BALLETS AND BALLET-DANCERS.
Dr. Barten Holyday, in the notes to his translation of "Juvenal,"
published at Oxford in 1673, describes the Roman plays as being
followed by an exodium "of the nature of a _jig_ after a play, the
more cheerfully to dismiss the spectators"--the word "jig" signifying
in the doctor's time something almost of a _ballet divertissement_,
with an infusion of rhyming songs or speeches delivered by the clown
of the theatre to the accompaniment of pipe and tabor. Jigs of this
kind commonly terminated the performances upon the Elizabethan stage,
which otherwise consisted of one dramatic piece only. Mr. Payne
Collier holds that these supplemental exhibitions probably originated
with, and certainly depended mainly upon, the actors who supported the
characters of fools and clowns in the regular dramatic representations.
He points out that Tarleton, one of Queen Elizabeth's players,
much famed for his comicality, obtained great success by his
efforts in jigs, and that, upon the showing of the tract entitled
Tarleton's "News from Purgatory," jigs usually lasted for an hour. The
precise nature of these entertainments cannot now be ascertained; for
although each jig had what may be called its _libretto_, which was
duly printed and published when the popularity of the work so
required, yet no specimen of any such performance is now extant. The
Stationers' registers, however, contain entries in 1595 of two jigs
described respectively as Phillips's "Jig of the Slippers," and
Kempe's "Jig of the Kitchen-stuff Woman." Other jigs referred to by
contemporary writers are "The Jig of the Ship" and "The Jig of
Garlick." It may be assumed, therefore, that each jig possessed
special characteristics in the nature of distinct plot and characters;
but in what respects "The Jig of the Kitchen-stuff Woman," let us say,
differed from "The Jig of Garlick," or what was the precise story
either was supposed to narrate, we must now be content to leave to the
conjecture of the curious.
Probably dancing, as a dramatic entertainment, first came upon our
stage in the form of these jigs. Of course, as a means of recreation
among all ranks of people, it had thriven since a very remote period.
Into the question of the state of dancing prior to the invention of
any method of denoting by signs or characters the length or duration
of sounds, we need scarcely enter. Doubtless music was felt and
appreciated by a sort of instinct long before it was understood
scientifically, or duly measured out and written down upon a
recognised system. If dancing is to be viewed as dependent upon its
correspondence with mensurable music, it must date simply from the
invention of the Cantus Mensurabilis, attributed by some writers to
Franco, the scholastic of Liége, who flourished in the eleventh
century; and by others to Johannes de Muris, doctor of Sorbonne and a
native of England, at the beginning of the fourteenth century.
There were dances of the court and dances of the people. The Morris
dance, which seems to have been an invention of the Moors, had firmly
established itself in England in the sixteenth century. The country
dance was even of earlier date. The old Roundel or Roundelay has been
described by ancient authorities as an air appropriate to dancing, and
would indicate little more than a circular dance with the hands
joined. Among the nobler and statelier dances in vogue at the court of
the Tudors, were the Pavan (from _pavo_, a peacock), with the Galliard
(a lighter measure, which was probably to the Pavan what in later
years the Gavotte was to the Minuet), the Passamezzo, the Courant, and
the Saraband. Sir John Elyot, who published in 1531 his book called
"The Governor," wherein he avers that dancing by persons of both sexes
is a mystical representation of matrimony, mentions other dances, such
as Bargenettes and Turgyons, concerning which no explanation can be
offered, except perhaps that the former may be derived from Berger,
and be something of a shepherd's dance. There was also an esteemed
dance called the Braule, in which several persons joining hands danced
together in a ring, which was no doubt identical with the Branle or
Brantle mentioned by Mr. Pepys in his description of a grand ball at
Whitehall: "By-and-by comes the king and queen, the duke and duchess,
and all the great ones; and after seating themselves the king takes
out the Duchess of York, and the Duke the Duchess of Buckingham; the
Duke of Monmouth my Lady Castlemaine; and so other lords other ladies;
and they danced the Brantle. After that the king led a lady a single
Coranto; and then the rest of the lords, one after another, other
ladies. Very noble it was and great pleasure to see. Then to country
dances; the king leading the first, which he called for.... The manner
was, when the king dances, all the ladies in the room, and the queen
herself, stand up; and indeed he dances rarely and much better than
the Duke of York."
Dancing, however, had degenerated in King Charles's time. In his
"Table Talk," Selden writes of the matter in very quaint terms: "The
court of England is much altered. At a solemn dancing, first you had
the grave measures, then the Corantoes and the Galliards, and this
kept with ceremony; and at length to Trenchmore and the cushion-dance;
then all the company dances, lord and groom, lady and kitchen-maid, no
distinction. So in our court in Queen Elizabeth's time gravity and
state were kept up. In King James's time things were pretty well. But
in King Charles's time there has been nothing but Trenchmore and the
cushion-dance, _omnium gatherum_, tolly polly, hoite cum toite." The
Trenchmore was a lively dance, mention of which may be found in "The
Pilgrim" and "Island Princess" of Beaumont and Fletcher, and in "The
Rehearsal" of the Duke of Buckingham. The last editor of Selden, it
may be noted, by altering the word to "Frenchmore," has considerably
obscured the author's meaning.
In former times men of the gravest profession did not disdain to
dance. Even the judges, in compliance with ancient custom, long
continued to dance annually on Candlemas Day in the hall of Serjeants'
Inn, Chancery Lane. Lincoln's Inn, too, had its revels--four in each
year--with a master duly elected of the society to direct the
pastimes. Nor were these "exercises of dancing," as Dugdale calls
them, merely tolerated; they were held to be "very necessary, and much
conducing to the making of gentlemen more fit for their books at other
times." Indeed, it appears that, by an order made in James I.'s time,
the junior bar was severely dealt with for declining to dance: "the
under barristers were by decimation put out of commons for example's
sake, because the whole bar offended by not dancing on Candlemas Day
preceding, according to the ancient order of this society, when the
judges were present; with this, that if the like fault were committed
afterwards they should be fined or disbarred."
Gradually jigs disappeared from the stage. Even in 1632, when Shirley
wrote his comedy of "Changes, or Love in a Maze," jigs had been
discontinued at Salisbury Court Theatre, and probably at other private
playhouses. Shirley complains that, instead of a jig at the end, a
dance in the middle of the piece was now required by the spectators.
Possibly that dance of all the _dramatis personæ_ with which so many
of the old comedies conclude is due to the earlier fashion of
terminating theatrical performances by a jig.
With Sir William Davenant as patentee and manager of the Duke's
Theatre, stage dancing and singing acquired a more distinguished
position among theatrical entertainments. It was Davenant's object, by
submitting attractions of this nature to the public, to check the
superiority enjoyed by Killigrew, the patentee of the Theatre Royal,
and the comedians privileged to call themselves "His Majesty's
Servants." Davenant, indeed, first brought upon the English stage what
were then called "dramatic operas," but what we should now rather
designate "spectacles," including Dryden's version of "The Tempest,"
the "Psyche" of Shadwell, and the "Circe" of Charles Davenant, "all
set off," as Cibber writes of them, "with the most expensive
decorations of scenes and habits, with the best voices and dancers."
Sir John Hawkins describes these productions as "musical dramas," or
"tragedies with interludes set to music."
But as yet the ballet, or rather the ballet of action--which may be
defined to be a ballet with a plot or story of some kind told by means
of dancing dumb motions, and musical accompaniments--was not known
upon our stage; and when an entertainment of this kind did make its
appearance it was promptly designated a pantomime, and so has become
confused with the distinct kind of performances still presented under
that name at our larger theatres at Christmas time. "When one company
is too hard for another," writes Cibber, "the lower in reputation has
always been forced to exhibit some new-fangled foppery to draw the
multitude after them;" which is, however, only a way of saying that
managers need the stimulus of opposition to induce them to provide new
entertainments. In 1721 there was great rivalry between Drury
Lane--Cibber being one of its managers--and the theatre then newly
erected in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Of the "new-fangled foppery," which
it now became necessary for the one theatre to resort to as a weapon
of offence against its rival, singing and dancing had been effectual
instances. But singing was not to be thought of under the
circumstances; as Cibber writes: "At the time I am speaking of, our
English music had been so discountenanced since the taste of Italian
operas prevailed, that it was to no purpose to pretend to it. Dancing,
therefore, was now the only weight in the opposite scale, and as the
new theatres sometimes found their account in it, it could not be safe
for us wholly to neglect it. To give even dancing, therefore, some
improvement, and to make it something more than motion without
meaning, the fable of Mars and Venus was formed into a connected
presentation of dances in character, wherein the passions were so
happily expressed, and the whole story so intelligibly told by a mute
narrative of gesture only, that even thinking spectators allowed it
both a pleasing and a rational entertainment." This was certainly a
ballet of action, and it is remarkable that the production involved
but a small outlay; the managers, distrusting its reception, did not
venture "to decorate it with any extraordinary expense of scenes or
habits." Great success, however, attended the performance, and from it
is to be dated the establishment both of ballet and pantomime upon our
stage. "From this original hint, then, but every way unequal to it,
sprang forth that succession of monstrous medleys that have so long
infested the stage, and which arose upon one another alternately at
both houses, outvying in expense, like contending bribes on both sides
at an election, to secure a majority of the multitude." Cibber indeed
waxes very wrath over the matter, and appears to desire that lawful
authority should "interpose to put down these poetical drams, these
gin-shops of the stage, that intoxicate its auditors and dishonour
their understanding with a levity for which I want a name." But
Cibber's anger is in truth very much that of a manager vying with the
liberal outlay of a rival, and in such wise forced to expend large
sums in costly entertainments.
At an earlier date ballet-dancers had been imported from France. Some
time about 1704 the great Mr. Betterton and his company, suffering
from insufficient patronage at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields,
had been reduced to resort to "foreign novelties." Three of the most
famous dancers of the French Opera, L'Abbée, Balon, and Mademoiselle
Subligny, were at several times brought over at extraordinary rates to
revive that sickly appetite which plain sense and nature had satiated.
In Paris, indeed, the ballet was very securely instituted. The
Académie Royale de Musique et de Danse had been founded in 1669, and
from that date the ballet, as an entertainment of dancing only, may be
said to have come into being. There had been earlier ballets, but
these were of the nature of old English masques, and consisted of
songs and spoken dialogues in addition to dances; the term _ballet_,
it need hardly be explained, being derived from the Italian _ballata_,
the parent of our own _ballad_. At first the French Opera or Academy
suffered from the smallness of its troop; vocalists could be obtained
from the church choirs, but for the ballet it was hard to find
recruits; and sometimes young boys were pressed into the service, and
constrained to personate nymphs, dryads, and shepherdesses--"_danseurs_,"
writes a French historian of the Opera, "_qui sous un masque et des
vêtements féminins, les formes arrondies par l'art et le coton,
n'excitaient qu'un enthousiasme modéré_." At court there
was no lack of dancers of the gentler sex, however, and at court
the ballet prospered greatly. A ballet performed in 1681 was at
any rate strongly cast, since there appeared among the dancers Madame
la Dauphine, the Princesse de Conti, and Mdlle. de Nantes, supported
by the Dauphin, the Prince de Conti, and the Duc de Vermandois; but
these distinguished personages probably sang more than they danced.
Louis XIV. frequently figured in ballets, one of his favourite
characters being the Sun in "Flora," said to be the eighteenth ballet
in which he had played a part. Lulli, the composer, director of the
Opera, paid great attention to the ballet, occasionally appearing as a
dancer; as a singer and comic actor he had already acquired fame. To
Lulli has been attributed the introduction of rapid dancing, in
opposition to the solemn and deliberate steps favoured by the court
during the early part of the reign of Louis XIV. It may be added, that
the king held out a measure of encouragement to such of his nobility
and courtiers as were disposed to follow his example and exhibit upon
the scene. "It is our pleasure," he says in the patent granted to the
Abbé Perrin, the first director of the French Opera, 1669, "that all
gentlemen and ladies may sing in the said pieces and representations
of our Royal Academy, without being considered on that account to
derogate from their letters of nobility or from their privileges,
rights, and immunities." The dramatic ballet, or ballet of action, is
said to have been invented by the Duchesse du Maine, whose theatrical
entertainments at Sceaux rivalled the festivities of Versailles, and
obtained the preference of many nobles of the court. The lady,
however, unfortunately meddled with the Spanish conspiracy--she should
have confined herself to the plots of ballets--and forthwith the
establishment at Sceaux was broken up. In this way Mouret, her musical
director, who also composed several operas and ballets for the
Academy, suffered severe loss; eventually he went mad and died in the
lunatic asylum at Chârenton.
Mademoiselle de Subligny came to England armed with letters of
introduction from Thiriot and the Abbé Dubois to John Locke of all
people! Locke probably was not very sympathetic in regard to the
lady's art, yet respect for his friends led him to bestow upon her due
civility and attention; according to Fontenelle, he constituted
himself her _homme d'affaires_. Another dancer, Mademoiselle Sallé,
whose charms and graces Voltaire had celebrated in verse, appeared in
London with letters of introduction from Fontenelle to Montesquieu,
then ambassador at the court of St. James's. It is clear that the
ballet-dancers were becoming personages of real importance.
Mdlle. Sallé, it seems, achieved extraordinary success in the year
1734 at Covent Garden Theatre, which a French journal of that date
describes curiously as the _Théâtre du Commun Jardin_. The lady was an
admirable dancer, and brought with her complete dramatic ballets, the
characters in which were appropriately dressed according to the time
and place of the story they related; for Mdlle. Sallé was a reformer
in the matter of stage costumes. She discarded paniers and hoops and
false hair. As Galatea in a ballet upon the story of Pygmalion, she
wore nothing, we are told, "in addition to her bodice and under
petticoats, but a simple robe of muslin draped after the manner of a
Greek statue." She won great applause, too, by her performance of
Ariadne in a ballet called "Bacchus and Ariadne," the beauty of her
dances, attitudes, and gestures, and her skill in depicting by
movements without words, grief, anger, love, and despair, obtaining
the warmest approval. She was patronised by the king, queen, and the
royal family, and her benefit produced an "overflow" and something
more; tickets were sold at most exorbitant prices, and the people
fought for places both with swords and fists. There are stories, too,
of purses full of gold being flung upon the stage, with showers of
bonbons--not ordinary sugar-plums, but rouleaux of guineas tightly
wrapped up in bank-notes. The dancer is said to have profited by her
benefit to the extent of some £10,000. It must be owned, however, that
the story of Mdlle. Sallé's success is of a very highly-coloured
description, and can only be credited absolutely by persons largely
endowed with credulity.
Satire, of course, found occupation in the successes of the
ballet-dancers. In 1742 Hogarth published his "Charmers of the Age," a
caricature of the aspects and attitudes of M. Desnoyer and the Signora
Barberina, then performing at Drury Lane Theatre. A grotesque air was
given to these artists, popularly regarded as personifications of
grace and elegance, and a measured line was added to the drawing that
their leaps and bounds might be fairly estimated.
It was in France, however, that the _ballerina_ secured her greatest
triumph, and the _ballet d'action_ attained its fullest vitality. The
dancer became a power in the State, influencing princes, ministers,
and people. Poets were her slaves, and oftentimes philosophers were
caught in her toils. From Mdlle. la Fontaine of two centuries since,
"_la première des premières danseuses_," who received the title of "La
Reine de la Danse," there being at the time, however, but three other
professional dancers in Paris, through a long line of most
distinguished artists, the _ballerina_ of to-day may trace her
descent. But now, however, there is pause in her success, a cloud over
her career. Indeed, it must be said, that for a generation almost
there has been no new triumph registered of the ballet and its
artists. Here the "opera-dancers," as they were once called, have
certainly ceased to be. Once standing, as it were, on the tips of
their toes, they supported opera upon their shoulders. But now there
are no dancers at the opera. Euterpe has dispensed with the aid of
Terpsichore; the ballet has fled from the boards of our lyric
theatres. It has been said, indeed, that the _ballet d'action_ has
never been really naturalised in this country; that although it has
thrived for a while, it was but an exotic, needing careful watching
and tending. Still it was for many years a most prosperous
entertainment, especially at our Italian opera-house; and it is to be
noted that its decline has not been confined to this country. Even in
France, its natural home and headquarters, ballet is by no means what
it once was. It lives, perhaps, but in a fallen state. There is no
_danseuse_ now really of the first class. Has the ballet declined on
this account, or is this to be ascribed to the decline of the ballet?
Or can it be that the dances of the streets have overcome and ousted
from their due position the dances of the stage?
After Mdlle. la Fontaine came Mdlles. Roland and Prévost; the famous
Camargo and her rival Sallé, of whom some mention has already been
made; Mdlle. Marie Madeleine Guimard, exquisitely graceful and
fascinating, but of such slender proportions that she obtained the
surname of "_le squelette des Grâces_," while witty but malicious,
perhaps jealous, Sophie Arnould described her as "the spider;"
Mafleuroy, who married Boeldieu, and Mercandotti, who married Mr. Ball
Hughes, otherwise "Golden Ball," the greatest gambler of his time,
which is saying a good deal; Noblet and the Ellslers; Pauline Leroux,
who became the wife of Lafont, the most elegant actor of the modern
theatre; Duvernay and Taglioni--to name no more, for we have now come
to surviving artists--these are among the more famous of the "Reines
de la Danse" who have ruled absolutely at the Académie Royale of Paris
and elsewhere.
In England ballet has enjoyed many triumphs, while it has
nevertheless experienced sundry disasters. There was great trouble,
for instance, at Drury-lane Theatre in 1755, when Mr. Garrick's
"Chinese Festival" with its French dancers was sternly, even savagely,
condemned by the audience. The manager was over-fond of spangles and
spectacles, or inclined to over-estimate his public's regard for such
matters, and a sharp but necessary lesson was read to him upon that
occasion. Then he was very obstinate, and in such wise roused the
British lion inordinately. He would not withdraw the play from his
stage; promptly the audience determined that no stage should be left
him upon which to represent either the "Chinese Festival" or anything
else. Of course he had to yield at last, as managers must when
playgoers are resolute; he had to live by pleasing, not displeasing.
But he did not give way until there had been some six nights of uproar
and riot. In vain did various noble lords and gentlemen, friends of
the management, and supporters of spectacle and the ballet, draw their
swords, endeavouring to awe malcontents, to restore order, and to
defend the theatre from outrage. The mob would have its way. The
benches were torn up, the decorations torn down, chandeliers smashed,
even scenes and properties were ruthlessly destroyed. There was,
indeed, a wild proposition rife at one time to fire the house and burn
it to the ground. Garrick could but strike his flag, and yield up his
"Chinese Festival." Still it was agreed that he had hesitated too
long. The mob therefore repaired to Southampton Street, and smashed
his window-panes, doing other mischief to his property there. He began
even to tremble for his life, and from his friends in power obtained a
guard of soldiery to protect him. Strange to say, on two of the nights
of riot the king was present--a fact that did not in the least hinder
or mitigate the violent demonstrations of the audience.
But it was not so much the ballet that gave offence as the
ballet-dancers whom Garrick had brought from Paris. They were chiefly
Swiss, but the audience believed them to be French, and at that time a
very strong anti-Gallican feeling prevailed in the land. The relations
between England and France were of an unfriendly kind; the two
countries were, indeed, on the eve of war. The French, by their
conduct in America, had incurred the bitterest English enmity. It is
true that Garrick had projected his spectacle months before this
feeling had arisen. He was careful so to inform the public, and
further to state that his ballet-master, M. Noverre, and his sisters
were Swiss and of a Protestant family; his wife and her sister,
Germans; and that of the whole _corps de ballet_, sixty in number,
forty were English. But this availed not. The pit would not regard it,
holding fast to their opinion that no management should bring over
parley-voos and frog-eaters to take the bread out of English mouths.
Peace was at length restored in Drury Lane, and the dancers sent back.
The management lost £4000; Garrick purchasing knowledge of his public
at rather a high rate.
And in England the ballet had other enemies than those who concerned
themselves in regard to the nationality of its professors. It was held
by many to be, if an art at all--why, then, an art of a shocking kind;
they could see nothing in it but gross impropriety and unseemliness.
Now, of course, the ballet has its vulnerable side--it almost needs,
at any rate it has always assumed, a scantier style of dress than is
otherwise in ordinary use. And then the movements of the dancer of
necessity involve greater display of the human form than is required
by the simpler acts of riding, walking, or sitting. In dancing it is
inevitable that there should be swaying and bending of the figure,
possibly waving to and fro of the arms, certainly some standing upon
the toes, and raising of the nether limbs more or less high in the
air. Bereft of these measures dancing could not be; still here were
matters upon which moralists, or persons who so styled themselves,
were able greatly to enlarge, and concerning which Pharisees, who did
not so style themselves, but were such nevertheless, had much to say.
Now just at the close of the last century the world was in very sad
case; society had gone on from bad to worse: low life was of course
lower than it had ever before been known to be, and high life was not
nearly so high as it should have been. There was profligacy in very
exalted places, and, indeed, dissoluteness and immorality everywhere.
Thereupon, in 1798, a certain Bishop of Durham made a speech from his
place in Parliament in regard to the wickedness of the period; and
especially he drew attention to the dancers of the opera-house. The
excuse for the prelate's speech was a divorce bill; for in those days
the peers spiritual and temporal were much occupied in discussing and
passing divorce bills--an employment of which they have only been
deprived during quite recent years. His Grace took occasion to
complain of the frequency of such bills, and, being a true patriot,
charged the French Government with the despatch of agents to this
country especially to corrupt our manners. "He considered it a
consequence of the gross immoralities imported of late years into this
country from France, the Directory of which country, finding that they
were not able to subdue us by their arms, appeared as if they were
determined to gain their ends by destroying our morals; they had sent
over persons to this country who made the most improper exhibitions in
our theatres." Now it was true that the manager of the opera-house at
this time relied greatly upon the attractions of his ballet; operas
and opera-singers having for a while lost favour with the impresario's
subscribers and supporters. A leading dancer at this time, however,
was an Englishwoman--an exception to the rule that makes every
_première danseuse_ of French origin--Miss Rose, reported to be of
plain features, but of exquisite figure, and gifted with singular ease
and grace of movement. It is possible that Miss Rose had adopted a
scantier and lighter method of attire than had prevailed with
preceding dancers. She had been caricatured, yet not very unkindly, by
Gillray, the drawing bearing the motto, "No flower that blows is like
the Rose." The bishop's speech was not without effect. Indeed, he had
announced his intention upon some future day to move an address to the
king praying that all opera-dancers might be ordered out of the
kingdom, as people likely to destroy our morality and religion, and as
very probably in the pay of France. The manager of the opera-house
deemed it advisable to postpone his ballet of "Bacchus and Ariadne"
until new and improved dresses could be prepared for it. Upon the
entertainment being reproduced, it was found that there had been
enlargement and elongation of the skirts of the performers, with the
substitution of inoffensive white silk stockings for the reprehensible
hose of flesh-colour that had originally been assumed. Of course much
talk followed upon this, with great laughter and ridicule; caricatures
of the spiritual peers and the opera-dancers abounded. In a drawing by
Gillray, Miss Rose, with other _danseuses_, is depicted performing
what is called "_La Danse à l'Évêque_;" the ladies have assumed, out
of excessive regard for decorousness and the bishop's arguments, that
apron of black silk which has long been thought peculiar to prelates.
Another satirical illustration bore the title of "Ecclesiastical
Scrutiny; or, The Durham Inquest on Duty." Bishops were represented as
attending in the dressing department of the opera-house; one is seen
to be measuring the dancers' skirts with a tailor's yard; another
arranges their stockings in an ungraceful fashion; while a third
inspects their corsets, decreeing some change in the form of those
articles of attire. The Bishop of Durham was further portrayed in
another broadsheet as armed with his pastoral staff, and sturdily
contesting hand to hand with the Spirit of Evil arrayed in ballet
costume. In short, this subject of the bishops and the ballet-girls
occupied and amused the public very considerably, and doubtless proved
profitable, as an advertisement of his wares, to the manager of the
opera-house.
Still the bishops kept a watchful eye upon the proceedings of the
theatre. In 1805 there is record of a riot at the opera-house, "some
reforming bishops having warned the managers that if the performances
were not regularly brought to a close before twelve o'clock on
Saturday evenings, prosecutions would be commenced." Accordingly, the
performances were shortened by the omission of an act of the ballet of
"Ossian," greatly to the dissatisfaction of the audience, who
assaulted Mr. Kelly, the manager, commenced an attack upon the
chandeliers, benches, musical instruments, &c., and indeed threatened
to demolish the theatre. The curtain had fallen at half-past eleven,
which the audience thought much too early. Of a certain prelate it was
recorded that he frequently attended the Saturday-night performances
at the opera-house, and that upon the approach of midnight he was wont
to stand up in his box holding out his watch at arm's length, by way
of intimating to the spectators that it was time for them to depart
and for the theatre to close. Of course this bishop could hardly have
avoided seeing the ballet; but for whatever distress he may have
endured on that account, a sense of his efforts to benefit his
species, including of course the opera-dancers, no doubt afforded him
a sufficient measure of compensation.