SECT. changé la division, et l'ont faite en trois actes. Ils ont retenu I.. leurs choeurs, et ne s'en sont point servis. En conservant la musique, ils ont proscrit la danse."(b) A similar observation is made by the learned Abate Conti. (c) Highly as I respect those authorities, and willing as I might be to bow to them on any other occasion, I am, I will confess, inclined to think, that though the chorus was usually accompanied with music alone, dancing was not totally proscribed. In support of this position, several proofs might be adduced. May it not be conjectured, that the movements described in the stage directions of the drama Dell' Anima e del Corpo, were regulated by music, the performers moving, as they sung, with a measured step? It is certain that the author directs, that if a dance should be called for at the conclusion, a verse beginning thus, "Chiostri altissimi, e stellati," is to be sung, accompanied sedately and reverentially by the dance. Perhaps too it might be urged, that the concluding chorus of Testi's Alcina was at least intended, by the author, to be accompanied with dancing; for he entitles it Balletto, a word which is defined by the Italian lexicographers, « una spezie di ballo.” Nor should we omit to remark, that the marquis Venuti, in his Descrizione dell' antica città d' Ercolano, describes a dance 66 (b) Traité historiq. de la Danse. tom. iii. p. 75. which 1. which was performed (1621) in Naples during the represen-SECT. tation of the Crispo of Stefonio. (d) Thus my position receives, or seems to receive, support from authorities not less respectable than those who deny the fact for which I contend. If, however, a cloud still seems to rest upon this interesting branch of my subject, I will candidly acknowledge I am not, at present, prepared to make a further attempt at dispelling it. Nor am I as well prepared as I once flattered myself I should be, to exhibit a specimen of the music to which the tragic chorus was originally sung. A deep enquirer into the history of music whom I consulted is, however, of opinion, that the choral parts of the early Italian tragedies were in the style of the choral church music of the same period, previous to the invention of recitative at the beginning of the last century. Subscribing to the opinion of my friend, I shall substitute (d) From the description of this dance I am, however, induced to think it was unconnected with the tragedy, and only performed between the acts, like the modern ballet. I shall give the words of my authority. "Una rappresentanza di ballo, imitante i giri del laberinto, fu messa alla publica vista in Napoli nell' anno 1621, con applauso universale, allorchè rappresentossi la tragedia del Crispo composta dallo Stefonio." p. 114. Here we may dimly discern a ballet or dramatic dance, founded on the story of Theseus and Ariadne. It is a curious but a certain fact, that a dance of a similar figure, is frequently performed, at this SECT. substitute for the specimen which eluded my enquiries, a I. Chorus in the sacred drama dell' Anima e del Corpo. (See the annexed Plate.) If this specimen should not gratify the musical reader, it will, I trust, satisfy his curiosity. I shall now observe, in the words of the friend to whom I have just alluded, that "recitative, long before solo-airs were attempted, was thought by poets and their friends, an admirable invention to get rid of choral compositions in dramatic representations." Hence it may be inferred, that the tragic chorus sunk into disuse in Italy, in proportion as the opera rose into public favor. Perhaps too it also received a wound from the refinement of modern music. For, as Mr. Mason very justly observes, "our different cadences, our divisions, variations, repetitions, without which modern music cannot subsist, are entirely improper for the expression of poetry." this day on the shore of the Mediterranean near Naples, by the fishermen and their families. Signora Angelica Kaufman, who had viewed this dance with the eye of a painter skilled in the antique, once observed to me, that she could discover in the gestures of the dancers, several of the attitudes which we admire in the paintings found amongst the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Another dance in which several of the attitudes exhibited in those paintings may be discovered, is described in the Appendix No. VII.-On the subject of the dances, and amusements in general, of the lower orders of the Italians, much curious information may be derived from the inestimable annotations of Anton Maria Salvini, on La Fiera, and La Tancia, (Fir. 1726, fol.) two comedies by Michel Buonarruoti, il giovane, the TENIERS of the comic poets of Italy. As |