h
century, and in the first Italian operas given in London there was no
ballet. During the regency of Lord Middlesex a ballet-master was appointed
and a _corps_ of dancers formed. The ballet has had three distinct stages
in its development. For a long time it was to be found only at the court,
when princely entertainments were given to celebrate great occasions. At
that time ladies of the highest rank performed in the ballet and spent much
time in practising and perfecting themselves for it. Catherine de'Medici
introduced these entertainments into France and spent large sums of money
on devising performances to distract her son's attention from the affairs
of the state. Baltasarini, otherwise known as Beaujoyeulx, was the composer
of a famous entertainment given by Catherine in 1581 called the "Ballet
Comique de la Reyne." This marks an era in the history of the opera and
ballet, for we find here for the first time dance and music arranged for
the display of coherent dramatic ideas. Henry IV., Louis XIII. and XIV.
were all lovers of the ballet and performed various characters in them, and
Richelieu used the ballet as an instrument for the expression of political
purposes. Lully was the first to make an art of the composition of ballet
music and he was the first to insist on the admission of women as ballet
dancers, feminine characters having hitherto been assumed by men dressed as
women. When Louis XIV. became too fat to dance, the ballet at court became
unpopular and thus was ended the first stage of its development. It was
then adopted in the colleges at prize distributions and other occasions,
when the ballets of Lully and Quinault were commonly performed. The third
period in the history of the ballet was marked by its appearance on the
stage, where it has remained ever since. It should be added that up till
the third period dramatic poems had accompanied the ballet and the dramatic
meaning was helped out with speech and song; but with the advent of the
third period speech disappeared and the purely pantomime performance, or
_ballet d'action_, was instituted.

The father of ballet dancing as we know it at the present day was Jean
Georges Noverre (_q.v._). The _ballet d'action_ was really invented by him;
in fact, the ballet has never advanced beyond the stage to which he brought
it; it has rather gone back. The [v.03 p.0270] essence of Noverre's theory
was that mere display was not enough to ensure interest and life fo