B A L 



into feveral entries; in which feveral peifons appear, and re- 

 cite things under the name of fome deity, or other illuftiious 

 character. 



Ballet, from paWui, to cajl, is more particularly ufcd 

 for a ftage dance. RoufTeau defines this word a theatrical 

 aftion, reprefentcd by dancing, guided by niiific. The 

 term is derived from the old French word hnllcr, to dance, 

 fing, divert one's fclf. The mufic of a balLt ought to be 

 Hill more cadenced and accented than mere vocal melody; 

 as it is the bufinefs of mufic to fugged to the dancer that 

 animation and expreflion which the fmgtr acquires from the 

 words; and it is likevvife her bufinefs to fupply, in the lan- 

 guage of the foul and the paflions, all that the dancer cannot 

 pvefent to the eyes of the fpetlator. 



Ballet is likewife the name given in France to a whim- 

 fical kind of opera, where dancing i.; hardly more in place 

 than in the others, or produftive of better effcds. In moft 

 of thcfe ballets, the feveral afts feem fo many different 

 fubjefts, connefled together only by fome general relation 

 foreign to the aftion, which the fpeftator would not 

 difcover, if the author did not make it known in the prologue. 



Thefe ballets contain other little baHiis, which are called 

 feftivals or entertainments; they are likewife called fuits or 

 feries of dances, which fucceed each other without fubjecl 

 or conneftion with the principal action, and where the prin- 

 cipal dancers tell you nothing but that they dance well. 

 This arrangement, by no means theatrical, m.av do very 

 well at a private ball, where each individual has fidfilled his 

 objeft fufF.ciently, when he has amufcd himi'elf, and where 

 the intercit which the fpeftator takes in this individual, dif- 

 pcnfes with his giving him any other gratification. But 

 this defeft in the flibiedt and connexion, ought never to be 

 fufTered on a public ftage, not even in the reprcfcntation of a 

 ball, where the whclo ouglit to be combined by a fecict adlion, 

 which keeps up the attention and irterefts the fptftator. 

 In general, every dance which repreftnts nothing but itfelf, 

 and ever)' balkt which is only a ball, (hoiild be banilhed fiom 

 the theatre. Indeed every aftion on the ftage is the repre- 

 fentation of another aflion, and what we fee there is only 

 the image of what we fuppofe there ; fo that it ought not 

 to be merely this or that dancer who prefents himfelf to 

 your obfervation, but the perfon whofe charafter he has 

 aft'unied. Thus, though the private dance can reprefent 

 nothing but ilfelf, the theatrical dance ought neceftarily to 

 be the repiefentation of lomething elfe, in the fame manner 

 as the finger reprefents a perfon that is fpeaking, and the 

 decoration other places than thofe which he occupies. 



The worft: ballets are thofe which are founded on alle- 

 gorical fubjefts, and which reprefent nothing br.t an imita- 

 tion of an imitation. The whole art of this kind of dramas 

 confifts in the perfonifying intelleftual images, and in making 

 the fpeftator fee what he difbelieves; as if, inftead of attach- 

 ing him to the ftage, it were meritorious to cany him from it. 

 Befides, this fpecies of reprefentation requires to much fuh- 

 tllty in the dialogue, that the compoler of the mufic finds 

 bimfelf loft in the land of points, allufions, and epigrams, 

 while the fpeflator does not forget hlmlelt a moment. 

 When the words of an opera fpeak fenfe, the mufic will learn 

 to fpeak it likewife. 



Thefe reflcftions of RoufTeau, according to M. Framcry, 

 are now ufelefs, as this kind of fpeftacle no longer exifts. 

 But as we wifh to record the produttions of each art, 

 Roufleau's account of the ballets of his time will be hifto- 

 rical of what they were at the period when he wrote, that is 

 about fifty years ago; and we think what Jean Jaques fays 

 of allegorical ballets, would fuit the mythological nearly as 

 wclL 



DAL 



Ballet is one of the longeft and moft elaborate article* 

 of the new French Encycloprdie. When M. Framcry 

 feems to have exhaufted the fubjeft, it is refumed by his 

 colleague in the mufiral department, M. Guinguere, who has 

 ftiU found much to fay on the fubjeft. Ballet, he inform* 

 U3, is a term that includes three diH'erent kinds of exhibitioa 

 on the I.yric ftage. In the firft, the dance conftitutes only 

 a fubordinate part of the action rcprefented ; in the fecond it 

 is the principal part; poetry and vocal mnfic then becoming 

 acccffories in their turn; and, laftly, in the third, the whole 

 bufinefs is performed in dancing; and in rcprefentin-' aa 

 aftion in which the perform.ers neither fpeak nor fing; °hcy 

 dance. The firrt kind is fimply called a ballet : the fecond 

 a ballel-opers, or opera ballet; an opera with dances ana- 

 logous to the drama: the third is called a pantomime ial/et. 



" To treat this fubjed in its full extent (fays M. Guin- 

 guenc) would require a volume." - And an excellent volume 

 has already been written on the fubjeft, by the celebrated 

 Novcrre, intitlcd " Lettres fur la Danfc," 17^0. In 1754, 

 M. Cahufac had publiftied a pleafing woik in 3 vols. " Sur 

 la Danfe aneienne <t moderne," an hiftorical treatife. But 

 father Meneftiere's treatife, " Des Ballds anc. et mod. felon 

 la rigle du Theatre," 1682, is perhaps tiie moa curious of 

 them all, in the hiftorical part. 



Mufic is fo ir.feparabic from the dance, that the word 

 ballet may be regarded as a mufical term. The mufic to 

 opera dances ufed to be furniftied by the compofcr of the 

 airs and recitatives. Haflc, Jomclli, and Gluck, diftincuifhed 

 themfelves as much by the mufic of g-a"d ballets, as hy the 

 opera itfelf; as did our countryman Dr. Arnc, by the dances 

 in Comus. Of late years it has been gc^^erally alligned to 

 the principal fecond violin to ccmpofe the mi'ific and head 

 the band, in the dances between the a&^ of an opera. Agus, 

 Noferi, and Le Brun the hautboy pl:yer, performed this 

 office during many feafons; and their bufinefs was executed 

 for a confiderable time to the fatisfaftion of the public and 

 the performers, by the late Sig. Pofii. The airs of many 

 ballets were ufually brought from France, particularly thofe 

 of Rameau; but Teller, a German, abovt twenty years ago, 

 acquired great reputation by the mufic if his chaconnes and 

 ballets heroiques. See Damce, and Pantomime. 



Ballet, in Enghih Poetry, &c. See Ballad. 



BALLEXFORD, James, in Biogrophi, born at Ge- 

 neva, in Oftober 1-26, became a diftinguilhed practitioner 

 of medicine in that city, where he lived much elUemtd, to 

 the year 1774, and pu'bhfi-.ed t!ie following: " Diflcrtation 

 fur r Education Phyfiquc des Enfans," Paris, 1762, 8vo. 

 " Diftertation fur les caufcs principalcs de la mcrt d'un audi 

 grand nombre d'Enfans, S:c." Geneva, 177?, 8vo. Eloy 

 Dicl.Hiftor.' 



BALLEZE, Ballize, or Wallis, in Geography, a 

 river in the peninfula of Yucatan, New Spain, runs north- 

 eafterly above 20c miles, and difeharges itldf into the bay of 

 Honduras, oppofite to the north end of Turneff ifland. By 

 the treaty ot peace in 1783, it is agreed that Britifh fubjefts 

 ftiall have the right of cutting and carr)-ing away logvrood in 

 the diftriA lying between this river and that of Rio Honde 

 on the north, which falls into Hanover bay. The unalter- 

 able boundaries are the courfe of the rivers. 



BALI, I ACE, in /Indent Geography, a town of Illyria, in 

 the viciiiity of Apollonia. Strabo. 



BALLIAGE, a fmall duty paid to the city of London, 

 by aliens, a; d even denizens, for certain commodities ex- 

 ported by them; which they claim by their charter, dated 

 the 5th of September, in the fixteer.th of Charles II. con- 

 firmed by the twentieth rule of the Book of Rates and by 

 2 W. & M. cap. 8. 



3 U 2 BAL. 



