It is then no paradox to say that the more deep you are in the art, the less will it stifle nature. On the contrary, it will, in the noble assurance which a competent skill is sure to bring with it, give to the natural graces a greater freedom and ease of display. Imperfection of theory and practice cramps the faculties; and gives either an unpleasing faulteringness to the air, steps, and gestures, or wrong execution. And as the minuet derives its merit from an observation of the most agreeable steps, well chosen in nature and well combined by art, there is no inconsistence in avering that art may, in this, as in many other objects of imitative skill, essentially assist nature, and place her in the most advantageous point of light.
The truth of this will be easily granted, by numbers who have felt the pleasure of seeing a minuet gracefully executed by a couple who understood this dance perfectly. Nay, excellence in the performance of it, has given to an indifferent figure, at least a temporary advantage over a much superior one in point of person only; and sometimes an advantage of which the impression has been more permanent.
But besides the effect of the moment in pleasing the spectators; the being well versed in this dance especially contributes greatly to form the gait, and address, as well as the manner in which we should present ourselves. It has a sensible influence in the polishing and fashioning the air and deportment in all occasions of appearance in life. It helps to wear off any thing of clownishness in the carriage of the person, and breathes itself into otherwise the most indifferent actions, in a genteel and agreeable manner of performing them.
This secret and relative influence of the minuet, _Marcel_, my ever respected master, whom his own merit in his profession, and the humorous mention of him by _Helvetius_, in his famous book DE L'ESPRIT, have made so well known, constantly kept in view, in his method of teaching it. His scholars were generally known and distinguished from those of other masters, not only by their excellence in actual dancing, but by a certain superior air of easy-genteelness at other times. He himself danced the minuet to its utmost perfection. Not that he confined his practice to that dance alone; on the contrary, he confessed himself obliged for his greatest skill in that, to his having a general knowledge of all the other dances, which he had practised, but especially those of the serious stile.