The chevalier Ramsay places it also among the lost arts. Both, no doubt, grounding their opinion on that deficiency of execution on the modern theatres, compared to what is incontestably transmitted to us, by history, of the excellence of the antient pantomimes.
But none have more contributed to establish the opinion of the pantomime art being an art totally different from that of dancing, and not merely an improvement of it, as was certainly the case, than some of the professors of
the art themselves, who even exclaimed against M. Cahusac, for his attempts to give juster notions, and to recommend the revival of it.
We are too apt to pronounce upon possibilities from our own measure of knowledge, or of capacity. Nothing is more common than to hear men of a profession declare loudly against any practice attempted to be established for the improvement of their art, and peremptorily to aver such a practice being impossible, for no other reason than that their own study and efforts had not been able to procure them the attainment of it. In this too they are seconded by that croud of superficial people who frequent the theatres, and who can believe nothing beyond what themselves have seen: any thing above the reach of what they are accustomed
or habituated to admire, always seems to them a chimera.
The reproach of incredulity is commonly made to men of the greatest knowledge, because they are not over-apt to admit any proposition without proof: but this reproach may, with more justice, be oftenest made to the ignorant, who generally reject, without discussion, every thing beyond their own narrow conception.
To these it may sound more than strange; it may appear incredible, that on the theatre of Athens, the dance of the Eumenides, or Furies, had so expressive a character, as to strike the spectators with irresistible terror. The Areopagus itself shuddered with horror and affright; men grown old in the profession of arms, trembled; the
multitude ran out; women with child miscarried; people imagined they saw in earnest those barbarous deities commissioned with the vengeance of heaven, pursue and punish the crimes of the earth.
This passage of history is furnished by the same authors, who tell us, that Sophocles was a genius; that nothing could withstand the eloquence of Demosthenes; that Themistocles was a hero; that Socrates was the wisest of men; and it was in the time of the most famous of the Greeks that even upon those highly privileged souls, in sight of irreproachable witnesses, the art of dancing produced such great effects.
At Rome, in the best days of this art, all the sentiments which the dancers expressed, had each a character of truth,