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I would have you observe, and bear in mind, that I do not propose to make a complete history of the art of dancing; nor is it my object to enumerate the names of dances, except so far as I have already done, in handling a few of the principal types: on the contrary, I am chiefly concerned with pointing out the profit and pleasure to be derived from modern Pantomime, which did not begin to take its present admirable form in ancient days, but only in the time of Augustus, or thereabouts. In those earlier times we have but the beginnings of the art; the tree is taking root; the flower and the fruit have reached their perfection only in our own day, and it is with these that I have todo. The tongsdance, the crane-dance, and others I pass over because they are alien to my subject; similarly, if I have said nothing of the Phrygian dance,—that riotous convivial fling, which was performed by energetic yokels to the piping of a flute-girl, and which still prevails in country districts,—I have omitted it not from ignorance, but because it has no connexion with the Pantomime of to-day. I have the authority of Plato, in his Laws, for approving some forms of dance and rejecting others; he there examines the dance from the two points of view of pleasure and utility, banishes those forms that are unseemly, and selects others for his recommendation.
