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 t