fore too closely attend to the representation of nature,
either upon the stage, or in life. I cannot too often repeat it;
those who keep most the great original, Nature, in view, will
ever be the greatest masters of this art.

As to the different characters of dances, there are, properly
speaking, four divisions of the characters of dances: the
serious, the half serious, the comic, and the grottesque; but
for executing any of them with grace, the artist should be well
grounded in the principles of the serious dance, which will give
him what may be called a delicacy of manner in all the rest.

But as one of these divisions may be more adapted to the humor,
genius, or powers of an artist, than another, he should, if he
aims at excellence, examine carefully for which it is that he is
the most fit.

After determining which, whatever imperfections he may have from
nature, he must set about correcting, as well as he can, by art.
Nothing will hardly be found impossible for him to subdue, by an
unshaken resolution, and an intense application.

Happy indeed is that artist, in whom both the requisites of
nature and art are united: but where the first is not grossly
deficient, it may be supplemented by the second. However well a
beginner may be qualified for this profession by nature, if he
does not cultivate the talent duly, he will be surpassed by
another, inferior to him in natural endowments, but who shall
have taken pains to acquire what was wanting to him, or to
improve where deficient. The experience of all ages attests
this.

The helps of a lively imagination, joined to great and assiduous
practice, carry the art to the highest perfection. But practice
will give no eminent distinction without study. Whoever shall
flatter himself with forming himself by practice alone, without
the true principles and sufficient grounds of the art, can only
proceed upon a rote of tradition, which may appear infallible
to him. But this adoption of unexamined rules, and this plodding
on in a beaten track, will never lead to any thing great or
eminent. It carries with it always something of the stiffness
of a copy, without any thing of the graceful boldness of
originality, or of the strokes of genius.

Vanity should never mislead a man in the judgment he forms
of his own talents: much less should an artist resort to the
meanness of depending in the support of cabals: it must be the
general approbation that must seal his patent of meri