y success in the year
1734 at Covent Garden Theatre, which a French journal of that date
describes curiously as the _Theatre du Commun Jardin_. The lady was an
admirable dancer, and brought with her complete dramatic ballets, the
characters in which were appropriately dressed according to the time
and place of the story they related; for Mdlle. Salle was a reformer
in the matter of stage costumes. She discarded paniers and hoops and
false hair. As Galatea in a ballet upon the story of Pygmalion, she
wore nothing, we are told, "in addition to her bodice and under
petticoats, but a simple robe of muslin draped after the manner of a
Greek statue." She won great applause, too, by her performance of
Ariadne in a ballet called "Bacchus and Ariadne," the beauty of her
dances, attitudes, and gestures, and her skill in depicting by
movements without words, grief, anger, love, and despair, obtaining
the warmest approval. She was patronised by the king, queen, and the
royal family, and her benefit produced an "overflow" and something
more; tickets were sold at most exorbitant prices, and the people
fought for places both with swords and fists. There are stories, too,
of purses full of gold being flung upon the stage, with showers of
bonbons--not ordinary sugar-plums, but rouleaux of guineas tightly
wrapped up in bank-notes. The dancer is said to have profited by her
benefit to the extent of some L10,000. It must be owned, however, that
the story of Mdlle. Salle's success is of a very highly-coloured
description, and can only be credited absolutely by persons largely
endowed with credulity.

Satire, of course, found occupation in the successes of the
ballet-dancers. In 1742 Hogarth published his "Charmers of the Age," a
caricature of the aspects and attitudes of M. Desnoyer and the Signora
Barberina, then performing at Drury Lane Theatre. A grotesque air was
given to these artists, popularly regarded as personifications of
grace and elegance, and a measured line was added to the drawing that
their leaps and bounds might be fairly estimated.

It was in France, however, that the _ballerina_ secured her greatest
triumph, and the _ballet d'action_ attained its fullest vitality. The
dancer became a power in the State, influencing princes, ministers,
and people. Poets were her slaves, and oftentimes philosophers were
caught in her toils. From Mdlle. la Fontaine of two centuries since,
"_la premiere des premieres danseuses_," who receiv