"Vixi puellis nuper idoneus."
The word puellis is altered to choreis, which nevertheless, as a mark of absurdity, ought to be supposed to contain the puellis; for to say,
"I lately lived for dances fit,"
surely implies that the sayer had some one to dance with; or is there any dancing sect of men in France so devoted to celibacy that they will only dance with each other? We are certainly improved in this country, where it should seem that once a not unsimilar practice was compulsory upon the benchers, as will be seen from the following quotation from The Revels at Lincoln's Inn:—
"The exercise of dancing was thought necessary, and much conducing to the making of gentlemen, more fit for their books at other times; for by an order (ex Registro Hosp. sine. vol. 71, 438 C) made 6th February, 7 Jac., it appears that the under barristers were, by decimation, put out of Commons for example sake, because the whole bar offended by not dancing on Candlemas-day preceding, according to the ancient order of this Society, when the judges were present; with this, that if the like fault was committed afterwards, they should be fined or disbarred."—(D, Revels at Lincoln's Inn, p. 15.) Eusebius, you would go on a pilgrimage, with unboiled peas, to Pump Court or more favourable locality, for these little "brief authorities."
"To see how like are courts of law to fairs,
The dancing barristers to dancing bears;
Both suck their paws indulgent to their griefs,
These lacking provender, those lacking briefs."
Shame to him who does not agree with our own delightful Robert Burns, of glorious memory, who "dearly lo'ed the lasses O!" So only "Let the merry dance go round."
And now, as the dancers are off the stage, and it is the more proper time for gravity and decorum, I feel that irresistible desire to be as wicked as possible—a desire which I have heard you say tormented you in your childhood; for, whenever you were admonished to be remarkably good, you were invariably remarkably bad. So I yield to the temptation, and voluntarily, and with "malice prepense" throw myself into the wickedness of translating (somewhat modernizing I own) the "Tabooed" ode, in defiance of, and purposely to offend, the Parisian, or other editor or editors, who shall ever show themselves such incomparable ninnies as to omit that or any other ode of Horace. Accept the following.
"Vixi puellis nuper idoneus."
Carmen, 26, lib. iii.
For maiden's love I once was fit,
But now those fields of warfare quit,
With all my boast, content to sit
In easy-chair;
And here lay by (a lover's lances)
All poems, novels, and romances.
Ah! well a-day! such idle fancies
I well might spare.
There—on that shelf, behind the door,—
By all those works of Hannah More
And Bishop Porteus—Let a score
Of lectures guard them;
Take Bulwer, Moore, and Sand, and Sue,
The Mysteries, and the Wandering Jew;
May he who gives to all their due,
The Deil, reward them.
And Venus, if thou hast, as whilom,
For parted lovers an asylum,
To punish or to reconcile 'em,
Take Chloe to it;
And lift, if thou hast heart of flint,
Thy lash, and her fair skin imprint—
But ah! forbear—or, take the hint,
And let me do it.