90 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[JAN. 



utility, will benefit equally professor and 

 student, by enabling the first to methodize 

 his acquisitions, and guiding the other 

 through his untried and intricate course. 

 His especial object has been to select such 

 incidents as require to be known by pupils 

 for the effectual prosecution of then-historical 

 studies. He has accordingly narrowed the 

 range of his labours,, and confined himself 

 to those most remarkable for general civili- 

 zation and political eminence ; and in these 

 his attention has been more particularly 

 pointed to the formation of states the 

 changes in their construction the routes 

 by which commerce was carried on the 

 share which the several nations respectively 

 had in commerce, and, a matter imme- 

 diately connected with it, their extension of 

 it by colonies. 



The method adopted by the author blends, 

 in some measure, the advantages of the two 

 modes by which history may be conducted, 

 by nations and periods. He makes five 

 general divisions : the first embraces the 

 Asiatic and African states and kingdoms 

 anterior to Cyrus, about the year B. C. 560, 

 which consists, necessarily, of little more 

 than insulated fragments ; the second, the 

 Persian monarchy, to B. C. 330 ; the third, 

 the Grecian states, both within and without 

 Greece, until Alexander, 336 ; the fourth, 

 the Macedonian monarchy, and its subse- 

 quent divisions, until they all merged into 

 the Roman empire ; and the fifth, the Ro- 

 man state, both as a commonwealth and a 

 monarchy, until its fall in the west, A. D. 

 476, with numerous subdivisions, indispen- 

 sable for a clear and distinctive view of the 

 subject. Every division, large and small, 

 is accompanied by a list of the authorities; 

 and another, of the more remarkable books, 

 the produce of modern times, on the several 

 topics, to which some additions are made by 

 the translator very insignificant, necessa- 

 rilythe translator's additions we mean. 



This very valuable book has passed through 

 six editions in Germany, with the successive 

 revisions of the writer, and has been trans- 

 lated into the principal languages of Europe. 

 One appeared in America ; but the transla- 

 tion before us, notwithstanding the remark 

 of the Foreign Quarterly, is not a re-print 

 of the American. The work was originally 

 published in 1799; and a portion of the 

 writer's preface is worth quoting, referring, 

 as it does, to the state of the times, and the 

 object of his work : 



The transactions of our own times have thrown 

 a light upon ancient history, and given it an in- 

 terest which it could not formerly possesR. A 

 knowledge of history, if not the only, is at least 

 the most certain means of obtaining a clear and 

 unprejudiced view of the great drama now per- 

 forming around us. Airdirect comparisons, not- 

 withstanding the many opportunities which have 

 tempted me, I considered as foreign to my plan ; 

 eTertheless,if in some chapters of my work, par- 

 ticularly in the history of the Roman republic, 

 there may teem to be any reference to the trans. 



aclions of the ten years during which this work 

 has been published, I do not think it necessary 

 to offer any excuse for so doing. Of what use is 

 the study of history, if it does not make us wiser 

 and better? unless the knowledge of the past 

 teach us to judge more correctly of the present ? 

 &c. &c. 



The Code of Terpsichore, which, being 

 interpreted, means, it seems, the Art of 

 Dancing, by M. Blasts; 1829 The mag- 

 nificent pretensions of M. Charles Blasis 

 are perfectly confounding ; he pours forth 

 upon us his Greek and Latin, his physics 

 and metaphysics, so unsparingly, that with 

 less assurance than his own, we naturally 

 shrink from any encounter with so formid- 

 able a personage. To pass by such a book, 

 however, would be unfair to our readers, 

 who reasonably look from us for some in- 

 formation relative to every work of import- 

 ance, and, taking Monsieur's own estimate, 

 . this is one of the very first. M. Blasis 

 claims for dancing the dignity of one of the 



Fine Arts he places it in company with 



Poetry, Painting, and Music, and on a 

 level with the best of them ; and for himself, 

 as one of the most distinguished professors 

 of the art in Europe, the rank, title, and 

 consideration thereunto belonging. 



Practised as dancing is through every 

 gradation and condition of society, from the 

 wildest savage of the woods to the daintiest 

 lady ling of Grosvenor-square, it must surely 

 have its source in nature. The flood of 

 animal vigour the buoyant and bounding 

 spirit of youth the irresistible impulses to 

 action in the 'young and healthy, might 

 very well account for the rude and violent 

 exertions of the first, and association, fashion, 

 and vanity for the gentle and graceful move- 

 ments of the last ; but M. Blasis looks 

 deeper he plunges into the bathos of book?, 

 old and new, in search of the philosophy of 

 his subject, and tasking, moreover, his own 

 sagacity to its ultimate limits, finally as- 

 signs it a source, innate indeed, but dor- 

 mant, till awakened by SINGING. Eu- 

 terpe is thus the parent and not the sister of 

 Terpsichore. Singing inspired relative or 

 at least correspondent gestures. The breast 

 became agitated the arms opened or ap- 

 proached each other the feet began to 

 form certain steps, more or less rapid the 

 features participated in these movements 

 the whole body, in short, was soon respon- 

 sive to the sounds that vibrated in the ears. 

 This is the source and origin of dancing ; 

 and the art, in its progress, has been found 

 capable of designating, it seems, every feel- 

 ing of the soul, till, such is its present bril- 

 liant perfection, that M. Blasis obviously 

 thinks the tongue a most superfluous organ, 

 or, at least, of no manner of use but for old 

 ladies and gentlemen, grown stiff and heavy 

 over a tea-table. 



Writers on the subject of dancing, it 

 seems, are not very numerous, and the few 

 there are, for the most part, were mere 

 amateurs and theorists, not themselves artists 



