416 APPENDIX, NO I. 
di Spineto, addressed a Letter to the author, in 
confirmation of the statement he had made ; an 
extract from which Letter will perhaps not be 
unpleasing to the inquisitive Reader. 
" Plato, in his Dialogues,^' observes the Marquis, 
" gives a very curious account of a sacred dance of 
the Greeks, which consisted only in acting and gesti- 
culations ; thereby strictly corresponding with the sort 
of dance which is performed upon the English Stage, 
under the name of Pantomime. Indeed, the name itself 
refers us to the country whence this dance was originally 
derived ; as it has not been bestowed by the Moderns upon"* 
a recent invention, but has accompanied this species of 
drama into whatsoever country it came. However, as to the 
origin of Pantomime, the point will never be strictly de- 
termined until the nature of the question be clearly and 
properly defined; that is to say, until it be explained 
whether Pantomime may be considered in its extensive or 
confined signification. If by Pantomime be intended that 
particular species of drama, such as our Opera ballets re- 
present ; which, in fact, are the pantomimes you allude to, 
wherein the actors, by movements, signs, and gesticulations, 
without the aid of speech, express any event or a whole 
story ; then the Romans, under Augustus, may be said to 
have been the inventors : because, during the reign of that 
prince, who took great delight in such spectacles, there 
appeared Py lades and Bathyllus, the greatest Pantomimi 
of antiquity. Such, among others, is the opinion of the 
celebrated Chevalier de Taucourt, on the authority of 
Zosimus and Suidas. ' Je n'ignore pas,' says he, ' que 
