I must acknowledge that there is something in the harmonious and undulating movements of the minuet, particularly pleasing to my idea of female grace and dignity; and I remember seeing her Highness the Princess de P——, at the court of Naples, go through the minuet de la Cour with so eminent a degree of enchanting elegance, that there was not a person present who was not in raptures with her deportment.
The young Archduke, C——, of A——, was then a youth, and an incognito visitant with the Prince de V—— F——, and he was so charmed with the dancing of her highness, whose partner was the renowned General Marchese di M——, that, in his own heroic manner, he exclaimed to me, who then sat by his side,—“Ah! madam, that is more interesting than even the Pyrrhic dance! It reminds me of the beautiful movement of the sun and moon in the heavens!”
The minuet is now almost out of fashion, but we yet have its serious movements in many of the dances adopted from the French ballet; and in these every gradation of grace, and, if I may say it, sentiment in action, may be discovered. The rapid changes of the cotillon are admirably calculated for the display of elegant gaiety; and I hope that their animated evolvements will long continue a favorite accomplishment and amusement with our youthful fair.
Though much of graceful display is made in these dances, yet there are many rivals in the cotillon contending for the palm of superiority; and the contest, throughout, if maintained with the original elegant decorum of the design, may be continued with undeviating modesty and discretion.
But with regard to the lately introduced German waltz, I cannot speak so favorably; I must agree with Goethé, when writing of the national dance of his country, “that none but husbands and wives can with any propriety be partners in the waltz.”
There is something in the close approximation of persons, in the attitudes, and in the motion, which ill agrees with the delicacy of woman, should she be placed in such a situation with any other man than the most intimate connexion she can have in life. Indeed, I have often heard men, of no very over-strained feeling, say, “that there are very few women in the world with whom they could bear to dance the German waltz.”
The fandango, though graceful in its own country—because danced, from custom, with as reserved a mind as our maidens would make a courtsy,—is, nevertheless, when attempted here, too great a display of the person for any modest Englishwoman to venture. It is a solo! Imagine what must be the assurance of the young woman, who, unaccustomed by the habits of her country to such singular exhibitions of herself, could get up in a room full of company, and, with an unblushing face, go through all the evolutions, postures, and vaultings, of the Spanish fandango? Certainly, there are few discreet men in England who would say, “such a woman I should like for my wife!”
The castanets, which are used in this dance, by attracting extraordinary attention, afford another argument against its being adopted anywhere but on the stage. The tambourin, the cymbals, and all other noisy accompaniments, in the hands of a lady-dancer, are equally blameable; and though a woman may, by their means, exhibit her agility and person to advantage, she may depend on it, that while the artist only is admired, the woman will sink into contempt; and that, though she may possibly meet with lovers to throw a score of embroidered handkerchiefs at her feet, she will hardly encounter one of a thousand who will venture to trust himself to the offering her the bond of a single gold ring.
The bullero, another of our Spanish importations, is a dance of so questionable a description, that I cannot but proscribe it also. It may be performed with perfect modesty; but the sentiment of it depends so entirely on the disposition of the dancer, that Delicacy dare hardly venture to enrol herself in its lists, lest the partner chosen for her might be of a temper to turn its gaiety into licentiousness; to produce blushes of shame where she promised herself the glow of pleasure, and send her away from what ought to have been an innocent amusement, filled with the bitterness of insulted delicacy.
In short, in addressing my fair countrywomen on this subject, I would sum up my advice, in regard to the choice of dances, by warning them against the introduction of new-fangled fashions of this sort. Let them leave the languishing and meretricious attitudes of modern ballet-teachers to the dancing-girls of India, or to the Circassian slaves of Turkey, whose disgraceful business is to please a tyrant for whom they can feel no love.