Pausanius tells us of the stately tomb of the frail Pythonice in the Vica Sacra; and we know that Phryne offered to rebuild the walls of Thebes, by Alexander overthrown.  And surely, if modern guide-books instruct us to weep in the cemetery of Pere la Chaise over the grave of Fanny Bias, history will say a word or two in honour of Cerito, who proposed through the newspapers, last season, an alliance offensive and defensive with no less a man than Peter Borthwick, Esq.  M.P., (Arcades ambo!) to relieve the distress of the manufacturing classes of Great Britain!  It is true such heroines can afford to be generous; for what lord chancellor or archbishop of modern times commands a revenue half as considerable?

Why, therefore—­O Public! why, we beseech thee, seeing that the influence of the operative class is fairly understood, and undeniably established among us—­why not at once elevate choriography to the rank of one of the fine arts?—­Why not concentrate, define, and qualify the calling, by a public academy?—­since all hearts and eyes are amenable to the charm of exquisite dancing, why vex ourselves by the sight of what is bad, when better may be achieved?  Be wise, O Pubic, and consider!  Establish a professor’s chair for the improvement of pirouetters.  We have hundreds of professor’s chairs, quite as unavailable to the advancement of the interests of humanity, and wholly unavailable to its pleasures.  Neither painters nor musicians acquire as much popularity as dancers, or amass an equal fortune.  Why should they be more highly protected by the state?

To disdain this exquisite art, is a proof of barbarism.  The nations of the East may cause their dances to be performed by slaves; but two of the greatest kings of ancient and modern times, the kings after God’s own heart and man’s own heart—­David and Louis le Grand—­were excellent dancers, the one before the ark, the other before his subjects.

Never, perhaps, did the art of dancing attain such eminent honours in the eyes of mankind, as during the siecle dore of the latter monarch.  At an epoch boasting of Moliere and Racine, Bossuet and Fenelon, Boileau and La Fontaine, Colbert and Perrault, (the fairy talisman of politics and architecture,) the court of Versailles could imagine no manifestation of regality more august, or more exquisite, than that of getting up a royal ballet; and the father of his people, Louis XIV., was, in his youth, its coulon.

How amusing are the descriptions of these entrees de ballet, circumstantially bequeathed us by the memoirs of the regency of Anne of Austria!  The cardinal himself took part in them; but the chief performers were the young King, his brother Gaston d’Orleans, and the maids of honour, figuring as Apollo and the Muses, or Hamadryads adoring some sylvan divinity.  Who has not sympathized in the joy of Madame de Sevigne, at seeing her fair daughter exhibit among the coryphees!