Amen. Nevertheless, many there are who would fain persuade English females that the reserve of modesty and delicacy for which they have hitherto been noted are not only disagreeable, ultramontane qualities, but at the bottom mere unamiable, hypocritical prudery and starchness.

a

The world has uniformly been more lenient towards its most insidious and dangerous foes. To attack disagreeable vices does not require much courage, neither is it the most needed species of correction; much rather is vigilance called for against those errors which stand well in men's opinions, and are of fair report, because they flatter the indolence and frailty of our nature. Among them we may very well place that mistaken indulgence which not only spares but cherishes what, if not positive and open offences, are their proximate causes. Even those who would shrink from the idea of defending or abetting unequivocal acts of profligacy, are nevertheless apt more or less to favour the corruption that too frequently leads to them, particularly if it veils itself under some alluring form connected with matters of taste and amusement. In dancing or singing, considered abstractedly, there is nothing whatever objectionable, any more than in walking or speaking; yet if they be so employed and who will dare to say they are not? as to prove incentives to looseness, it would require more than all the ingenuity and all the hardihood of the most brazen

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faced sophistry to exculpate them from the charge of being pernicious. In such cases it is quite idle to talk of refined art, as if that were in itself something so positively excellent as to excuse the actual mischief it occasions. The wound inflicted upon good morals is not the less serious because the weapon wherewith the blow is given is brightly polished and curiously adorned. This might seem too palpable a truth to need assertion, did we not constantly hear people talk as if the case were altogether different.

In my opinion the admirers of the ballet must have an odd standard of morality and propriety; that is, supposing they are not of that class who altogether reject both as mere prejudices. The same may be said of those who have so rapturously extolled the fandango of the Spaniards, which is thus described by the Count de Crantz, "Rien n'est plus gracieux ni plus indécent que une danse appelée fandango; elle consiste dans des gestes et de mouvemens extrêmement lascifs, qui inspirent de certaines idées. Malgré tout cela les femmes de qualité ne se font aucun scrupule de le danser dans les bals publics. C'est une danse inventée dans les serails; on l'a conservée des maures; et je défie l'homme le plus sage et le plus froid de n'en être pas ému." Unless it can be shown that systematically studied indelicacy the very ostentation of salaciousness perfectly compatible with mental purity, that it is unattended with any danger either to those who

is

practise or to those who witness it, the meretricious ballet and fandango ought to be altogether proscribed. It must be confessed that whatever may be the case in Spain, the scandalous pantomime style of dancing tolerated upon the stage has not yet been adopted in our ball rooms; perhaps, because rather too professional to accord with the scrupulous niceties of etiquette: yet women who can bring themselves to behold without loathing such unseemly and disgraceful spectacles, show plainly enough that they have no more real modesty and no other notions of propriety than what mere etiquette de salon imposes upon them.* The

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* Speaking of opera-house dancing, a recent writer observes: certainly displays a science and a facility of evolution, of which no one who has not seen it can form any conception; but when the dancers are females, it is not the best means which could be employed to inspire notions of delicacy in the minds of those ladies who are among the spectators. How they can not only witness it, but talk of it in terms of unqualified admiration to their acquaintances of the other sex, must appear passing strange to those who have not mixed in the society of the metropolis. In the provincial towns the favourite style of female dancing at the Italian opera would not be tolerated for a moment. Every lady would regard it as a personal insult to be asked to witness such an exhibition. In America, again, where respect for the female sex is carried to a much greater extent than in Great Britain, or perhaps in any other country, the female dancer-even were she Taglioni herself— who should assume the positions, and perform the evolutions which are applauded to the echo on the boards of the King's Theatre, would have ample cause for gratitude if she escaped being torn in pieces! Grant Thornburn, the great original of Galt's Lawrie Todd,' went to the Italian opera one night, when in England two years

6

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licence which what is called good society allow themselves in this and some other matters is singularly at variance with that excessive chasteness of the ears which causes them to be shocked at many expressions quite innocent in themselves, or which, if not particularly refined, are far less offensive to virtue than the practice of applying softening and apologetic terms to vices. Apropos to this, I will give an anecdote which

ago, and he, with an honest indignation which deserves all praise, says that nothing could be more shocking to one's feelings of decency than to see the positions into which the female dancers put themselves. Sooner,' he adds, than consent to make such an exhibition of themselves, the American women would endure death in any of its forms!'"-The Great Metropolis, vol. i. p. 37.

Were it not an incontrovertible and well known fact, it would appear incredible that such monstrous displays should be openly tolerated in any country professing Christianity, or even calling itself civilised; displays which are the quintessence of coarse undisguised sensuality, fit only for Capræan revels, or adapted to the taste of Sir Epicure Mammons. As if to render such abominations all the more astonishing, they are not only endured but rapturously applauded, by a public who affect the most ridiculous ultra delicacy in regard to certain words and expressions which, so far from being at all objectionable or immoral, are employed in the Bible. It is true they are old-fashioned enough, and not particularly flattering to ears polite; for they honestly stigmatise vice without attempting in any degree to palliate its enormity. Such, however, is the inconsistency of modern refinement, that people of fashion make far ess scruple of actually committing adultery and fornication than of uttering the words, the former being perfectly compatible with their code of morals, whereas the latter would shock the punctilio of good breeding; and of course good breeding has a right to take precedence of both morality and religion.

may perhaps make the reader some amends for the lecture I have inflicted upon him. A plain country gentleman, who was altogether unacquainted with the vocabulary of the fashionable world, happened to be in company where some affair of flirtation was a good deal canvassed. After listening some time he addressed himself to his neighbour with, "And pray, Sir, what may this same flirtation mean? As far as I can make out, flirtation is only some fine, new-fangled word for what we old-fashioned folks used to call fornication; but I suppose we must do so no longer."

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