Mr. William M’Connell, however, the young gentleman who is my artistic fides achates in this horological undertaking, is, I am given to understand, a complete master of this desirable accomplishment, and a finished adept in its various mysteries. In this case, therefore, the leader has become the led, and I am grateful to him for his service as cicerone in introducing me to the domains of Terpsichore.
Assume, O reader and spectator—to violate no academical privacy—that we are in the salle de danse conducted for so many years, and with so much success, by Mrs. Hercules Fanteague, late of the Royal Operas. Throughout each day, from morn till dewy eve, does Mrs. Fanteague—a little woman, who, at no remote period of time, has been pretty—assisted by her husband, Mr. Hercules Fanteague, a diminutive gentleman, with tight pantaloons and a “kit,” and a numerous family of sons and daughters, who all appear to have been born dancing-masters and mistresses, give private instruction to ladies and gentlemen, who are as yet novices in the art, or who are too shame-faced to venture upon the ordeal of public instruction. But, at nine o’clock in the evening, commences the public academy—the “hop,” as some persons, innocent of the bump of veneration, call it. There, in the tastefully yet cheaply decorated saloon, with its boarded floor and flying cupids and sylphides on the panels—there, where the gas shines, and the enlivening strains of a band, composed of a harp, piano, and violin, are heard—there, in a remote section of the apartment—the pons asinorum of the dancing-school—the adult gentlemen, who are as yet in the accidence or rudiments of dancing, are instructed in the mysteries of the “positions” and preliminary steps by Mrs. Hercules Fanteague. The dancing-mistress is obliged to be very firm and decided, not to say severe, with her awkward pupils; for some are inclined to blush, and some to laugh and whisper disparaging jokes to one another, and some to tie their legs into knots and imitate the action of the old shutter telegraphs with their arms, and some to sink into a state of stony immobility and semi-unconsciousness, from which they can only be rescued by sharp words and pushes. When these hopeful ones are sufficiently advanced in the elements, they are handed over to lady partners, who, to the sound of the aforesaid harp, piano, and violin, twirl them about the room till they are pronounced fit to figure in the soirées of society, and in the Arabian Night-like scenes of Cremorne and Highbury Barn.
NINE O’CLOCK P.M.: A DANCING ACADEMY.
I once heard a man of the world tell a lady, in gay reproach, that there were three things impossible of accomplishment to her sex. “Women can’t throw,” he said, “they can’t jump, and they can’t slide.” The lady stoutly denied the third postulate, and adduced in proof her own sliding performances in winter time in the day-room at boarding school. The first assertion she settled by throwing the peeling of an apple at him, which fell deftly over his left shoulder, and formed on the carpet, I am told, the initials of her Christian name. However this may be with other ladies—for she was fair, and good, and wise, as “Sydney’s sister, Pembroke’s mother,” though Time has not thrown a dart at her yet, I know there is one thing a man cannot do. He cannot dance. He may take lessons of Mrs. Hercules Fanteague till his hair grows out of his hat, and his nails grow out of his pumps; he may dance the Crystal Platform at Cremorne to sawdust, but he will never succeed in making himself more than a capering elephant, or an ambling hippopotamus, with the facial expression of an undertaker’s man on duty for the funeral of a very rich “party,” where extra woe is laid on by Mr. Tressels, regardless of expense.
Of course I except professional dancers, and I bow reverentially before the bust of Vestris, “Diou de la Danse” and of the late Mr. Baron Nathan. I do not remember the first. He died years before I was born, yet I see him in my mind’s eye on the stage of the Grand Opera in Paris, swelling with peacock-pride and conscious merit—in dancing—in full court-dress, his sword by his side, his laced and plumed chapeau bras beneath his arm, his diamond solitaire in his laced shirt-frill, leading his son to the footlights, on the night of the first appearance of the youth, and saying, “Allez, my son, the Muses will protect you, and your father beholds you.” Was it this son, or a grandson I—tell me “Notes and Queries”—that was the Armand Vestris, whom our Eliza Bartolozzi (the famous Madame Vestris) married, and who was hurried at that dreadful hole at Naples? I see the Diou de la Danse on a subsequent occasion at rehearsal, when the same son, being committed to the prison as Fort l’Evêque by the lieutenant of police (the whole operatic troupe, led by Mademoiselle Guimard, were in a state of chronic revolt) dismissed him with these magnanimous words: “Allez, my beloved one. This is the proudest day of your life. Demand the apartments of my friend the King of Poland. Take my carriage. Your father pays for all!” But the poor baron, with his corkscrew ringlets, turn-down collar, and limber legs, I can and do remember. I have seen him dance that undying pas, blindfold, among the eggs and tea-things, in the Gothic Hall at Rosherville. But five Sundays since I was at Gravesend, and over my shilling tea in the Gothic Hall, I sighed when I thought of Baron Nathan and of happier days. “Where art thou, my Belinda? There is no one to pull off my shrimp-heads now.”
Lo, as I pen these reminiscences of nine o’clock in the evening—pen them in the “quiet street,” where I am again for a season—though my boat is on the shore, and my bark is on the sea, and ere you hear from me again there will be a considerable variation of clocks between London and Jericho—a fife and tabour announce the advent of a little dancing boy and girl, with a careworn mother, in the street below. I look from my window, and see the little painted people capering in their spangles and fleshings and short calico drawers. It is against conviction, and against my own written words, and against political economy, and ex-Lord Mayor Carden; but I think on Mr. Carrick’s picture of “Weary Life,” and must needs take some pence from the clock-case, and throw them out to these tiny mummers. Life is so hard, my brother!