THE 33511 HISTORICAL OBSERVATIONS on DANCING: Illuftrative of the Hail, lovelieft art! that canft all hearts infnare, S Logic is termed the Art of called the Art of Gefture. Logic teaches us fo to order and arrange our thoughts, as to give them perfpicuity and propriety of connection; and by Dancing we are taught to direct our motions in fuch a manner, as to give them gracefulness, harmony, and ease. But the Art of Dancing is even more neceffary to gefticulation, than the Art of Logic is to thinking. To think elegantly and fublimely is the effect of genius alone, and the art of thinking clearly and justly may be acquired by habit and obfervation; but it is to be queftioned whether an elegant and graceful carriage was ever obtained without the aid of Dancing. Mechanical, however, as this art may JENYNS. feem, genius is far from being out of juftl obferved, that the imitative arts are the province of genius alone, and no art can with more propriety be called imitative than Dancing. It is a copying of thofe ideas of gracefulness and harmony which we borrow from nature; and in this, as in the other imitative arts, the clofeft imitation of graceful nature is the happieft execution. But it may then be afked, if Dancing be nothing more than copying the native beauties of motion, why is not nature left to itfelf? The reafon is, that art has borrowed various graces from various forms; and in this, as in other cafes, by combination, has reduced them to a fyftematic fcience. A 2 Hence, Could any art or fcience derive importance from its antiquity, Dancing might ftand in the first rank for this claim. The accounts of it run almoft as high as any thing we find upon authentic record. Nothing particular, indeed, concerning this art, has defcended to us, except the tracts of Athenæus and Lucian: but Plato and Xenophon have made honourable mention of it. Dancing has been in ufe among all nations, both civilized and barbarous; although held in efteem among fome, and in contempt among others. Of itself, no doubt, Dancing is harmlefs. There is a time,' fays the Preacher, 'to mourn, and a time to dance *;' and fometimes it is even made an act of religion. Thus David danced before the ark, to honour God, and exprefs the greatnefs of his joy for its return into the city of Sion +. The daughters of Shiloh are faid to have danced in a yearly feaft before the Lord t. The pfalmift, moreover, exhorts men to praife the Lord with mufic and the dance ||; and we find many references to this practice in the religious folemnities of the Jews. From them it paffed to the Egyptians, and afterward to the Greeks and Romans, with whom it was a principal part of the worship of their falfe gods. It was afterward adopted in many pagan nations; and Chriftians, in popifh countries, celebrated certain feftivals, particularly thofe of the Sacrament, and the paffion of our Lord, with dancing. Socrates learned to dance, at an advanced time of life, of Afpafia: it is no wonder, therefore, that fuch honourable mention is made of dancing, by his disciples Plato and Xenophon. It was probably on ac count of its being a religious cerémony, that this pious philofopher applied himself to it; but, however this esteem in which dancing was held in may be, it is a proof of the great the most enlightened age of Greece. The people of Crete and Sparta went to the attack dancing. On the other hand, Cicero reproaches Galbinius, a confular man, with having danced. Tiberius expelled the dancers from Rome; and Domitian excluded feveral members from the fenate, for having danced: but the acts of these imperial defpots may be confidered rather as the fuggeftions of caprice and folly than as the dictates of wifdom and virtue. Whether Dancing owed its origin to military or religious ceremonies, will admit of a difpute, in which great erudition might be displayed on both fides of the question, and nothing determined. It seems to have been a natural confequence of the invention of mufic; for it has been observed, that the Indian favages, upon hearing the found of any musical instrument, could not forbear throwing themselves into antic poftures and capers, rapid or flow, according to the time of the mufic. Thus, as Dancing was originally the effect of mufic, it continued to accompany that art, on all occafions, whether in religious ceremonies, feftivals, or public rejoicings on the acquifition of victory. . Dancing, applied to harmonize the motions of the body, to teach an easy gefture, and a graceful attitude, is highly ufeful. A dancing-master, in this respect, fhould have the genius of a ftatuary, and know exactly the proper attitude of every fentiment and paffion. The poet we have already quoted, confiders it as heightening, and rendering irrefiftible, the attractions of the fair. Hail, lovelieft art! that can't all hearts infnare, And make the fairest still appear more fair. *Ecclef. iii. 4. † 2 Sam. vi. 14, 16. Pfalm cxlix. 3. cl. 4. Judges xxi. 19, 21. Beauty OBSERVATIONS on the HEAT of BEES: By JOHN HUNTER, Esq. [From Philofophical Transactions, Part I, for 1792. ] BEES are, perhaps, the only infect that produces heat within itself, and were therefore intended to have a tolerably well-regulated warmth, without which, of course, they are very uncomfortable, and foon die; and which makes not only a part of their internal economy refpecting the individual, but a part of their external, or common economy, and is therefore neceffary to be known. The heat of bees is afcertainable by the thermometer, and I shall give the refult of experiments made at two different feafons of the year. July 18th, at ten in the evening, wind northerly, thermometer at 54°, in the open air, I introduced it into the top of a hive full of bees, and in lefs than five minutes it rofe to 82°. I let it ftand all night; at five in the morning it was down at 79°; at nine the fame morning, it had rifen to 83°, and at one o'clock to 84°; and at mine in the evening it was down to 78°. December 30th, air at 35°, bees at 73°. Althongh bees fupport a heat nearly equal to that of a quadruped, yet their external covering is not different from that of infects which do not; there is no difference between their coat and a common fly's or wafp's, nor are they fatter, all which makes them bad retainers of heat; therefore they are chilly; and in a cold too fevere for them to be comfortable in, they make up for their want of fize fingly, and into clafters. A fingle bee has fo little power of keeping itself warm, that it prefently becomes numbed, and almoft motionlefs; a common night in fummer will produce this effect: a cold capable of producing fuch effects kills them foon, by which means vaft numbers die; therefore a common bee is obliged to feed and live in get 2 fociety, to keep itself warm in cold weather. We know that the confumption of heat may be greater than the power of forming it; when that is the cafe, we become fenfible of it, and then take on fuch actions as are either inftinctive, fuch as arise naturally out of the impreflion, or as reason, cuftom, or habit direct. Many animals, upon the impreffion of cold, coil themselves up in their own fur, bringing all their extremities into the centre, or hollow of the belly; birds bring their feet under the belly, and thrust their bill between their wing and body; many, if not all, go to the warmest places, either from inftinctive principle, or habit: but the bees have no other mode but forming clusters, and the larger the better. As they are easily affected by cold, their inftinctive principle respecting cold is very ftrong, as likewife with regard to wet. I have feen a fwarm hanging out at the door of a hive, ready to take flight, and then return; chill has come on, of which I was not fenfible, and in a few minutes the whole has gone back into the hive; and by the cold increafing, I have at length perceived the caufe of their return. If rain is coming on, we obferve them returning home in great quantities, and hardly any abroad. The eggs of bees require this heat as much as themselves, nor will the maggot live in a cold of 60° or 70°, nor even their chryfalis. This warmth keeps the wax fo foft, as to allow them to model it with ease. In glass hives, or thofe that have windows of glass in them, we often find a dew on the infide of the glass, efpecially when the glafs is colder than the air within: whether this is perfpiration from the bees, both from their external furface and lungs, or evaporation from the honey, I cannot fay. a Curious |