urage the composer
of dances to form them entirely in that stile. All that he can
do is to take a great part of his attitudes from the serious
stile, but to give them another turn and air in the composition;
that he may avoid confounding the two different stiles of
serious and half-serious. For this last, it is impossible to
have too much agility and briskness.

The comic dancer is not tied up to the same rules or
observations as are necessary to the serious and half serious
stiles. He is not so much obliged to study what may be called
nature in high life. The rural sports, and exercises; the
gestures of various mechanics or artificers will supply him with
ideas for the execution of charracters in this branch. The more
his motions, steps, and attitudes are taken from nature, the
more 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 and
captivating by the harmony and justness of its movements; by the
grace and dignity of its steps; by the pathos of the execution.

The comic stile, however its aim may be laughter, requires
taste, delicacy, and invention; and that the mirth it creates
should not even be without wit. This depends not only upon the
execution, but on the choice of the subject. It is not enough to
value oneself upon a close imitation of nature, if the subject
chosen for imitation is not worth imitating, or improper to
represent; that is to say, either trivial, indifferent,
consequently uninteresting; or disgustful and unpleasing.
The one tires, the other shocks. Even in the lowest classes of
life, the composer must seize only what is the fittest to give
satisfaction; and omit whatever can excite disagreeable ideas.
It is from the animal joy of mechanics or peasants in their
cessations from labor, or from their celebration of festivals,
that the artist will select his matter of composition; not from
any circumstances of unjoyous poverty or loathsome distress. He
must cull the flowers of life, not present the roots with the
soil and dirt sticking to them.

Even contrasting characters, which are so seldom attempted on
the 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; an
instance that served to confirm that affinity between the arts
which renders them so serviceable to one another.