| Citation |
NYM(G.776.085
11 Nov 1776:23 (1307)
On Dancing.
One of the wisest and greatest men that England ever
produced was inclined to introduce dancing as an
important article into the academic system of
education. I mean Lord Clarendon who was as sensible
of its advantages as Mons. Fuillet himself. It is,
however, universally allowed, that there are periods of
life which should naturally renounce the pleasures of
the dance. What a ridiculous extravagance would it
appear in a grey-haired alderman, should he describe a
minuet, or supply in a cotillon the place of a polished
active youth! The numberless distortions, which are
sometimes forced into a wrinkled face by the louvre,
seldom raise any degree of satisfaction in the
spectator, oftener campassion, always an inclination to
laughter. The amusement of dancing, as the dalliance
of love, is equally denied the gravity of advanced
years. A love song is as much expected as a jig, from
a man of eighty. Infirmity sets each performance in a
ridiculous light. Who could endure spectacles at a
dance, especially if blindness proceeds from age, when
to trace the figure of the dance requires the same
irksome pains and poring distress with the small
character of a Persian manuscript? The quality too of
the dancer is of prime importance. From a want of due
attention to this, many hideous misalliances are often
fashioned, dignity become frolicksome, and office is
disfigured by an unsuitable gaiety. Let us, therefore,
suppose an instance, where the station of the dancer is
strongly contrasted with the amusement itself. Where a
Lord Chief Justice, with the most finished graces of
person, to measure a cotillon at Madam Cornelys's, who
would not feel for the dancer? Who could separate the
idea of magistracy from his present situation? Let us
now drop supposition, and give an example of this
strange contrast from an order of men, whose duties are
the most abhorrent from the pleasures of a dance. Ned
Toupee is now turned of thirty; he had ever been
admired for his walk in a minuet; indeed he shone in
every branch of the art saltatorial. The applause
which he gained so rooted his affections for dancing,
that he pursued this favourite amusement as warmly
after ordination as before. He is now fixt as curate
in a genteel country parish: No private hop is without
him, who, like the Salii at Rome, unites the holiness
of worship with the merriment of the "fantastic toe."
He attends each monthly assembly in the next market
town. I have known Ned, when he has just buried a
corpse, "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye," post
to a ball, where he has been hotly engaged in "merrily
dance the Quaker," while his clothes still retained the
odours of a burial. His precepts have but little
effect on his parishioners, who necessarily jumble
together the notions of the priest and the dancer.
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