As antiquaries, we have a reverence for dancing. Noah danced before the ark. The boar's head and the wine and wassail were crowned with a dance to the tune of 'The Black Almayne,' 'My Lorde Marques Galyarde,' and 'The firste Traces of due Passa.'
'Merrily danc'd the Quaker's wife,
And merrily danc'd the Quaker!'
Why not? Orpheus charmed the four-footed family with his fiddle: shall it have less effect on the two?
“The innocent and the happy, while the dews of youth are upon them, dance to the music of their own hearts. 'See the blind beggar dance, the cripple sing!' The Irishman has his lilt; the Scotchman his reel, which he not unfrequently dances to his own particular fiddle! and the Englishman his country-dance.
[Original]
With dogs and bears, horses and geese, * game-cocks and monkeys exhibiting their caprioles, shall man be motionless and mute?
* There is an odd print of “Vestris teaching a goose to
dance.” The terms, for so fashionable a professor as he was
in his day, are extremely moderate; “Six guineas entrance,
and one guinea a lesson.” The following song is inscribed
underneath.
“Of all the fine accomplishments sure dancing far the best
is,
But if a doubt with you remains, behold the Goose and
Vestris;.
And a dancing we will go, will go, &c.
Let men of learning plead and preach; their toil 'tis all in
vain,
Sure, labour of the heels and hands is better than the
brain:
And a dancing, &c.
Then talk no more, ye men of arts, 'bout keeping light and
shade,
Good understanding in the heels is better than the head:
And a dancing, &c.
Great Whigs, and eke great Tories too, both in and out will
dance,
Join hands, change sides, and figure in, now sink, and now
advance.
And a dancing, &c.
Let Oxford boast of ancient lore, and Cam of classic rules,
Noverre might lay you ten to one his heels against your
schools!
And a dancing, &c.
Old Homer sung of gods and kings in most heroic strains,
Yet scarce could get, we have been told, a dinner for his
pains.
And a dancing, &c.
Poor Milton wrote the most sublime, 'gainst Satan, Death, and
Vice,
But very few would quit a dance to purchase Paradise.
And a dancing, &c.
The soldier risks health, life, and limbs, his fortune to
advance,
While Pique and Vestris fortunes make by one night's single
dance.
And a dancing, &c.
'Tis all in vain to sigh and grieve, or idly spend our
breath,
Some millions now, and those unborn, must join the dance of
death.
And a dancing, &c.
Yet while we live let's merry be, and make of care a jest,
Since we are taught what is, is right; and what is right is
best!
And a dancing, &c.