Nearly all the great writers of antiquity and of the medieval period who
have mentioned dancing at all have done so in terms of unmistakable
favor; of modern famous authors, they only have condemned it from whose
work, or from what is known of their personal character, we may justly
infer an equal aversion to pretty much everything in the way of pleasure
that a Christian needs not die in order to enjoy. English literature--I
use the word in its noble sense, to exclude all manner of preaching,
whether clerical or lay--is full of the dance; the sound of merry makers
footing it featly to the music runs like an undertone through all the
variations of its theme and fills all its pauses.
In the "Miller's Tale," Chaucer mentions dancing among the
accomplishments of the parish clerk, along with blood letting and the
drawing of legal documents:
A merry child he was so God me save,
Wel coud he leten blood and clippe and shave,
And make a chartre of land, and a quitance,
In twenty maners could he trip and dance,
After the scole of Oxenforde tho
And with his legges casten to and fro[A]
[Footnote A: On this passage Tyrwhit makes the following judicious
comment: The school of Oxford seems to have been in much the same
estimation for its dancing as that of Stratford for its French--alluding
of course to what is, said in the Prologue of the French spoken by the
Prioress:
And French she spoke full fayre and fetisly
After the scole of Stratford atte bowe
For French of Paris was to hire unknowe]
Milton, the greatest of the Puritans--intellectual ancestry of the
modern degenerate Prudes--had a wholesome love of the dance, and nowhere
is his pen so joyous as in its description in the well known passage
from "Comus" which, should it occur to my memory while delivering a
funeral oration, I am sure I could not forbear to quote, albeit this,
our present argument, is but little furthered by its context
Meanwhile welcome joy and feast
Midnight shout and revelry
Tipsy dance and jollity
Braid your locks with rosy twine
Dropping odors dropping wine
Rigor now is gone to bed
And advice with scrupulous head
Strict age and sour severity
With their grave saws in slumber lie
We that are of purer fire
Imitate the starry quire
Who in their nightly watching spheres
Lead in swift round the months and years
The sounds and seas with all their finny drove
And on the tawny sands and shelves
Trip the pert fairies and the dapper elves
If Milton was not himself a good dancer--and as to that point my memory
is unstored with instance or authority--it will at least be conceded
that he was an admirable reporter, with his heart in the business.
Somewhat to lessen the force of the objection that he puts the foregoing
lines into a not very respectable mouth, on a not altogether reputable
occasion, I append the following passage from the same poem, supposed to
be spoken by the good spirit who had brought a lady and her two brothers
through many perils, restoring them to their parents:
Noble lord and lady bright
I have brought ye new delight
Here behold so goodly grown
Three fair branches of your own
Heaven hath timely tried their youth
Their faith their patience and their truth
And sent them here through hard assays
With a crown of deathless praise
To triumph in victorious dance
O'er sensual folly and intemperance
The lines on dancing--lines which themselves dance--in "L'Allegro," are
too familiar, I dare not permit myself the enjoyment of quotation.
Lord Herbert of Cherbury, one of the most finished gentlemen of his
time, otherwise laments in his autobiography that he had never learned
to dance because that accomplishment "doth fashion the body, and gives
one a good presence and address in all companies since it disposeth the
limbs to a kind of _souplesse_ (as the French call it) and agility
insomuch as they seem to have the use of their legs, arms, and bodies
more than many others who, standing stiff and stark in their postures,
seem as if they were taken in their joints, or had not the perfect use
of their members." Altogether, a very grave objection to dancing in the
opinion of those who discountenance it, and I take great credit for
candor in presenting his lordship's indictment.
In the following pertinent passage from Lemontey I do not remember the
opinion he quotes from Locke, but his own is sufficiently to the point:
The dance is for young women what the chase is for young men: a
protecting school of wisdom--a preservative of the growing passions.
The celebrated Locke who made virtue the sole end of education,
expressly recommends teaching children to dance as early as they are
able to learn. Dancing carries within itself an eminently cooling
quality and all over the world the tempests of the heart await to
break forth the repose of the limbs.
In "The Traveller," Goldsmith says:
Alike all ages dames of ancient days
Have led their children through the mirthful maze
And the gay grandsire skilled in gestic lore
Has frisked beneath the burden of three score.
To the Prudes, in all soberness--Is it likely, considering the stubborn
conservatism of age, that these dames, well seasoned in the habit, will
leave it off directly, or the impenitent old grandsire abate one jot or
tittle of his friskiness in the near future? Is it a reasonable hope? Is
the outlook from the watch towers of Philistia an encouraging one?
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