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Show 26 CODE OF TERPSICHORE. motion is almost a natural want, and the exerting of their strength is the surest means of increasing it. All persons, whatever may be their condition in society, wish for strength and activity ; all, I may next venture to say, are, or would be, glad to possess physical beauty. It is a natural desire. And among those whose rank or fortune enables them to frequent good company, there are very few who do not wish to unite to those three qualities, elegance of carriage and deportment. Now nothing can render the frame more robust and graceful than dancing and pantomimic exercises. Every other kind of gymnastics strengthen or beautify particular parts, whilst they weaken others, and make them in a manner difform. Fencing invigorates the arms and legs, but renders the rest of the frame somewhat unshapely. Horsemanship increases the thickness of the loins!9, but debilitates the thighs. In short, all other exercises leave something disagreeable about those who practice them ; neither singly nor conjointly, can they bestow that becoming aspect and those agreeable manners which dancing, when well taught, never fails to impart. By it the head, arms, the hands, legs, feet, in short all parts of the body are rendered symmetrical, pliant and graceful. Dancing is extremely useful to women, whose delicate constitutions require to be strengthened by frequent exercise, and must be very serviceable in relieving them from that unhealthy inaction, to which so many of them are usually condemned. Captain Cook wisely thought that dancing was of special use to sailors. This famous navigator, wishing to counteract disease on board his vessels as much as possible, took particular care, in calm weather, to make his sailors and marines dance to the sound of a violin, and it |