Charles Dickens.] "LE PREMIER PAS." Waltz, the comet, whiskers, and the new government [Lord Liverpool's], illuminated heaven and earth in all their glory much about the same time. Of these the comet only has disappeared; the other three continue to astonish us still." The Muse of Motion is questioned: How first to Albion found thy waltz her way? The reply is: Borne on the breath of hyperborean gales, [August 26, 1876.] 559 need for his officers to pay him the sympathetic compliment of abstinence from dancing. The preface to the poem affects to be written by a "country gentleman of a midland county," amazed at the waltzing of his wife, "a middle-aged maid of honour." The squire expresses himself with the frankness of Smollett, but with very inferior humour. But although Byron and Sheridan lent pens to the cause of prudery and their From Hamburg's port (while Hamburg yet had mock-modesty, and Tom Moore, loud in mails), To one and all the lovely stranger came, Scotch reels avaunt, and country dance forego his preference for the old English country Waltz, that rake from foreign lands, On virtuous English backs and shoulders there was no real reversal of the decree of fashion. The waltz went revolving on, drawing more and more recruits into its magic circle. And the waltzers retaliated, attacking in their turn their censors and critics, denouncing country dances and cotillons as worthy only of the kitchen. The young Duke of Devonshire, "the Then what seem to the poet the impro-Magnus Apollo of London drawing-rooms," prieties of the dance are dwelt upon, and the shades of the departed belles "whose reign began of yore with George the Third" are invited to speed back to the ball-room and be shocked at the "seductive waltz." The fashion hails from countesses to queens, And maids and valets waltz behind the scenes, Wide and more wide thy witching circle spreads, And turns, if nothing else, at least our heads. With thee even clumsy cits attempt to bounce, And cockneys practice what they can't pronounce. * Hoops are no more, and petticoats not much; Some may see a natural appropriateness in the appearance of "whiskers" (the 'moustache" was included in that term) simultaneously with the bearded comet of 1812. But it was not only our foreign visitors who were whiskered: our cavalry now exhibited decorations of that nature. Indeed, after an interval of more than a century the beard movement was recommencing in England. Hail, nimble nymph, to whom the young hussar, as Mr. Raikes describes him, was now at The 560 August 26, 1876.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. was much mourned in England, and especially at Almack's. Whenever an awkward dancer disported himself, exposing his incapacity in the ball-room, then a whisper. was wont to run round: "Quel dommage qu'il n'ait pas été mangé par les sauvages au lieu de ce pauvre M. Bourblanc ! " [Conducted by Tom is attired in pantaloons and pumps; Baron Tripp's end was also sad enough. He was a handsome Dutchman, with an indistinct pedigree; "an agreeable boaster," reports Mr. Raikes, "swearing like a hussar"-the world was much addicted to swearing in those days-speaking a curious patois, part German, part French-room. The original waltz commenced in English, and holding a commission in this way. A ball-room of the early times the Prince Regent's regiment, the Tenth of the Regency would look strange to Light Dragoons. The war over, and the modern eyes. Brummell had introduced waltz thoroughly established in England, the stiffly-starched neckcloth, and with Tripp returned to Brussels. A scandal, the Regent, had held earnest council conterminating in a duel, drove him thence cerning the pattern and form of clothes. to Florence. "He lived there," writes Coats might be any colour-the brightest Mr. Raikes, "with the gay society of green, the fruitiest plum, mulberry, or which Lord and Lady Burghersh's house sky-blue was even permissible and formed the centre. There were many burnished brass buttons were in general English in the place, among whom was a wear. Trousers did not appear in the Mrs. Fitzherbert, a pretty, young, married woman, very coquette, not much known in the London world. Tripp fell violently in love with her, and became her professed admirer; but, whether from jealousy, or from what cause, is not exactly known, he retired one afternoon to his lodgings, borrowed a pair of pistols from a friend, and shot himself through the head, leaving only a few lines on his writing-table to intimate that he was tired of life." In that old-fashioned work known as Tom and Jerry-once so highly esteemed for a vivacity that now, it must be confessed, seems to be of the deadly-lively order-there is an illustration (and the illustrations of the book are very admirable, they are by Cruikshank, and now give to it its only worth and vitality) representing Corinthian Tom enjoying a waltz with Corinthian Kate to the music of a piano played by Bob Logic, the Oxonian. He had requested as a favour that Kate and his friend Tom would perform the dance. 66 Kate," says the text, "without any hesitation immediately stood up. Tom offered his hand to his fascinating partner, and the dance took place. The plate conveys a correct representation of the gay scene at that precise moment. The anxiety of the Oxonian to witness the attitudes of the elegant pair had nearly put a stop to their movements. On turning round from the pianoforte and presenting his comical mug, Kate could scarcely suppress a laugh." evening until about 1816; the Regent was 1 Charles Dickens.] "LE PREMIER PAS." waltz, and to choose whether they would be prudes or profligates, for that was the favourite way of presenting the matter. After all, perhaps, the waltz was chiefly objected to because of its novelty. The country dances it displaced, and at last banished altogether from the ball-room, had possibly lost the old-fashioned romping air that had once distinguished them, and had brought upon them in their turn the reprobation of the serious; they may have acquired sobriety and steadiness by the time of the Regency of George Prince of Wales. But it is curious to note that at an earlier period they incurred reproaches similar to those levelled subsequently at the waltz. In 1711 a correspondent of the Spectator, in the guise of a substantial tradesman about 'Change, relating that his daughter, a girl of sixteen, had been for some time under the tuition of M. Rigadoon, a French dancer, complains of the abuses that had crept into the diversion called "country dancing." To one of these performances, called Hunt the Squirrel-in which, while the woman flies the man pursues her, but as soon as she turns he runs away and she is obliged to follow-he offers no objection; the moral of the dance aptly recommending modesty and discretion to the female sex; but presently he notes that the best institutions are liable to corruption. "I was amazed to see my girl handed by and handing young fellows with so much familiarity, and I could not have thought it had been in the child. They very often made use of a most impudent step called 'setting,' which I know not how to describe to you but by telling you that it is the very reverse of 'back to back.' At last an impudent young dog bid the fiddlers play a dance called Moll Pately,' and, after having made two or three capers, ran to his partner, locked his arms in hers, and whisked her round cleverly above ground in such a manner that I, who sat upon one of the lowest benches, saw further above her shoe than I can think fit to acquaint you with. I could no longer endure those enormities, wherefore, just as my girl was going to be made a whirligig, I ran in, seized on the child, and carried her home. Sir," continues the letter-writer, "I am not yet old enough to be a fool. I suppose this diversion might be at first invented to keep up a good understanding between young men and women, and so far I am not against it; but I shall never allow of these things. [August 26, 1876.] 561 I know not what you will say to this case at present, but am sure, had you been with me, that you had seen matter of great speculation.' The Spectator notes that his correspondent had apparently good reason to be a little out of humour, but concludes that he would have been much more so "had he seen one of those 'kissing dances,' in which Will Honeycomb assures me they are obliged to dwell almost a minute on the fair one's lips, or they will be too quick for the music, and dance quite out of tune." He is disposed to hold, however, that inasmuch as the country dance is the particular invention of our own country, and as everyone is more or less proficient in it, it should not be discountenanced. He prefers to suppose, indeed, that it may be practised as innocently by others as by himself when he leads out as his partner the eldest daughter of his landlady. Upon another occasion the Spectator avows himself a passionate admirer of good dancing. The end of art being the imitation of nature, he holds dancing to be an imitation of nature in her highest excellence, and when she is most agreeable. "The business of dancing," he says, "is to display beauty," and he denounces all "distortions and mimickries, and pretenders in dancing who think that merely to do what others cannot is to excel. The dancing on our stage is very faulty in this kind, and what they mean by writhing themselves into such postures, as it would be a pain for any of the spectators to stand in, and yet hope to please those spectators, is unintelligible." Loving to shelter himself under the examples of great men, he recites the arguments in favour of dancing set forth in one of Lucian's dialogues, and relates how the favourite diversión of the dance was first invented by the goddess Rhea, and preserved the life of Jove himself from the cruelty of his father Saturn. He mentions that Pyrrhus gained more reputation by his invention of the dance called after him than by all his other actions; that the Lacedæmonians, the bravest people in Greece, greatly encouraged dancing, and made their Hormus (a dance much resembling the French Brawl) famous all over Europe; and that Socrates, who was judged to be the wisest of men, was not only a professed admirer of the dancing of others, but himself took pains to acquire the art, even in his old age. Upon a subsequent occasion Steele (for 562 [August 26, 1876.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. (Conducted by notions of right and wrong, it must be exercised in a certain style and temper, whose moral limits are not easy to define. Conquest, after open defiance and challenge, is more easily pardoned than aggression without them. Thus, some nations have adopted a lion as their emblem, others a cock, others an eagle-all intended and felt to be complimentary symbols. No nation would ever confess that its type was the fox, the boa constrictor, or the amoeba. Nevertheless, qualities which a people will not themselves acknowledge, may be attributed to them by apprehensive neighbours. The amoeba, astrange microscopic animal, is a mass of living jelly, without any definite form or outline, which is capable of extension in all directions. Now and then it puts forth a sort of arm or branch by way of feeler, to ascertain if anything is to be had within its reach, and then draws it back again. Without limbs, it seizes the prey, which had no suspicion of previons danger; without a mouth, it swallows them. It surrounds, envelopes, and absorbs its victims, and in course of time digests and assimilates them. An amoeba, grown to the size of an elephant, would be a frightful addition to zoological gardens. he is the author of the papers upon dancing) commends the "art, skill, or accomplishment" anew to the favour of that wiser portion of mankind disposed to look upon it "as at best an indifferent thing, and generally a frivolous circumstance." "I knew a gentleman of great abilities," he writes, "who bewailed the want of this part of his education to the end of a very honourable life." Great talents, which may be but seldom in demand, are often rendered useless, he remarks, for the lack of small attainments for which there is frequent necessity. Booth, the actor, whose majesty of mien and grace of gesture he notes admiringly, might yet, he thinks, have attained to a greater elevation had he been a dancer. And he publishes a letter from one Philipater, a widower with one daughter-a romp and tomboy addicted to violent games in the streets, and the pastime of chuckfarthing with the boys who narrates the extraordinary benefit his child had received from an art that he had always held to be in itself ridiculous and contemptible. He describes her bearing in a ball-room. "My girl came in with the most becoming modesty I had ever seen, assuming presently a majesty which commanded the highest respect... There is no method like this, I am convinced, to give young women a sense of their own value and dignity; and I am sure there can be none so expeditious to communicate that value to others. For my part, my child has danced herself into my esteem." Steele, however, while convinced that dancing under proper regulations is a mechanic way of promoting a sense of good breeding and virtue, and maintaining that there is a strict affinity between all things that are truly laudable M. Henry Havard has done well to and beautiful, from the highest sentiment supplement his Dead Cities of the Zuiderof the soul to the most indifferent gestures zee with Les Frontières Menacées.* The of the body, yet finds occasion to rebuke title of the latter declares its ostensible "such impertinents as fly, hop, caper, object, which shall be shortly stated at tumble, twirl, turn about, and jump over once; for the merits of the book, which are the heads of others; and, in a word, play a very great, must be regarded here from a thousand pranks which many animals can literary rather than a political point of view. do better than a man, instead of perform-Certain savants, supposed tentacles of the ing to perfection what the human figure only is capable of performing." MENACED FRONTIERS. ALTHOUGH strength is the beau-ideal of national virtue-"vir" and "virtus" attest the antiquity of the sentiment-in order to be in accordance with popular Now there are people on the continent of Europe who believe that a colossal amœba exists in their midst. We have no intention here to discuss the actuality or the error of the supposition. In fact, we, in our sea-girt isle, can hardly realise the fears which haunt peace-loving folk, whose next-door neighbours may at any moment turn out aggressive or acquisitive. thing may be stated as certain that the apprehensions are strongly entertained. great amoeba, have asserted that certain outlying states naturally belong to, and ought to be incorporated into, Germany. A treatise of geography, now in its seventh edition, by an erudite professor of Halle, *La Hollande Pittoresque, Les Frontières Menacées, Voyage dans les Provinces de Frise, Groningue, Havard. Paris, E. Plon et Cie., 1876. Drenthe, Overyssel, Gueldre, et Limbourg : par Henry Charles Dickens.] MENACED FRONTIERS. Doctor Daniel, revised and re-edited by Doctor Kirchhoff, professor of geography in the same university, coolly annexes Holland, classing it under the head of "Deutschland; in good and numerous company too-Denmark, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and the Grand Duchy of Lichtenstein. The treatise also comprises the Netherlands, together with those same states, in another and still more explicit designation, as "Deutsche Aussenländer," exterior German lands. The author of the treatise gives his reasons. "The aforesaid states are considered as appendices of Germany: (a) because they are in great part situated within the natural limits of Germany; (b) because, with trifling exceptions, they have belonged to the ancient German Empire, and partly, up to 1866, to the German Confederation." Chance threw another savant in M. Havard's way, to whom he took the liberty of observing: "Such errors constitute a veritable danger. When thirty millions of men have been taught from their cradle that such things are true, it is difficult to convince them afterwards that they have been misinformed. You ought to make it a point of honour to rectify such dangerous absurdities." "I see neither error nor absurdity," the wise man replied. "Denmark, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the other states you mention, are the natural complement of the German Empire. Their manners, language, history, traditions-everything, unites them to ancient Germany." "I have no right to speak for the other states. I don't know the Grand Duchy of Lichtenstein. I have seen Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Denmark merely as a passing tourist. I have only accidentally resided in Belgium; but with Holland the case is different. I have spent five years on its hospitable soil, and I can certify, because I know it thoroughly, that "You know it badly and imperfectly. You have only seen the centre of the country-the sole fraction which does, in fact, possess a certain indigenous character. If you had visited the eastern provinces as carefully as those of the west; if you had lived, only for a few days, in the part which touches Hanover and Westphalia, you would have seen divergences softening down, and contrasted tints melting into each other. Moreover, we claim a community of origin as our warrant. And our savants do not write unadvisedly. [August 26, 1876.] 563 Men like Kirchhoff and Daniel are never mistaken." The result of these words was a journey to those frontier provinces, seriously commenced on the 22nd of June, 1875, with all needful introductions and recommendations; and, best of all, in company with a friend, the Baron de Constant Rebecque, a gentleman and an artist combined-the book has to thank him for its illustrationswell educated, energetic, robust, and gifted with the best antidote to fatigue, good temper. Of their ethnological conclusions, we shall only say that they were completely opposed to annexionist projects. While thoroughly exploring the little town of Delfzijl, they searched in vain, at that extreme point of Holland, for some slight trace of Germany's neighbourhood. Habitations, inhabitants, types, costumes, and language-all alike were thoroughly Dutch. The cleanliness which reigns in those rustic dwellings would alone be an irrefutable mark of their nationality, if other proofs were not there to confirm it. The same thing was found at Oudezijl, a hamlet contiguous to the fortress of Nieuwe Schans, forming a point penetrating into German territory. In the distance is seen the steeple of Bunde, the first Hanoverian town. But the two countries, which have only a narrow brook between them, are parted by a world-wide separation. They have neither the same manners nor the same usages. Formerly, their intercourse, without being active, was tolerably frequent. A few Germans crossed the frontier to work in Holland, but were not much liked. They were considered dirty, greedy, and careless. Nevertheless, they spoke Dutch, and that was something. The Hanoverian schools taught their pupils, and the pastors addressed their congregations, in Dutch. But all that has been changed since 1866; the country has been Germanised. Government officials, schoolmasters, pastors-all are sent from the interior. Everything is Prussian. Communication between opposite sides of the frontier is broken off. At most, a few mowers cross the brook in summer, and unless hands are scarce, they are coldly welcomed. Whereas, ten years ago, both sides of the frontier were virtually Dutch, in language as well as in religion. An unquestionable merit of M. Havard's work is its value as a description of, and a guide to, a little known district of a most interesting country. There may be indiscretion in stating that Holland is charming, |