of this disorder, is probably the managers considering dances in nothing better than in the light of merely a mechanical execution for the amusement of the eye, and incapable of speaking to the mind. And in this mistake they are certainly justifiable by the great degeneracy of this art, from the pitch of perfection to which it was antiently carried, and to which the encouragement of the public could not fail to restore it. The managers would then see their interest too clearly in consulting the greater pleasure of the public, not to afford to this art, the requisite cultivation and means of improvement.

The composer, who must even have something of the poet in him; the musician, the painter, the mechanic, are essentially necessary to the contribution of their respective arts, towards the harmony and perfection of composition, in a fine dramatic dance; even the dresses are no inconsiderable part of the entertainment. The _costume_, or in a more general term, propriety, should have the direction of them. It is not magnificence, that is the great point, but their being well assorted to character and circumstances. The French are notoriously faulty in over-dressing their characters, and in making them fine and showy, where their simplicity would be their greatest ornament. I do not mean a simplicity that should have any thing mean, low or indifferent in it; but, for example, in rural characters, the simplicity of nature, if I may use the expression, in her holy-day-cloaths.

As to the decorations and machines especially, I know of no place where there is less excuse for their being deficient in them than in London, where they are too manifestly, to bear any suspicion of flattery in the attributing it to them, executed to a perfection that is not known in any other part of Europe. The quickness with which the shifts and deceptions in the pantomime entertainments are performed here, have been attempted in many other parts; but the persons there employed, not having the same skill and depth in mechanics as the artists here, cannot come up to them in this point. And it is in this point precisely that a composer of dances may be furnished with great assistence in the effects from the theatrical illusion. And in an entertainment, where by an established tacit agreement between the audience and performers, there is such a latitude of introducing superhuman personages, either of the heathen deities, or of fairy-hood, inchanters, and the like, those transformations and deceptions of the sight are even in the order of natural consequences, from the pre-supposed and allowed power of such characters to operate them. At the same time the rules of probability must even there be observed. Nor is it amiss to be very sparing and reserved in the composition of those dances, grounded on the introduction of purely imaginary beings, such as the allegorical impersonation of the moral Beings, whether the Virtues or the Vices. Unless the invention is very interesting indeed, the characters distinctly marked, and the application very just and obvious; their effect is rarely answerable to expectation, especially on the audiences of this country. The taste here for those airy ideal characters is not very high, and perhaps not the worse for not being so.

Among the many losses which this art has sustained, one surely, not the least regrettable, even for our theatres, was that of the dances in armour, practised by the Greeks, which they used by way of diversion and of _exercise_ for invigorating their bodies. Sometimes they had only bucklers and javelins in their hands: but, on certain occasions they performed in panoply, or complete suits of armour. Strengthened by their daily and various manly exercises, they were enabled to execute these dances, with a surprising exactness and dexterity. The martial simphony that accompanied them, was performed by a numerous band of music; for the clash of their arms being so loud, would else have drowned the tune or airs of the musicians. It is impossible to imagine a more sublime, splendid and picturesque sight than what these dances afforded, in the brilliancy of their arms, and the variety of their evolutions; while the delight they took in it, inspired them with as much martial fire, as if they had been actually going to meet the enemy. And indeed this diversion was so much of the nature of the military exercise, that none could be admitted who were not thoroughly expert in all martial training. In time of peace, this kind of dance was considered as even necessary to keep up that suppleness and athletic disposition of body, to bear action and fatigue, essential to the military profession. If the practice had been neglected, but for a few days, they observed a numbness insensibly diffuse itself over the whole body. They were persuaded then that the best way of preserving their health, and fitness for action, and consequently 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, been attempted to be imitated, with some degree of success: but as the performers had not been trained up to such an exercise, like the Greeks, it was not to be expected that the representation should have the same perfection, or color of life.

The composition of the music, and the suiting the airs to the intended execution of a dance, is a point of which it is scarce needful to insist on the importance, from its being so obvious and so well known. Nothing can produce a more disagreeable discordance than a performer's dancing out of time. And here it may be observed, how much lies upon a dancer, in his being at once obliged to adapt his motions exactly to the music and to the character: which forms a double incumbence, neither point of which he can neglect, without falling into unpardonable errors.

Where dances are well composed, they may give a picture, to the life, of the manners and genius of each nation and each age, in conformity to the subject respectively chosen. But then the truth of the _costume_, and of natural and historical representation must be strictly preserved. Objects must be neither exagerated beyond probability, nor diminished so as not to please or affect. A real genius will not be affraid of striking out of the common paths, and, sensible that inventiveness is a merit, he will create new theatrical subjects, or produce varied combinations of old ones. And where the decorations, or requisite accompaniments are not supplied as he could wish, he must endeavour to make the most of what he can get, towards the exhibition of his production; if not with all the advantage of which it is susceptible, at least with all those he can procure for it. Where the best cannot be obtained, he must be content with the least bad. But especially a composer of dances should never lose sight of his duty in preserving to his art its power of competition, as well as its affinity with the other imitative arts, in the expression of nature; all the passions and sentiments being manifestly to be marked by motion, gestures, and attitudes, to the time of a correspondent and well adapted music. While all this aided and set off, by the accompaniments of proper decorations of painting, and, where necessary, of machinery, makes that, a well composed dance, may very justly be deemed a small poem, thrown into the most lively action imaginable; into an action so expressive as not to need the aid of words, for conveying its meaning; but to make the want of them rather a pleasure than matter of regret; from its exercising, without fatiguing, the mind of the spectator, to which it can never be but an agreeable entertainment, to have something left for its own making out, always provided that there be no perplexing difficulty or ambiguity. Nothing of which is impossible to an artist who has the talent of making a right choice among the most pleasing objects of nature; of sufficiently feeling what he aims at expressing; of knowing how far it is allowable for his art, to proceed towards the embellishing nature, and where it should stop to avoid its becoming an impertinence; and especially of agreeably disposing his subject, in the most neat and intelligible manner that can be 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 the strongest reasons of inducement to learn this art, they could not but justly lose much, if not all, of their weight, from my supposed interest in the offering them; besides the partiality every 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 who hold the highest rank in the public opinion for solidity of understanding, and purity of morals, and who yet did not disdain to give their opinion in favor of an art only imagined frivolous, for want of considering it in a just and inlarged view.

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 plan of education for a young Prince, has (page 14.) the following passage 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 be obtained by a competent skill, or at least tincture of the art, the Chevalier Ramsay, has not exagerated its utility. Quintilian has recommended it, especially in early years, when the limbs are the most pliable, for procuring that so necessary accomplishment, in the formation of orators gesture: observing withall, that where that is not becoming, nothing else hardly pleases.

But even independent of that consideration, nothing is more generally confessed, than that this branch of breeding qualifies persons for presenting themselves with a good grace. To whom can it be unknown that a favorable prepossession at the first sight is often of the highest advantage; and that the power of first impressions is not easily surmountable?

In assemblies or places of public resort, when we see a person of a genteel carriage or presence, he attracts our regard and liking, whether he be a foreigner or one of this country. At court, even a graceful address, and an air of ease, will more distinguish a man from the croud, than the richest cloaths that money may purchase; but can never give that air to be acquired only by education.

There are indeed who, from indolence or self-sufficiency, affect a sort of carelessness in their gait, as disdaining to be obliged to any part of their education, for their external appearance, which they abandon to itself under the notion of its being natural, free, and easy.

But while they avoid, as they imagine, the affectation of over-nicety, they run into that of a vicious extreme of negligence, which proves nothing but either a deficiency of breeding, or if not that, a high opinion of themselves, with what is not at all unconsequential to that, a contempt of others.

Such are certainly much mistaken, if they imagine that an art, which is principally designed to correct defects, should leave so capital an one subsisting as that of want of ease, and freedom, in the gesture and gait. On the contrary, it is as great an enemy to stiffness, as it is to looseness of carriage, and air. It equally reprobates an ungainly rusticity, and a mincing, tripping, over-soft manner. Its chief aim is to bring forth the natural graces, and not to smother them with appearances of study and art.

But of all the people in the world, the British would certainly be the most in the wrong for not laying a great enough stress on this part of education; since none have more conspicuously the merit of figure and person; and it would in them be a sort of ingratitude to Nature, who has done so much for them, not to do a little more for themselves, in acquiring an accomplishment, the utility of which has been acknowledged in all ages, and in all countries, and especially by the greatest and most sensible men in their own.

As to the ladies, there is one light in which perhaps they would not do amiss to view the practice of this art, besides that of mere diversion or improvement of their deportment: it is that of its being highly serviceable to their health, and to what it can never be expected they should be indifferent about, their beauty, it being the best and surest way of preserving, or even giving it to their whole person.

It is in history a settled point, that beauty was no where more florishing, nor less rare, than among such people as encouraged and cultivated exercise, especially in the fair sex. The various provinces and governments in Greece, all agreed, some in a less, some in a greater degree, in making exercise a point of female education. The Spartans carried this to perhaps an excess, since the training of the children of that sex, hardly yielded to that of the male in laboriousness and fatigue. Be this confessed to be an extreme: but then it was in some measure compensated by its being universally allowed, that the Spartan women owed to it that beauty in which they excelled the rest of the Grecian women, who were themselves held, in that point, preferable to the rest of the world. Hellen was a Spartan. Yet the legislator of that people, did not so much as consider this advantage among the ends proposed in prescribing so hardy an education to the weaker sex. His views were for giving them that health and vigor of body, which might enable them to produce a race of men the fittest to serve their country in war.

But as the best habit of body is ever inseparable from the greatest perfection of beauty, of which its possessor is susceptible, it very naturally followed, that the good plight to which exercise brought and preserved the females, gave also to their shape, that delicacy and suppleness, and to their every motion, that graceful agility which caracterized the Grecian beauties, and distinguished them for that nymph-stile of figure, which we to this day admire in the description of their historians, of their poets, or in the representations that yet remain to us in their statues, or other monuments of antiquity.

But omitting to insist on the Spartan austerity, and especially on their gimnastic training for both sexes, and to take the milder methods of exercise in use among the Grecians, we find that the chace, that foot-races, and especially dancing, principally composed the amusement of the young ladies of that country; where, in the great days of Greece, no maxim ever more practically prevailed, than that sloth or inactivity was equally the parent of diseases of the body, as of vices of the mind. Agreeable to which idea, one of the greatest physicians now in Europe, the celebrated Tronchin, while at Paris, vehemently declaimed against this false delicacy and aversion against exercise; from which the ladies, especially of the higher rank of life, derived their bad habits of body, their pale color, with all the principles of weakness, and of a puny diseased constitution, which they necessarily intail on their innocent children. Thence it was that he condemned the using oneself too much to coaches or chairs, which, he observed, lowers the spirits, thickens the humors, numbs the nerves, and cramps the liberty of circulation.

Considering the efficacy of exercise, and that fashion has abolished or at least confined among a very few, the more robust methods of amusement, it can hardly not be eligible to cultivate and encourage an art, so innocent and so agreeable as that of dancing, and which at once unites in itself the three great ends, of bodily improvement, of diversion, and of healthy exercise. As to this last especially, it has this advantage, its being susceptible at pleasure, of every modification, of being carried from the gentlest degree of motion, up to that of the most violent activity. And where riding is prescribed purely for the sake of the power of the concussion resulting from it, to prevent or to dissipate obstructions, the springs and agitations of the bodily frame, in the more active kind of dances, can hardly not answer the same purpose, especially as the motion is more equitably diffused, and suffers no checks or partiality from keeping the seat, as either in riding, or any other method of conveyance. At least, such an entertainment, one would imagine, preferable, for many reasons, to an excess of such sedentary amusements as those of cards, and the like.