ardour of zeal to mental intoxication and phrenzy. Of the truth of the first affertion in the common concerns of life, we meet with daily and ftriking proof. Of the fecond, we have a memorable instance in David's laying by the majesty of the monarch, and dancing in holy triumph and ecftafy before the ark, reftored, after a long abfence, to defponding Ifrael. Of the third, the rites of Mylitta at Babylon, the ravings of the furious priestess of Apollo at Delphi, and the Bacchic revels, are irrefragable teftimonies. Befides these, however, there exifted in antiquity a folemn and measured dance, more particularly instituted by the astronomical priests, which imitated the motion of the fun and planets in their respective orbits. This dance was divided into three parts, the ftrophe, the antistrophe, and that which was called stationary, or slow and scarcely perceptible motion before the altar. According to an ancient author, antiqui deorum laudes carminibus comprehenfas circum aras eorum euntes canebant: cujus primum ambitum quem ingrediebantur ex parte dextra spoony vocabant: reverfionem autem finiftrorfum factam completo priore orbe avτisgoon appellabant. Dein in confpectu deorum foliti confiflere, cantici reliqua confequeban tur, tur, appellantes id Epodon.* In the strophe, they danced from the right hand to the left, by which motion, Plutarch is of opinion, they meant to indicate the apparent motion of the heavens, from east to weft: in the antistrophe, they moved from the left to the right, in allufion to the motion of the planets, from west to eaft; and, by the flow, or stationary, motion before the altar, the permanent stability of the earth. It was in the last fituation that the won, or ode, after the dance, was fung. I cannot, however, help being of opinion, that the ancients knew fomething more of the true fyftem of astronomy than this, and that, by the flow stationary, or hardly-perceptible, motion before the altar, they intended to denote either the revolution of the earth upon its axis, or else the folftitial period; for, it is scarcely poffible they could be acquainted with the revolution of the fun (whofe motions, I believe, they meant principally to reprefent) upon its own axis. From another curious treatife of Lucian, expreffly written upon this fubject of the ancient dances, I have, in the preface to this work, mentioned his account of the circular dance, Nnn 2 • Vide Marius Victorinus, lib. i. p. 74. dance, ufed by the Indians when they paid their adorations to the sUN. The dance alluded to is undoubtedly that practifed on the grand annual feftival, holden in India, in honour of Veefhnu, in the form of Creefhna. It is called the Raas Jattra, litterally the dance of the circle, and the following account of it may be found in Mr. Holwell, on the Hindoo fafts and feftivals. Creeshna is the Indian Apollo, and the exploits of this deity on the hallowed plains of Mathura will engross a very large portion of the ancient Indian history. This feast, Mr. Holwell informs us, falls on the full moon in October, and is universally observed throughout Hindoftan; but in a most extraordinary manner at Bindoobund, in commẹ, moration of a miraculous event, which is fabled to have happened in the neighbourhood of that place. A number of virgins having affembled to celebrate in mirth and sport the descent of Creefhna, in the height of their joy, the god himself appeared among them, and proposed a dance to the jocund fair. They objected the want of partners with whom to form that dance; but Creefhna obviated the objection, by dividing himself (his rays) into as many portions as there were virgins, and thus every every nymph had a Creefhna to attend her in the circular dance. Mr. Holwell, the writer of this account, has illuftrated his narration by an engraving, and, whether by accident or defign I cannot fay, but the number of the virgins thus engaged is exactly seven, the number of the planets, while the radiant god himself stands in an easy, difengaged, attitude in the centre of the engraved table.* Thus early did the people of India know, and endeavour to reprefent, the harmonious dance of the planets; and, having imitated that dance, we cannot wonder at their attempting to imitate alfo, while it was performing, the imagined mufic of the spheres. Although neither mufical inftruments nor dancing are particularly ordained in the Levitical law to be employed by the Hebrews in religious worship, there can be little doubt of both having been very anciently in use among them. A very early inftance of it we find almost immediately after their exodus from Egypt; for, after Mofes and the children of Ifrael had finished finging that fublime fong, which he composed upon the miraculous overthrow of Pharoah, we are told, that Miriam, the prophetess, the fifter of Aaron, took a TIM Nnn 3 See Holwell's Indian Festivals, part ii. p. 132. BREL BREL in her hand; and all the women went out after her with TIMBRELS and with DANCES.* It is impoffible to confider this band otherwise than as a facred chorus of dancing women, differing only from the Indian women, as being strictly and exemplarily virtuous, with the priestess or prophetefs at their head, the leader of that band. Their fong, indeed, was truly facred, being in honour of the Omnipotent Jehovah himself; fince Miriam anfwered them, fing ye to the Lord, for he bath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider bath be thrown into the fea. And this perhaps was the first confecration in the world of the measured step and the triumphant song to the true God. Too swiftly, alas! and deeply were they dishonoured, when, forgeting their true Deliverer, this infatuated progeny afterwards proftrated themselves, in idolatrous worship, before the golden calf, the fymbol of Ofiris, and began to dance and fing around the altar of that base Egyptian deity. In the fucceeding periods of their empire, during the national feftivities, we read of the hallowed dance to the found of facred mufic conftantly taking place. When the aik was brought back from Kirjath-Jarim to Jerufalem * Exodus, xv. 20. + Ibid. |