to his tender muse he bade adieu; he bade her
adieu for ever." That was the man to whom we
owe what the bills call "in the course of the
opera an incidental ballet," and the founding
of the glories of the ballet on the operatic
stage. His first lyric piece, The Festivals of
Bacchus and of Love, he called a pastoral;
but his Triumph of Love, presented at St.
Gerinains in courtly fashion, and danced by the
courtiers to Lulli's music, was formally called a
ballet.

It is rather an odd fact that immediately after
this time the only home of what was called the
ballet was in the schools of the Jesuits, where,
on great occasions, the pupils danced "Ballets
de Collége," as grammar-school boys now-a-
days give recitations. The ballets introduced
into the operas were called divertissements, or
fêtes.

After Quinault's death, in sixteen 'eighty-
eight, the new path he had struck out for
public entertainment was followed by weaker
men, until, in sixteen 'ninety-seven, the
second reformer of the ballet was found in
Antoine Houdart de la Motte. He strengthened
the dramatic interest in both ballet and opera,
and, in the year just named, his first ballet opera,
"Europe Galante," with Campra's music,
established a new model for the French ballet of the
next coming age. Young Louis the Fifteenth
danced more than once in it at the Tuileries.
The ballet-opera, as then constituted, consisted
of a prologue and three or four acts, each with
a well-defined action that included, and was
illustrated by, one or two divertissements of
blended dance and song. But the several acts,
though they had unity of sentiment, did not
develop one plot, and the ballet, as dance-work,
had no independent place in such performance.
In the last year of the seventeenth century
Regnard planned to Campra's music a comedy-
ballet of the Carnival of Venice, with detached
carnival dancing introduced among the love
intrigues forming the slight story of the piece.
Then came La Motte's Carnival and Folly, in
which heathen deities were set dancing. That
was called an allegoric ballet. Another of his
pieces gave occasion, through a slight story, to
the dancing of shepherds, fauns, satyrs, dryads,
in a pastoral ballet. Heroes and kings were
next set tripping on the light fantastic toe in a
heroic ballet. Advance now became rapid. In
seventeen 'twenty-three Fuselier wrote, for the
music of Colin de Beaumont, a play of Greek
and Roman fêtes, in which he was the first to
have the action of what story there was, told in
dance. In seventeen 'forty-seven appeared
Festivals of Hymen and of Love, written by
Cahusac to the music of Rameau, which added
to a story told by dance, the use of wonderful
effects of machinery; but the steps taken by
these last improvers of the ballet did not lead to
any great success.

The true creator of the later power of the
ballet, as an independent entertainment, was
Jean Georges Noverre, who wholly parted it
from opera, shut the mouths of the dancers, and
set the ballet very high on its own toes as a five-
act play of music, dance, and pantomime. He
wrote, a hundred years ago, two volumes, praised
by Voltaire, of Letters upon Dancing and Ballets,
and was that rare thing in creation—a male
dancer with a head and brains. He danced
well, and he wrote well about dancing. He
went back to the study of the ancient pantomime;
and of the stage ballet of the century last
past, its action, its ingenious machinery, its careful
grouping, he may be called the founder. He
had Gardel and Vestris among his pupils.

The rest of the tale is of that which we
have in our time seen. Who knows but there
may be a chance for the revival in London of
Romeo and Juliet as set by Vincenzo Saleotti!
We have seen as queer things on the London
stage. A genius apart was that of the Copenhagen
ballet-master, Vincenzo Saleotti, who, in
the present century, produced great pantomimic
ballets, and gave, as an entertainment occupying
a whole evening, the ballet of Romeo and Juliet;
in which all is pantomime, and the actual
dancing is confined to the ball-room scene;
There Romeo and Juliet express their love and
mutual attraction, by hopping about after each
other among the dancers, and, being at last face
to face, express everything in a tender pas de
deux.

          NEW WORK BY MR. DICKENS,
ln Monthly Parts, uniform with the Original Editions of
             "Pickwick," "Copperfleld," &c.
      Now publishing, PART V., price Is., of
              OUR MUTUAL FRIEND.
             BY CHARLES DICKENS.
      IN TWENTY MONTHLY PARTS.
   With Illustrations by MARCUS STONE.
London: CHAPMAN and HALL, 193, Piccadilly.
Just published, bound in green cloth, price 5s. 6d.,

Just published, bound in green cloth, price 5s. 6d.,
             THE ELEVENTH VOLUME.