with the agility of an Italian rope-dancer. Such was the confidence
reposed in the docility and dexterity of the animal, that a person
sat upon an elephant's back, while he walked across the theatre
upon a rope, extended from the one side to the other. Lipsius,
who has collected these testimonies, thinks them too strong to be
doubted--perhaps even stronger than the rope. Scaliger corroborates
all of them; Busbequius _saw_ an elephant dance a _pas seul_ at
Constantinople; and Suetonius tells us of twelve elephants, six male
and six female, who were clothed like men and women, and performed a
country dance, in the reign of Tiberius. In later times, horses have
been taught to dance. In the carousals of Louis XIII. there were
dances of horses; and in the 13th century, some rode a horse upon a
rope. All this eclipses the puny modern feats of Astley and Ducrow.[1]

[1] Miraculous dancing is not, however, confined to animals; for
William of Malmesbury gravely relates an instance of 15 young
women and 18 young men who (by the anathema of a priest) continued
dancing a whole year, and wore the earth so much, that, by
degrees, they sunk midway into the earth!

The Greeks and Romans were divided upon the propriety of dancing.
Socrates who held death in contempt, when a reverend old gentleman,
learned to dance of Aspasia, the beautiful nurse of Grecian eloquence.
The Romans forgot their loss of the republic and of liberty--

------------------the air we breathe
If we have it not we die.

in seeing Pylades and Bathyllus dance before them in their
theatres--an indifference of which we were reminded on hearing that