read, we do it without any exerted Act of memory that presents the shape of the letters; but habit makes us do it mechanically, without staying, like children, to recollect and join those letters. A man who has not had the regard of his gesture in any part of his education, will find himself unable to act with freedom before new company, as a child that is but now learning would be to read without hesitation. It is for the advancement of the pleasure we receive in being agreeable to each other in ordinary life, that one would with dancing were generally understood as conducive as it really is to a proper deportment in matters that appear the most remote from it. A man of learning and sense is distinguished from others as he is such, though he never runs upon points too difficult for the rest of the world; in like manner the reaching out of the arm, and the most ordinary motion, discovers whether a man ever learnt to know what is the true harmony and composure of his limbs and countenance. Whoever has seen Booth in the character of Pyrrhus, march to his throne to receive Oreftes, is convinced that majestic and great conceptions are expressed in the very step; but perhaps, tho' no other man could perform that incident as well as he does, he himself would do it with a yet greater elevation, were he a dancer. This is so dangerous a subject to treat with gravity, that I shall not at present enter into it any further; but the author of the following letter has treated it in the essay he speaks of in such a manner, that I am beholden to him for a resolution, that I will never hearafter think meanly of any thing, till I have heard what they who have another opinion of it have to fay in its defence. 6 ، Mr. SPECTATOR, S INCE there are scarce any of the arts and sciences that have not been recommended to the world by the pens of fome of the professors, masters, or lovers ' of them, whereby the usefulness, excellence, and benefit arifing from them, both as to the speculative and practical part, have been made public, to the great advantage and improvement of such arts and sciences; why should dancing, an art celebrated by the an cients cients in so extraordinary a manner, be totally neglect ⚫ed by the moderns, and left destitute of any pen to ' recommend its various excellencies and substantial ' merit to mankind? 6 ، 6 • The low ebb to which dancing is now fallen, is ⚫ altogether owing to this filence. The art is esteem'd only as an amusing trifle; it lies altogether uncultivated, and is unhappily fallen under the imputation of • illiterate and mechanick: And as Terence, in one of his prologues, complains of the rope-dancers drawing all the spectators from his play, so may we well fay, ⚫ that capering and tumbling is now preferred to, and supplies the place of just and regular dancing on our theatres. It is therefore, in my opinion, high time ⚫ that fome one should come to its assistance, and relieve ' it from the many gross and growing errors that have crept into it, and overcast its real beauties; and to fet ' dancing in its true light, would shew the usefulness and elegance of it, with the pleasure and inftruction pro• duc'd from it: and also lay down some fundamental ' rules, which might so tend to the improvement of its profeffors, and information of the spectators, that the • first might be the better enabled to perform, and the • latter render'd more capable of judging, what is (if ⚫ there be any thing) valuable in this art. ८ • To encourage therefore fome ingenious pen capable ⚫ of fo generous an undertaking, and in some measure to relieve dancing from the disadvantages it at present lies under, I, who teach to dance, have attempted a ⚫ small treatise as an essay towards an history of dan• cing; in which I have inquired into its antiquity, original and use, and shewn what esteem the ancients had for it: I have likewise considered the nature and perfection of all its several parts, and how beneficial and delightful it is, both as a qualification and an exercife; ⚫ and endeavoured to answer all objections that have been maliciously rais'd against it. I have proceeded to give an account of the particular dances of the Greeks and • Romans, whether religious, warlike, or civil; and taken particular notice of that part of dancing relating to the ancient stage, and in which the Pantomimes had fo great a share: Nor have I been wanting in giving 6 6 'an an historical account of fome particular masters excellent in that surprising art. After which, I have ad• vanced some observations on the modern dancing, both as to the stage, and that part of it, so absolutely necessary for the qualification of gentlemen and la• dies; and have concluded with some short remarks on • the origin and progress of the character by which dances are writ down, and communicated to one master from another. If fome great genius after this ⚫ would arife, and advance this art to that perfection it • seems capable of receiving, what might not be expected • from it? For if we confider the origin of arts and sciences, we shall find that some of them took rise from beginnings so mean and unpromising, that it is very wonderful to think that ever such furprizing structures • should have been raised upon such ordinary foundations. But what cannot a great genius effect? Who would have thought that the clangorous noise of a smith's hammers should have given the first rise to mufick? Yet Macrobius in his fecond book relates that Pythagoras, in passing by a smith's shop, found that the founds proceeding from the hammers, were either more grave or acute, according to the different weights • of the hammers. The philosopher, to improve this • hint, suspends different weights by springs of the • same bigness, and found in like manner that the sounds anfwered to the weights. This being discover'd, he * finds out those numbers which produc'd sounds that * were confonants: As, that two strings of the same • substance and tenfion, the one being double the length of the other, gave that interval which is called Diapafon, or an eighth; the fame was also effected from two strings of the same length and fize, the one having four times the tenfion of the other. By these steps, from fo mean a beginning, did this great man reduce, what was only before noise, to one of the most delightful ' sciences, by marrying it to the mathematicks; and by that means caused it to be one of the most abstract and • demonftrative of sciences. Who knows therefore but motion, whether decorous or representative, may not (as it feems highly probable it may) be taken into confideration by some perfon capable of reducing it ⚫ into a regular science, tho' not fo demonftrative as that proceeding from sounds, yet fufficient to intitle it to a place among the magnify'd arts. ، Now, Mr.SPECTATOR, as you have declared yourself visitor of dancing schools, and this being an • undertaking which more immediately respects them, I ⚫ think myself indispensably obliged, before I proceed to the publication of this my essay, to ask your ad'vice; and hold it absolutely necessary to have your ⚫ approbation; and in order to recommend my treatise ⚫ to the perusal of the parents of fuch as learn to dance, as well as to the young ladies, to whom, as visitor, you ought to be guardian. Salop, March, 19, I am, SIR, 171 т. **** Your most humble fervant N° 335 Tuesday, March 25 Refpicere exemplar vitæ morumque jubebo M Y friend Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY, when we last met together at the club, told me that he had a great mind to fee the new tragedy with me, affuring me at the same time, that he had not been at a play these twenty years. The last I faw, faid Sir ROGER, was the Committee, which I should not have gone to neither, had not I been told before-hand that it was a good church of England comedy. He then proceeded to inquire of me who this distressed Mother was; and upon hearing that The was Hector's widow, he told me that her husband was a brave man, and that when he was a school boy he had read his life at the end of the dictionary. My friend asked asked me, in the next place, if there would not be fome danger in coming home late, in cafe the Mobocks should be abroad. I affure you, says he, I thought I had fallen into their hands last night; for I observed two or three lufty black men that followed me half way up Fleetstreet, and mended their pace behind me, in proportion as I put on to get away from them. You must know, continu'd the Knight with a smile, I fancied they had a mind to hunt me; for I remember an honest gentleman in my neighbourhood, who was served such a trick in King Charles the Second's time, for which reason he has not ventured himself in town ever fince. I might have shewn them very good sport, had this been their defign; for as I am an old fox-hunter, I should have turn'd and dodg'd, and have play'd them a thousand tricks they had never feen in their lives before. Sir ROGER added, that if these gentlemen had any fuch intention, they did not succeed very well in it: for I threw them out, says he, at the end of Norfolkstreet, where I doubled the corner and got shelter in my lodgings before they could imagine what was become of me. However, fays the Knight, if Captain SENTRY will make one with us to-morrow night, and if you will both of you call upon me about four o'clock, that we may be at the house before it is full, I will have my coach in readiness to attend you, for John tells me he has got the fore-wheels mended. The Captain, who did not fail to meet me there at the appointed hour, bid Sir ROGER fear nothing, for that he had put on the same sword which he made use of at the battle of Steenkirk. Sir ROGER's fervants, and among the rest my old friend the butler, had, I found, provided themselves with good oaken plants, to attend their master upon this occafion. ion. When we had placed him in his coach, with myself at his left-hand, the Captain before him, and his butler at the head of his footmen in the rear, we convoy'd him in safety to the play-house, where after having marched up the entry in good order, the Captain and I went in with him, and feated him betwixt us in the pit. As soon as the house was full, and the candles lighted, my old friend ftood up and looked about him with that pleasure, which a mind season'd with humanity naturally feels in itself, at the |