prings 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.

Certainly those of the fair sex who use exercise, will, in their
exemption from a depraved or deficient appetite, in the
freshness or in the glow of their color, in the firmness of
their make, in the advantages to their shape, in the goodness in
general of their constitution, find themselves not ill repaid
for conquering any ill-habit of false delicacy and sloth, to
which so many, otherwise fine young ladies, owe the disorders of
their stomach, their pale sickly hue, and that languid state of
health which must poison all their pleasures, and even endanger
their lives. These are not strained nor far-fetched
consequences.

But even as to those of either sex, the practice of dancing is
attended with obviously good effects. Such as are blessed by
nature with a graceful shape and are clean-limbed, receive still
greater ease and grace from it; while at the same time, it
prevents the gathering of those gross and foggy humors which in
time form a disagreeable and inconvenient corpulence. On the
other hand, those whose make and constitution occasion a kind of
heavy proportion, whose muscular texture is not distinct, whose
necks are short, shoulders round, chest narrow, and who, in
short are, what may be called, rather clumsy figures; these will
greatly find their account in a competent exercise of the art of
dancing, not only as it will give them a freedom and ease one
would not, at the first sight, imagine compatible with their
figure, but may contribute much to the cure, or at least to the
extenuation of such bodily defects, by giving a more free
circulation to the blood, a habit of sprightliness and agility
to the limbs, and preventing the accumulation of gross humors,
and especially of fat, which is itself not among the least
diseases, where it prevails to an excess. Not that I here mean
any thing so foolishly partial, as that nothing but dancing
could operate all this; but only place it among not the least
efficacious means.

Nothing is more certain than that exercises in general,