The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 50 pages of information about The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction.

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 50 pages of information about The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction.

The ancients had a peculiar penchant for dancing, whether in person or by animals; and the feats of the latter distance all the wretched efforts of the bears, dogs, and horses of our days.  The attempts of Galba to amuse the Roman people throw into the shade all the peace-rejoicings and illuminations of St. James’s and the Green Parks.  Suetonius, Seneca, and Pliny tell us of elephants in their time that were taught to walk the rope, backwards and forwards, up and down, with the agility of an Italian rope-dancer.  Such was the confidence reposed in the docility and dexterity of the animal, that a person sat upon an elephant’s back, while he walked across the theatre upon a rope, extended from the one side to the other.  Lipsius, who has collected these testimonies, thinks them too strong to be doubted—­perhaps even stronger than the rope.  Scaliger corroborates all of them; Busbequius saw an elephant dance a pas seul at Constantinople; and Suetonius tells us of twelve elephants, six male and six female, who were clothed like men and women, and performed a country dance, in the reign of Tiberius.  In later times, horses have been taught to dance.  In the carousals of Louis XIII. there were dances of horses; and in the 13th century, some rode a horse upon a rope.  All this eclipses the puny modern feats of Astley and Ducrow.[1]

[1] Miraculous dancing is not, however, confined to animals; for William of Malmesbury gravely relates an instance of 15 young women and 18 young men who (by the anathema of a priest) continued dancing a whole year, and wore the earth so much, that, by degrees, they sunk midway into the earth!

The Greeks and Romans were divided upon the propriety of dancing.  Socrates who held death in contempt, when a reverend old gentleman, learned to dance of Aspasia, the beautiful nurse of Grecian eloquence.  The Romans forgot their loss of the republic and of liberty—­

------------------the air we breathe
If we have it not we die.

in seeing Pylades and Bathyllus dance before them in their theatres—­an indifference of which we were reminded on hearing that the Parisians sat in the Cafes on the Boulevard du Italiens—­sipping coffee and sucking down ice, during the capitulation of the city, and while the French, killed and wounded, were conveyed along the road before them.

Cato, Censorius, danced at the age of fifty-six.  Cicero, however, reproached a consul with having danced.  Tiberius, that monster of indulgences, banished dancers from Rome; and Domitian, the illustrious fly-catcher, expelled several of his members of parliament for having danced.  We are much more civilized, for such an edict as that of Domitian would clear our senate-houses as effectually as when Cromwell turned out the Long Parliament.

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The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.