APPENDIX, NO I. 417 
Ids danses des Grecs avoient des mouvements expressifs, mais 
les Romahis furent les premiers qui rendirent par les seuls 
gestes le sens d'une fable regulicre d'lme certaine etendue.' 
** But, on the contrary, if we take pantomime in a more 
general and extensive signification, and mean that gesticu- 
lation, those movements, the whole je^i des viembres hy 
which we sometimes either altogether express what we 
mean, or give a greater force and a more feeling expression 
to what we say, then, I think, the origin oi pantomime must 
be co-eval with dance; just as dance was with singing 
and poetry ; both being cotemporary with men. It is 
beyond question, that, even from the most remote antiquity, 
long before the invention of the alphabet, on some occa- 
sions, men, after their labours, joined together^ and, wishing 
either to amuse themselves, or to celebrate the praises of 
their Gods, sang short poems to a fixed tune. Indeed, 
generally speaking, the laws by which they were governed, 
the events which had made the greatest impression on 
their minds, the praises which they bestowed on their 
Gods or on their heroes, were all sung long before they 
were written ; and I need not mention to you, that, ac- 
cording to Aristotle, this is the reason why the Greeks 
gave the same appellation to laws and to songs. The 
truth of this position is now so well established, that 
Qiiadrio, an Italian writer of some celebrity, to whom we 
owe rather too diffuse an account of the literature of Italy, 
beginning from Adam, whom he pretends to have been 
the first poet, forms a long catalogue of all those early men 
who lived before and after the Flood, and who, according to 
his opinion, added a new lustre to the poetry of the Jews." 
" Fortunately, as neither of us like to deal in visions, we 
consider ourselves perfectly satisfied with instances of a 
VOL. VIII. E E 
