MDCCLXXII. THE TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Reading edition
Of the Antient Dance p. 17
Of Dancing in General 49
Of sundry Requisites for the Perfection of the Art of Dancing 89
Some Thoughts on the Utility of Learning to Dance, and especially upon the Minuet 139
Summary Account of various Kinds of Dances in different Parts of the World 181
Of Pantomimes 227
A
ADVERTISEMENT.
What I have here to say is rather in the nature of an apology than of a preface or advertisement. The very title of a Treatise upon the art of dancing by a dancing-master, implicitly threatens so much either of the exageration of the profession, or of the recommendation of himself, and most probably of both, that it cannot be improper for me to A2
One of the greatest and most admired institutors of youth, whose fine taste has been allowed clear from the least tincture of pedantry, Quintilian recommends especially the talent of dancing, as conducive
Even that austere critic, Scaliger, made the principles of it so far his concern, that he was able personally to satisfy an Emperor’s curiosity, as to the nature and meaning
All this I mention purely to obviate the prepossession of the art being so frivolous, so unworthy of the attention of the manly and grave, as it is vulgarly, or on a superficial view, imagined. It is not high notions of it that I am so weak as to aim at impressing; all that I wish is to give just ones: it being perhaps as little eligible, for want of consideration, to see less in this art
B