Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Essays On Subjects Connected With History And Classical Learning.
made the Romans the less feel their loss of those incomparable actors . * The gestual language took place of that which was declaimed , and produced regular pieces , acted in the tifi-ee kinds of tragedy , comedy , and farce or grotesque . The spectators grew pleased with , such an exercise of their understanding . Steps , motions , attitudes , figures , positions , now were substituted for speech ; and there resulted from them an expression so naturalimages so resembling , a
, pathos so moving , or a pleasantry so agreeable , that people imagined they heard the actions they saw . The gestures alone supplied the place of the . sweetness of the voice , of the energy of speech , and of the charms of poetry , f This kind of entertainment , so new , though formed upon a groundwork already known , planned and executed by genius ,. and adopted
with a passionate fondness by the Romans , was called the Italic dance ; and , ; in the transports of pleasure it caused them , they gave to the actors of it the title of Pantomimes . This was no more than a lively , and not at all exaggerated expression , of the truth of their action , which was one continual picture to the eyes of the spectators . Their motion , their feet , their hands , their arms , were but so many different parts of the picture : none of them were to remain idle ; but
all , with propriety , were- to concur to the formation of that assemblage , from which result the harmony , and , with pardon for the expression , the happy all-together of the composition and performance . A dancer learned , from his very . name ofpantomime , that he could be in . no esteem in Rome , but so far as lie should be all the actor . And , in fact , this , art was carried to a point of perfection hard to believebut for . such a number of concurrent and authentic testimonies .
, It appears , also , clearly from history , that this art , in its origin , ( so favoured by an arbitrary prince , and who also made some use of it towards establishing his despotism , nay , even primordiaily introduced by Bathillus , a slave ) could no . longer preserve its great excellence , than , the spirit of liberty was not wholly extinct in the -Roman breasts : and ,. like its other sister arts , gradually decayed , and sunk ,
under the subsequent emperors . Pilades gave a memorable instance of the ( as yet ) unextinguished spirit of liberty , when , upon his being banished Rome , for some time , by Augustus C ' eesar , upon account of the disturbances the pantomime parties occasioned , he told him plainly to hisface , "that lie was ungrateful for the good his power received , by the diversion to the Romans from more serious thoughts ; on the . loss of their liberty . "
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Essays On Subjects Connected With History And Classical Learning.
made the Romans the less feel their loss of those incomparable actors . * The gestual language took place of that which was declaimed , and produced regular pieces , acted in the tifi-ee kinds of tragedy , comedy , and farce or grotesque . The spectators grew pleased with , such an exercise of their understanding . Steps , motions , attitudes , figures , positions , now were substituted for speech ; and there resulted from them an expression so naturalimages so resembling , a
, pathos so moving , or a pleasantry so agreeable , that people imagined they heard the actions they saw . The gestures alone supplied the place of the . sweetness of the voice , of the energy of speech , and of the charms of poetry , f This kind of entertainment , so new , though formed upon a groundwork already known , planned and executed by genius ,. and adopted
with a passionate fondness by the Romans , was called the Italic dance ; and , ; in the transports of pleasure it caused them , they gave to the actors of it the title of Pantomimes . This was no more than a lively , and not at all exaggerated expression , of the truth of their action , which was one continual picture to the eyes of the spectators . Their motion , their feet , their hands , their arms , were but so many different parts of the picture : none of them were to remain idle ; but
all , with propriety , were- to concur to the formation of that assemblage , from which result the harmony , and , with pardon for the expression , the happy all-together of the composition and performance . A dancer learned , from his very . name ofpantomime , that he could be in . no esteem in Rome , but so far as lie should be all the actor . And , in fact , this , art was carried to a point of perfection hard to believebut for . such a number of concurrent and authentic testimonies .
, It appears , also , clearly from history , that this art , in its origin , ( so favoured by an arbitrary prince , and who also made some use of it towards establishing his despotism , nay , even primordiaily introduced by Bathillus , a slave ) could no . longer preserve its great excellence , than , the spirit of liberty was not wholly extinct in the -Roman breasts : and ,. like its other sister arts , gradually decayed , and sunk ,
under the subsequent emperors . Pilades gave a memorable instance of the ( as yet ) unextinguished spirit of liberty , when , upon his being banished Rome , for some time , by Augustus C ' eesar , upon account of the disturbances the pantomime parties occasioned , he told him plainly to hisface , "that lie was ungrateful for the good his power received , by the diversion to the Romans from more serious thoughts ; on the . loss of their liberty . "