49
Daily practising these movements with the hands and arms, as also with such other parts of the body as are capable of them, will in a short time render the whole person graceful and easy at pleasure.
2. As to the motions of thehead; the awe most children are in before strangers, till they come to a certain age, is the cause of their dropping and drawing their chins down into their breasts, and looking under their foreheads, as if conscious of their weakness, or of something wrong about them. To prevent this aukward shyness, parents and tutors are continually teasing them to hold up their heads, which if they get them to do it is with difficulty, and of course in so constrain'd a manner that it gives the children pain, so that they naturally take all opportunities of easing themselves by holding down their heads; which posture would be full as uneasy to them were it not a relief from restraint: and there is another misfortune in holding down the head, that it is apt to make them bend too much in the back; when this happens to be the case, they then have recourse to steel-collars, and other iron-machines; all which shacklings are repugnant to nature, and may make the body grow crooked. This daily fatigue both to the children and the parents may be avoided, and an ugly habit prevented, by only (at a proper age) fastening a ribbon to a quantity of platted hair, or to the cap, so as it may be kept fast in its place, and the other end to the back of the coat, as fig. [121 L p. II], of such alength as may prevent them drawing their chins into their necks; which ribbon will always leave the head at liberty to move in any direction but this aukward one they are so apt to fall into.
121
But till children arrive at a reasoning age it will be difficult by any means to teach them more grace than what is natural to every well made child at liberty.
The grace of the upper parts of the body is most engaging, and sensible well made people in any station naturally have it in a great degree, therefore rules unless they are simple and easily retain'd and practis'd, are of little use; nay, rather are of disservice.
Holding the head erect is but occasionally right, a proper recline of it may be as graceful, but true elegance is mostly seen in the moving it from one position to another.
And this may be attain'd by a sensibility within yourself, tho' you have not a sight of what you do by looking in the glass, when with your head assisted by a sway of the body in order to give it more scope, you endeavour to make that very serpentine line in the air, which the hands have been before taught to do by the help of the ogee-moulding: and I will venture to say, a few careful repetitions at first setting out will make this movement as easy to the head as to the hands and arms.
The most graceful bow is got by the head's moving in this direction, as it goes downward and rises up again. Some aukward imitators of this elegant way of bowing,for want of knowing what they were about, have seem'd to bow with wry necks. The low solemn bow to majesty should have but a very little twist, if any, as more becoming gravity and submission. The clownish nod in a sudden straight line is quite the reverse of these spoken of.
The most elegant and respectful curtesy hath a gentle, or small degree of the above graceful bowing of the head as the person sinks, and rises, and retreats. If it should be said, that a fine curtesy consists in no more than in being erect in person at the time of sinking and rising; Madam Catherine in clock-work, or the dancing bears led about the streets for a shew, must be allow'd to make as good a curtesy as anybody.
N. B. It is necessary in bowing and curtesying to shun an exact sameness at all times; for however graceful it may be on some occasions, at other times it may seem formal and improper. Shakespear seems to have meant the above spoken of ornamental manner of bowing, in Enobarbus's description of Cleopatra's waiting-women.——
——And made their bends adornings. Act 2.
3. OfDancing. The minuet is allowed by the dancing-masters themselves to be the perfection of all dancing. I once heard an eminent dancing-master say, that the minuet had been the study of his whole life, and that he had been indefatigable in the pursuit of its beauties, yet at last he could only say with Socrates,heknew nothing: adding, that I was happy in my profession as a painter, in that some bounds might be set to the study of it. No doubt, as the minuet contains in it a composed variety of as many movements in the serpentine lines as can well be put together in distinct quantities, it is a fine composition of movements.
122
The ordinary undulating motion of the body in common walking (as may be plainly seen by the waving line, which the shadow a man's head makes against a wall as he is walking between it and the afternoon sun) is augmented in dancing into a larger quantity ofwavingby means of the minuet-step, which is so contrived as to raise the body by gentle degrees somewhat higher than ordinary, and sink it again in the same manner lower in the going on of the dance. The figure of the minuet-path on the floor is also composed of serpentine lines, as fig. [122 T p. II], varying a little with the fashion: when the parties by means of this step rise and fall most smoothly in time, and free from sudden starting and dropping, they come nearest to Shakespear's idea of the beauty of dancing, in the following lines,
——What you do,Still betters what is done,————When you do dance, I wish youA wave o' th' sea, that you might ever doNothing but that; move still, still so,And own no other function.Winter's Tale.
The other beauties belonging to this dance, are the turns of the head, and twist of the body in passing each other, as also gentle bowing and presenting hands in the manner before described, all which together, displays the greatest variety of movements in serpentine lines imaginable, keeping equal pace with musical time.
There are other dances that entertain merely because they are composed of variety of movements and performed in proper time, but the less they consist of serpentine or waving lines, the lower they are in the estimation of dancing-masters: for, as has been shewn, when the form of the body is divested of its serpentine lines it becomes ridiculous as a human figure, so likewise when all movements in such lines are excluded in a dance, it becomes low, grotesque and comical; but however, being as was said composed of variety, made consistent with some character, and executed with agility, it nevertheless is very entertaining. Such are Italian peasant-dances, &c. But such uncouth contortions of the body as are allowable in a man would disgust in a woman; as the extreme graceful, so very alluring in this sex, is nauseous in the other; even the minuet-grace in a man would hardly be approved, but as the main drift of it represents repeated addresses to the lady.
There is a much greater consistency in the dances of the Italian theatre than of the French, notwithstanding dancing seems to be the genius of that nation; the following distinctly marked characters were originally fromItaly; and if we consider them lineally as to their particular movements, we shall see wherein their humour consists.
The attitudes of the harlequin are ingeniously composed of certain little, quick movements of the head, hands, and feet, some of which shoot out as it were from the body in straight lines, or are twirled about in little circles.
Scaramouch is gravely absurd as the character is intended, in over-stretch'd tedious movements of unnatural lengths of lines: these two characters seem to have been contrived by conceiving a direct opposition of movements.
Pierrott's movements and attitudes, are chiefly in perpendiculars and parallels, so is his figure and dress.
Punchinello is droll by being the reverse of all elegance, both as to movement, and figure, the beauty of variety is totally, and comically excluded from this character in every respect; his limbs are raised and let fall almost altogether at one time, in parallel directions, as if his seeming fewer joints than ordinary, were no better than the hinges of a door.
Dances that represent provincial characters, as these above do, or very low people, such as gardeners, sailors, &c. in merriment, are generally most entertaining on the stage: the Italians have lately added great pleasantry and humour to several french dances, particularly the wooden-shoe dance, in which there is a continual shiftingfrom one attitude in plain lines to another; both the man and the woman often comically fix themselves in uniform positions, and frequently start in equal time, into angular forms, one of which remarkably represents two W's in a line, as over figure 122, plate II, these sort of dances a little raised, especially on the woman's side, in expressing elegant wantonness (which is the true spirit of dancing) have of late years been most delightfully done, and seem at present to have got the better of pompous unmeaning grand ballets; serious dancing being even a contradiction in terms.
fig. over 122
4thly, OfCountry Dancing. The lines which a number of people together form in country or figure dancing, make a delightful play upon the eye, especially when the whole figure is to be seen at one view, as at the playhouse from the gallery; the beauty of this kind of mystic dancing, as the poets term it, depends upon moving in a composed variety of lines, chiefly serpentine, govern'd by the principles of intricacy, &c. The dances of barbarians are always represented without these movements, being only composed of wild skiping, jumping, and turning round, or running backward and forward, with convulsive shrugs, and distorted gestures.
One of the most pleasing movements in country dancing, and which answers to all the principles of varying at once, is what they call the hay; the figure of it altogether, is a cypher of S's, or a number of serpentine lines interlacing, or intervolving each other, which supposetraced on the floor, the lines would appear as fig. [123 T p. II]. Milton in his Paradise lost, describing the angels dancing about the sacred hill, pictures the whole idea in words;
Mystical dance!————Mazes intricate,Eccentric, intervolv'd, yet regularThen most, when most irregular they seem.
123
I shall venture, lastly, to say a word or two of stage-action. From what has been said of habitually moving in waving lines, it may possibly be found that if stage-action, particularly the graceful, were to be studied lineally, it might be more speedily and accurately acquired by the help of the foregoing principles than the methods hitherto taken. It is known that common deportment, such as may pass for elegant and proper off the stage, would no more be thought sufficient upon it than the dialogue of common polite conversation, would be accurate or spirited enough for the language of a play. So that trusting to chance only will not do. The actions of every scene ought to be as much as possible a compleat composition of well varied movements, considered as such abstractedly, and apart from what may be merely relative to the sense of the words. Action consider'd with regard to assisting the authors meaning, by enforcing the sentiments or raising the passions, must be left entirely to the judgment of the performer, we only pretend to shew how the limbs may be made to have an equal readiness to move in all such directions as may be acquired.
What I would have understood by action, abstractedly and apart from its giving force to the meaning of the words, may be better conceived by supposing a foreigner, who is a thorough master of all the effects of action, at one of our theatres, but quite ignorant of the language of the play; it is evident his sentiments under such limitations, would chiefly arise from what he might distinguish by the lines of the movements belonging to each character; the actions of an old man, if proper, or not, would be visible to him at once, and he would judge of low and odd characters, by the inelegant lines which we have already shewn to belong to the characters of punch, harlequin, pierrott, or the clown; so he would also form his judgment of the graceful acting of a fine gentleman, or hero, by the elegance of their movements in such lines of grace and beauty as have been sufficiently described. See chaptersV,VI,VII,VIII, on the composition of forms. Where note, that as the whole of beauty depends uponcontinually varyingthe same must be observed with regard to genteel and elegant acting: and as plain space makes a considerable part of beauty in form, so cessation of movement in acting is as absolutely necessary; and in my opinion much wanted on most stages, to relieve the eye from what Shakespear calls,continually sawing the air.
The actress hath sufficient grace with fewer actions, and those in less extended lines than the actor; for as the lines that compose the Venus are simpler and moregently flowing, than those that compose the Apollo, so must her movements be in like proportion.
And here it may not be improper to take notice of a mischief that attends copied actions on the stage; they are often confin'd to certain sets and numbers, which being repeated, and growing stale to the audience, become at last subject to mimickry and ridicule, which would hardly be the case, if an actor were possest of such general principles as include a knowledge of the effects of all the movements that the body is capable of.
The comedian, whose business it is to imitate the actions belonging to particular characters in nature, may also find his account in the knowledge of lines; for whatever he copies from the life, by these principles may be strengthened, altered, and adjusted as his judgment shall direct, and the part the author has given him shall require.
l. s. d.Marriage a-la-mode, in six prints1 11 6Harlot's Progress, in six prints1 1 0Rake's Progress, in eight prints2 2 0Four Times of the Day, in four prints1 0 0Strolling Actresses dressing in a Barn.0 5 0Midnight Conversation0 5 0Southwark Fair0 5 0Bishop of Winchester0 3 0Calais, or the Roast Beef of Old England0 5 0Before and After, two prints0 5 0Distress'd Poet0 3 0Enraged Musician0 3 0Various Characters of Heads, in five groups0 2 6Beer Street and Gin Lane, two prints0 3 0Four Stages of Cruelty, four prints0 6 0Moses brought to Pharoah's Daughter0 7 6Paul before Felix0 7 6Paul before Felix in the manner of Rembrant0 0 0The Effects of Idleness and Industry,exemplified in the Conduct of twoFellow-Prentices, in twelve prints0 12 0Lord Lovat0 1 0Country-Inn Yard0 1 0Sleeping Congregation0 1 0March to Finchley0 10 6Mr. Garrick in the Character of KingRichard the third0 7 6Columbus breaking the Egg0 1 0Frontispiece0 3 0
N. B. If any one purchases the whole together, they will have them deliver'd bound, at the Price of ten Guineas, and a sufficient Margin will be left for Framing.
PLATE I.FigurePage1,32,10,773-4,15Fig. over Fig. 4,xix6,vi,viii,20,81,82,83,86,88,1287,viii,209,22,13510-11,2312,66,86,87,88,89,90,91,128,15313,66,15214,25,2615,2716,3117-18,31,8719-20,3121,3622,33Fig. between 22 and 105,viii23,3724-25,3826,38,39,10029,4030-32,4133-37,4238,4339-424443,xix,4444-464447,xixFig. between 47 and 88,17,9748,4649, 49,128,143Fig. under 49,450,4953,49,5054,v,20,6455,20,7665,56,6066-67,57Fig. near 67,6868,58,7687,88,11197,104,123,12498,123,12499-105124106,125107,128115,133PLATE II.FigurePage51,13752,x56,5157,51,10358,51,55,10359,5360-63,5564,5669-70,7871,13672,20,13773,13774,13875,13776,62,6477,62,63,6478,63,6479-806381,6482-83,6584-85,9686,108,109,11189,11190,10991,11292,11193,11194,98,116,117,11895,11596,117108-109,130110,133113,132114,133116,132117,118,134119,120,143121,144122,147123,151