RIDING PILLION.
Frequent allusions are made to a lady's pets, her lap-dog or her parrot; but very few people know the very wide range of choice she had in the selection of those pets. Needless to say there were monkeys, both Marmoset and other kinds; there were paroquets, paroquets of Guinea, cockatoos and macaws, scarlet nightingales from the West Indies, lorries or lurries, canaries, both ash and lemon colour, white and grey turtle doves from Barbary, white turtle doves, and the turtle doves from Moco, no bigger than a lark, spotted very fine. There were milk-white peacocks, white and pyed pheasants, bantams, and furbelow fowls from the East Indies, and top-knot hens from Hamburg. She would hardly want the 'Parcel of living Vipers, fresh taken, fat and good, are to be sold by the dozen,' nor would she care about the 'fine Tyger from the East Indies, who was brought over together with some fine geese from the same part of the world,' and some 'Amedawares.' In fact there were 'Jamrachs' then as now, and many of the bird shops were in St. Martin's Lane, near which locality they still abound. There is a curious advertisement in the Postman, January 12/15, 1706, which settles the date of bird-seed glasses. 'The so much approved and most convenient new fashion Crystal Bird Glasses, which effectually prevent the Littering of the Seeds into the Rooms.'
An innocent amusement, of which they were very fond, was dancing. And of dances there were a considerable quantity: country dances and jigs, of which there was an infinite variety, and minuets, rigadoons, and other more stately and stagey dances, as the 'Louvre and the French Brittagne.' These latter were elaborate, and absolutely inaugurated a fresh literature devoted to their cult. This seems to have been started by one Thoinet Arbeau, in a book published by him in 1588, and he may be called the originator of the ballet. Both Beauchamp and Feuillet wrote on this subject in French. Feuillet's book was translated and improved upon by Siris, in 1706. John Weaver wrote on this subject (in his 'Orchesography') about 1708, and John Essex (in the 'Treatise of Chorography') in 1710. The object was to teach the different steps and dances, by means of diagrams. Thus coupées, bourées, fleurets, bounds or tacs, contretemps, chasses, sissones, pirouettes, capers, entrechats, etc., all had their distinguishing marks.
The effect of learning by this method is whimsically given by Addison.[137] 'I was this morning awakened by a sudden shake of the house, and as soon as I had got a little out of my consternation I felt another, which was followed by two or three repetitions of the same convulsion. I got up as fast as possible, girt on my rapier, and snatched up my hat, when my landlady came up to me and told me "that the gentlewoman of the next house begged me to step thither, for that a lodger she had taken in was run mad, and she desired my advice," as indeed everybody in the whole lane does upon important occasions. I am not like some artists, saucy, because I can be beneficial, but went immediately. Our neighbour told us "she had the day before let her second floor to a very genteel youngish man, who told her he kept extraordinary good hours, and was generally home most part of the morning and evening at study; but that this morning he had for an hour together made this extravagant noise which we then heard." I went up stairs with my hand upon the hilt of my rapier, and approached this new lodger's door.
A BOURÉE AND A CONTRETEMPS.
'I looked in at the keyhole, and there I saw a well-made man look with great attention on a book, and on a sudden jump into the air so high, that his head almost touched the ceiling. He came down safe on his right foot, and again flew up, alighting on his left; then looked again at his book, and holding out his right leg, put it into such a quivering motion, that I thought he would have shaked it off. He then used the left after the same manner, when on a sudden, to my great surprise, he stooped himself incredibly low, and turned gently on his toes. After this circular motion, he continued bent in that humble posture for some time, looking on his book. After this, he recovered himself with a sudden spring, and flew round the room in all the violence and disorder imaginable, until he made a full pause for want of breath.
A SISSONE.