_Saltare elegantius quam necesse est probæ._
SALLUST.
My friend Sir Roger de Coverley, when we last met together at the club,
told me that he had a great mind to see the Muscovite dancers with me,
assuring me at the same time that he had not been at a playhouse these
twenty years. When he learnt from me that these dancers were to be sought
in Leicester Fields, he asked me if there would not be some danger in
coming home late, in case the Mohocks should be abroad. “However,” says
the knight, “if Captain Sentry will make one with us to-morrow night, I
will have my own coach in readiness to attend you; for John tells me he
has got the fore-wheels mended.” Thinking to smoak him, I whispered, “You
must have a care, for all the streets in the West are now up,” but he was
not to be daunted, saying he minded well when all the West Country was up
with Monmouth; and the Captain bid Sir Roger fear nothing, for that he
had put on the same sword which he made use of at the battle of Steenkirk.
When we had convoyed him in safety to Leicester Fields, and he had
descended from his coach at the door, he straightway engaged in a
conference with the door-keeper, who is a notable prating gossip, and
stroak’d the page-boy upon the head, bidding him be a good child and mind
his book. As soon as we were in our places my old friend stood up and
looked about him with that pleasure which a mind seasoned with humanity
naturally feels in itself, at the sight of a multitude of people who seem
pleased with one another, and partake of the same common entertainment.
He seemed to be no less pleased with the gay silks and satins and
sarsenets and brocades of the ladies, but pish’d at the strange sight of
their bare backs. “Not so bare, neither,” I whispered to him, “for if
you look at them through your spy-glass you will see they wear a little
coat of paint, which particularity has gained them the name of Picts.” “I
warrant you,” he answered, with a more than ordinary vehemence, “these
naked ones are widows—widows, Sir, are the most perverse creatures in the
world.” Thinking to humour him, I said most like they were war widows,
whereon the good knight lifted his hat to our brave fellows who fought in
the Low Countries, and offered several reflections on the greatness of
the British land and sea forces, with many other honest prejudices which
naturally cleave to the heart of a true Englishman.
Luckily, the Muscovites then began dancing and posturing in their
pantomime which they call _Petrouchka_ and the old gentleman was
wonderfully attentive to the antics of the three live _fantoccini_. When
the black fellow, as he called the Moor, clove the head of his rival with
the scimitar, the knight said he had never looked for such barbarity from
a fellow who, but a moment ago, was innocently playing a game of ball,
like a child. What strange disorders, he added, are bred in the minds
of men whose passions are not regulated by virtue, and disciplined by
reason. “But pray, you that are a critic, is this in accordance with your
rules, as you call them? Did your Aristotle allow pity and terror to be
moved by such means as dancing?” I answered that the Greek philosopher
had never seen the Muscovites and that, in any case, we had the authority
of Shakespeare for expecting murder from any jealous Moor. “Moreover,
these Muscovites dance murder as they dance everything. I love to shelter
myself under the examples of great men, and let me put you in mind of
Hesiod, who says, ‘The gods have bestowed fortitude on some men, and on
others a disposition for dancing.’ Fortunately the Muscovites have the
more amiable gift.” The knight, with the proper respect of a country
gentleman for classick authority, was struck dumb by Hesiod.
He remained silent during the earlier part of _Schéhérazade_ until
Karsavina, as the favourite of the Sultan’s harem, persuaded the Chief
Eunuch to release her orange-tawny favourite, Monsieur Massine, at which
the knight exclaimed, “On my word, a notable young baggage!” I refrained
from telling my innocent friend that in the old Arabian tale these
tawny creatures were apes. He mightily liked the Sultan’s long beard.
“When I am walking in my gallery in the country,” says he, “and see the
beards of my ancestors, I cannot forbear regarding them as so many old
patriarchs, and myself as an idle smock-faced young fellow. I love to see
your Abrahams and Isaacs, as we have them in old pieces of tapestry with
beards below their girdles. I suppose this fellow, with all these wives,
must be Solomon.” And, his thoughts running upon that King, he said he
kept his Book of Wisdom by his bedside in the country and found it,
though Apocryphal, more conducive to virtue than the writings of Monsieur
La Rochefoucauld or, indeed, of Socrates himself, whose life he had
read at the end of the Dictionary. Captain Sentry, seeing two or three
wags who sat near us lean with an attentive ear towards Sir Roger, and
fearing lest they should smoak the knight, plucked him by the elbow, and
whispered something in his ear that lasted until the Sultan returned to
the harem and put the ladies and their tawny companions to the sword. The
favourite’s plunging the dagger into her heart moved him to tears, but he
dried them hastily on bethinking him she was a Mahometan, and asked of
us, on our way home, whether there was no playhouse in London where they
danced true Church of England pantomimes.