that have crept into it, and overcast its real beauties; and to set dancing in its true light, would show the usefulness and elegance of it, with the pleasure and instruction produced from it; and also lay down some fundamental rules, that might so tend to the improvement of its professors, and information of the spectators, that the first might be the better enabled to perform, and the latter rendered more capable of judging, what is (if there be any thing) valuable in this art.

'To encourage therefore some ingenious pen capable of so 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 a history of dancing; in which I have inquired into its antiquity, origin, and use, and shown what esteem the ancients had for it. I have likewise considered the nature and perfection of all its several parts; and how beneficia and delightful it is, both as a qualification and an exercise; and endeavoured to answer all objections that have been maliciously raised 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, in which the pantomimes had so great a share; nor have I been wanting in giving an historical account of some particular masters excellent in that surprising art. After which I have advanced 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 ladies; and have conclud

ed 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 some great genius after this would arise, and advance this art to that perfection it seems capable of receiving, what might not be expected from it? For if we consider 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 surprising structures should have been raised upon such ordinary foundations. But what can not a great genius effect? Who would have thought that the clangorous noise of a smith's hammer should have given the first rise to music? Yet Macrobius in his second book relates, that Pythagoras, in passing by a smith's shop, found that the sounds 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 strings of the same bigness, and found in like manner that the sounds answered to the weights. This being discovered, he finds out those numbers which produced sounds that were consonant; as, that two strings of the same substance and tension, the one being double the length of the other, gave that interval which is called diapason, or an eighth; the same was also effected from two strings of the same length and size, the one having four times the tension of the other. By these steps, from so mean a beginring, did this great man reduce, what was only before noise, to one of the most delightful sciences, by marrying it to the mathematics; and by

that means caused it to be one of the most abstract and demonstrative of sciences. Who knows therefore but motion, whether decorous or representative, may not (as it seems highly probable it may) be taken into consideration by some person capable of reducing it into a regular science, though not so demonstrative as that proceeding from sounds, yet sufficient to entitle it to a place among the magnified arts?

"Now, Mr. Spectator, as you have declared yourself a visiter 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 advice; and hold it absolutely necessary to have your approbation; and in order to recommend my treatise to the perusal of the parents of such as learn to dance, as well as to the young ladies, to whom as visiter you ought to be guardian. I am, sir,

'Your most humble servant.'

Salop, March 19, 1711-12.

See Nos. 370, 466.

STEELE.

T.

No. 335. TUESDAY, MARCH 25.

Respicere exemplar vitæ morumque jubebo

Doctum imitatorem, et veras hinc ducere voces. HOR.

Those are the likest copies, which are drawn
From the original of human life.

ROSCOMMON.

My friend Sir Roger de Coverley, when we last met together at the club, told me that he had

a great mind to see the new tragedy with me, assuring me, at the same time, that he had not been at a play these twenty years. "The last I saw,' said Sir Roger, 6 was The Committee, which I should not have gone to neither, had not I been told beforehand that it was a good churchof-England comedy.' He then proceeded to inquire of me who this Distressed Mother was; and upon hearing that she 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 me in the next place, if there would not be some danger in coming home late, in case the Mohocks should be abroad. I assure you, says he, I thought I had fallen into their hands last night; for I observed two or three lusty black men that followed me half way up Fleet-street, and mended their pace behind me in proportion as I put on to get away from them. You must

know, continued 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 since. I might have shown them very good sport, had this been their design; for as I am an old fox-hunter, I should have turn'd and dodged, and have played them a thousand tricks they had never seen in their lives before. Sir Roger added, that if these gentlemen had any such intention, they did not succeed very well in it; for I threw them out, says he, at the end of Norfolk-street, where Í doubled the corner, and got shelter in my lodg

ings before they could imagine what was become of me. However, says 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 own coach in readiness to attend you, for John tells me has got the forewheels 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 servants, and among the rest my old friend the butler, had, I found, provided themselves with good oaken plants, to attend their master upon this occasion. 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 convoyed 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 seated him betwixt us in the pit. As soon as the house was full, and the candles lighted, my old friend stood up, and looked about him with that pleasure which a mind seasoned with humanity naturally feels in itself at the sight of a multitude of people who seem pleased with one another, and partake of the same common entertainment. I could not but fancy to myself, as the old man stood up in the middle of the pit, that he made a very proper

* Gentlemen wore about this time a neckcloth called a Steenkirk; in the same manner wigs were at first called Ramilies, because first worn about the time of that battle +n 1706.