SUCH dispositions of the body and limbs as appear
most graceful when seen at rest, depend upon
gentle winding contrasts, mostly govern'd by the precise
serpentine line, which in attitudes of authority, are more
extended and spreading than ordinary, but reduced
somewhat below the medium of grace, in those of neg-
ligence and ease: and as must exaggerated in insolent
and proud carriage, or in distortions of pain (see figure
9, plate 1.) as lessen'd and contracted into plain and
parallel lines, to express meanness, aukwardness, and
submission.
The general idea of an action, as well as of an
attitude, may be given with a pencil in very few lines.
It is easy to conceive that the attitude of a person upon
the cross, may be fully signified by the two straight
lines of the cross; so the extended manner of St. An-
drew's crucifixion is wholly understood by the X-like
cross.
Thus, as two or three lines at first are sufficient to
shew the intention of an attitude, I will take this op-
portunity of presenting my reader (who may have been
at the trouble of following me thus far) with the sketch
of a country-dance, in the manner I began to set out
the design; in order to shew how few lines are neces-

sary

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sary to express the first thoughts, as to different atti-
tudes ; see fig.*, which describe in some measure, the
several figures and actions, mostly of the ridiculous
kind, that are represented in the chief part of plate 2.
The most amiable person may deform his general
appearance by throwing his body and limbs into plain
lines, but such lines appear still in a more diagreeable
light in people of a particular make, I have therefore
chose such figures as I thought would agree best with
my first score of lines, fig. 71
The two parts of curves next to 71, served for the
figures of the old woman and her partner at the farther end
of the room. The curve and two straight lines at right
angles, gave the hint for the fat man's sprawling posture.
I next resolved to keep a figure within the bounds of a
circle, which produced the upper part of the fat woman,
between the fat man and the aukward one in the bag
wig, for whom I had made a sort of an X. The prim
lady, his partner, in the riding-habit, by pecking back
her elbows, as they call it, from the waste upwards,
made a tolerable D, with a straight line under it, to
signify the scanty stiffness of her peticoat; and a Z
stood for the angular position the body makes with the
legs and thighs of the affected fellow in the tye-wig;
the upper parts of his plump partner was confin'd to an
O, and this chang'd into a P, served as a hint for the
straight lines behind. The uniform diamond of a card,
was filled up by the flying dress, &c. of the little caper-

ing

* Fig. 71.
T. p. 2.


[137]

ing figure in the spencer-wig ; whilst a double L mark'd
the parallel position of his poking partner's hands and
arms ; and lastly, the two waving lines were drawn for
the more genteel turns of the two figures at the hither
end.
The best representation in a picture, of even the most
elegant dancing, as every figure is rather a suspended
action in it than an attitude, must be always somewhat
unnatural and ridiculous ; for were it possible in a real
dance to fix every person at one instant of time, as in a
picture, not one in twenty would appear to be graceful,
tho' each were ever so much so in their movements;
nor could the figure of the dance itself be at all under-
stood.
The dancing-room is also ornamented purposely with
such statues and pictures as may serve to a farther il-
lustration, Henry viii. fig.*, makes a perfect X with
his legs and arms ; and the position of Charles the first,
fig. †, is composed of less-varied lines than the statue of
Edward the sixth, fig. ‡; and the medal over his head
is in the like kind of lines ; but that over Q. Elizabeth,
as well as her figure, is in the contrary; so are also the
two other wooden figures at the end. Likewise the
comical posture of astonishment (expressed by following
the direction of one plain curve, as the dotted line in a
french print of Sancho, where don Quixote demolishes
the puppet shew, fig. ||, ) is a good contrast to the effect
of the serpentine lines in the fine turn of the Samaritan

T woman

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woman, fig.*, taken from one of the best pictures An-
nibal Carrache ever painted.

* Fig. 74
L. P. 2.