tisfy an
Emperor's curiosity, as to the nature and meaning of the Pirrhic
dance, by executing it before him.

All this I mention purely to obviate the prepossession of the
art being so frivolous, so unworthy of the attention of the
manly 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 to
aim at impressing; all that I wish is to give just ones: it
being perhaps as little eligible, for want of consideration, to
see less in this art than it really deserves, than, from a fond
partiality 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 only
much practised, but constituted not even an inconsiderable part
of their religious rites and ceremonies. The accounts we have of
the sacred dances, of the Jews especially, as well as of other
nations, 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 great
esteem and practice, carried it up to a very high pitch. They
were in general, in their bodies, extremely well conformed, and
disposed for this exercise. Many of them piqued themselves on
rivalling, in excellence of execution, the most celebrated
masters of the art. That majestic air, so natural to them, while
they preserved their liberty, the delicacy of their taste, and
the cultivated agility of their limbs, all qualified them for
making 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 with
the legs and feet, on which we lay so great a stress. Attitude,
grace, expression, were their principal object. They executed
scarce any thing in dancing, without special regard to that
expression 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 joints
all the requisite flexibility and obedience to command.

They did not so much affect the moderately comic, or half
serious, as they did the great, the pompous, or heroic stile of
dance. They spared for no pains nor cost, towards the perfection
of their dances. The figures were exquisite. The lea