Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/834

798 difficulty overtook him also, and for eleven or twelve years he lived on the Lake of Geneva, a Bohemian with boat-building fancies, painting only now and then. He returned to England in 1811, when his sons James and Thomas, who have both followed the art with considerable advantage, were growing up. The only additional pictures it is necessary to mention are the Golden Age, and the Even ing Gun, the first begun before he left England, the second painted after his return, when he had taken up his abode at Exmouth, where he died February 9, 1861, in his sixty- eighth year. His Upas Tree is nowinthe South Kensington National Collection by the Townshend bequest, and is held in general respect, but such of his other works as have been lately seen have not maintained his reputation. They have the hot tone and opacity of bronze, and reveal the secret that they have been produced in a darkened studio, and irrespective of the facts and even of the sentiment of living nature. Notwithstanding these drawbacks they must be always interesting from their imaginative motives, and undoubtedly play a noticeable part in the history of English landscape art.  DANCE. The term dancing in its widest sense includes three things : (1) the spontaneous activity of the muscles under the influence of some strong emotion, such as social joy or religious exultation ; (2) definite combinations of graceful movements performed for the sake of the pleasure which the exercise affords to the dancer or to the spectator ; (3) carefully trained movements which are meant by the dancer vividly to represent the actions and passions of other people. In the highest sense it seems to be for prose-gesture what song is for the instinctive exclamations of feeling. Pantomime in the emphatic form of dancing scarcely exists in this century, but it has had an important history. Regarded as the outlet or expression of strong feeling, dancing does not require much discussion, for the general rule applies that such demonstrations for a time at least sustain and do not exhaust the flow of feeling. The voice and the facial muscles and many of the organs are affected at the same time, and the result is a high state of vitality which among the spinning Dervishes or in the ecstatic worship of Bacchus and Cybele amounted to something like madness. Even here there is traceable an undulatory movement which, as Mr Spencer says, is &quot; habitually generated by feeling in its bodily discharge.&quot; But it is only in the advanced or volitional stage of dancing that we find developed the essential feature of measure, which has been said to consist in &quot; the alter nation of stronger muscular contractions with weaker ones,&quot; an alternation which, except in the cases of savages and children, &quot; is compounded with longer rises and falls in the degree of muscular excitement.&quot; In analyz ing the state of mind which this measured dancing pro duces, we must first of all allow for the pleasant glow of excitement caused by the excess of blocd sent to the brain. But apart from this, there is an agreeable sense of uniformity in the succession of muscular efforts, and in the spaces described, and also in the period of their recurrence. If the steps of dancing and the intervals of time be not precisely equal, there is still a pleasure depending on the gradually increasing intensity of motion, on the undulation which uniformly rises in order to fall. As Florizel says to Perdita, &quot; When you do dance, I wish you a wave of the ,&quot;ea&quot; (Winter s Tale, iv. 3). The mind feels the beauty of emphasis and cadence in muscular motion, just as much as in musical notes. Then, the figure of the dance is fre quently a circle or some more graceful curve or series of curves, a fact which satisfies the dancer as well as the eye of the spectator. But all such effects are intensified by the use of music, which not only brings a perfectly distinct set of j deasurable sensations to dancer and spectator, but by the control of dancing produces an inexpressibly sweet harmony of sound and motion. This harmony is further enriched if there be two dancing together on one plan, or a large company of dancers executing certain evolutions, the success of which depends on the separate harmonies of all the couples. The fundamental condition is that through out the dance all the dancers, keep within their bases of gravity. This is not only required for the dancers own enjoyment, but, as in the famous Mercury on tiptoe, it is essential to the beautiful effect for the spectator. The idea of much being safely supported by little is what proves attractive in the modern posturing ballet. But this is merely one condition of graceful dancing, and if it be made the chief object, the dancer sinks into the acrobat. These psychological principles have still to be applied to the phenomena presented by the dances of different nations. (See Read s Characteristic National Dances, 1853). We shall first consider the varieties of dance which without any apparent mimetic object seem to be suggested by the mere pleasure of movement felt by the performer or by the spectator. In Tigre the Abyssinians dance the chassee step in a circle, and keep time by shrugging their shoulders and working their elbows backwards and forwards. At intervals the dancers squat on the ground, still moving the arms and shoulders in the same way. The Bushmen dance in their low-roofed rooms supporting themselves by sticks ; one foot remains motionless, the other dances in a wild irregular manner, while the hands are occupied with the sticks. The Gonds, a hill-tribe of Hindustan, dance generally in pairs, with a shuffling step, the eyes on the ground, the arms close to the body, and the elbows at an angle with the closed hand. Advancing to a point, the dancer suddenly erects his head, and wheels round to the starting point. The women of the Pultooah tribe dance in a circle, moving backwards and forwards in a bent posture. The Santal women, again, are slow and graceful in dance; joining hands, they form themselves into the arc of a circle, towards the centre of which they advance and then retire, moving at the same time slightly towards the right, so as to complete the circle in an hour. The Kukis of Assam have only the rudest possible step, an awkward hop with the knees very much bent. The national dauce of the Kamchadale is one of the most violent known, every muscle apparently quivering at every moment. But there, and in some other cases where men and women dance together, there is a trace of deliberate obscenity ; the dance is, in fact, a rude representation of sexual passion. It has been said that some of the Tasmanian corrobories have a phallic design. The Yucatan dance of naual may also be mentioned. The Andamans hop on one foot and swing the arms violently backwards and forwards. The Veddahs jump with both feet together, patting their bodies, or clap ping their hands, and make a point of bringing their long hair down in front of the face. In New Caledonia the dance consists of a series of twistings of the body, the feet being lifted alternately, but without change of place. The Fijians jump half round from side to side with their arms akimbo. The only modulation of the Samoan dance is one of time a crescendo movement, which is well-known in the modern ball-room. The Javans are perhaps unique in their distinct and graceful gestures of the hand and fingers. At a Mexican feast called Huitzilopochtli, the noblemen and women danced tied together at the hands, and embracing one another, the arms being thrown over the neck. This resembles the dance variously known as the Greek Bracelet or Brawl, &quot;Op^tos, or Bearsfeet ; but all of them probably are to a certain extent symbolical of the relations between 