It is depressing to realize how little most of us know of the dancing of our ancestors. I would give value to behold the execution of a coranto and inspect the steps of a cinque-pace, having assurance that the performances assuming these names were veritably identical with their memorable originals. We possess the means of verifying somewhat as to the nature of the minuet; but after what fashion did our revered grandfather do his rigadoon and his gavot? What manner of thing was that pirouet in the deft execution of which he felt an honest exultation? And what were the steps of his contra (or country) and Cossack dances? What tune was that —“The Devil amongst the Fiddlers”— for which he clamored, to inspire his feats of leg?

In our fathers’ time we read:

I wore my blue coat and brass buttons, very high in the neck, short in the waist and sleeves, nankeen trousers and white silk stockings, and a white waistcoat. I performed all the steps accurately and with great agility.

Which, it appears, gained the attention of the company. And it well might, for the year was 1830, and the mode of performing the cotillion of the period was undergoing the metamorphosis of which the perfect development has been familiar to ourselves. In its next stage the male celebrant is represented to us as “hopping about with a face expressive of intense solemnity, dancing as if a quadrille”— mark the newer word —“were not a thing to be laughed at, but a severe trial to the feelings.” There is a smack of ancient history about this, too; it lurks in the word “hopping.” In the perfected development of this dance as known to ourselves, no stress of caricature would describe the movement as a hopping. But our grandfather not only hopped, he did more. He sprang from the floor and quivered. In midair he crossed his feet twice and even three times, before alighting. And our budding grandmother beheld, and experienced flutterings of the bosom at his manly achievements. Some memory of these feats survived in the performances of the male ballet-dancers — a breed now happily extinct. A fine old lady — she lives, aged eighty-two — showed me once the exercise of “setting to your partner,” performed in her youth; and truly it was right marvelous. She literally bounced hither and thither, effecting a twisting in and out of the feet, a patting and a flickering of the toes incredibly intricate. For the celebration of these rites her partner would array himself in morocco pumps with cunningly contrived buckles of silver, silk stockings, salmon-colored silk breeches tied with abundance of riband, exuberant frills, or “chitterlings,” which puffed out at the neck and bosom not unlike the wattles of a he-turkey; and under his arms — as the fowl roasted might have carried its gizzard — our grandfather pressed the flattened simulacrum of a cocked hat. At this interval of time charity requires us to drop over the lady’s own costume a veil that, tried by our canons of propriety, it sadly needed. She was young and thoughtless, the good grandmother; she was conscious of the possession of charms and concealed them not.

To the setting of these costumes, manners and practices, there was imported from Germany a dance called Waltz, which as I conceive, was the first of our “round” dances. It was welcomed by most persons who could dance, and by some superior souls who could not. Among the latter, the late Lord Byron — whose participation in the dance was barred by an unhappy physical disability — addressed the new-comer in characteristic verse. Some of the lines in this ingenious nobleman’s apostrophe are not altogether intelligible, when applied to any dance that we know by the name of waltz. For example:

Pleased round the chalky floor, how well they trip,

One hand* reposing on the royal hip,

The other to the shoulder no less royal

Ascending with affection truly loyal.

* I.e. one of the lady’s hands.

These lines imply an attitude unknown to contemporary waltzers, but the description involves no poetic license. Our dear grandmothers (giddy, giddy girls!) did their waltz that way. Let me quote:

The lady takes the gentleman round the neck with one arm, resting against his shoulder. During the motion, the dancers are continually changing their relative situations: now the gentleman brings his arm about the lady’s neck, and the lady takes him round the waist.

At another point, the lady may “lean gently on his shoulder,” their arms (as it appears) “entwining.” This description is by an eyewitness, whose observation is taken, not at the rather debauched court of the Prince Regent, but at the simple republican assemblies of New York. The observer is the gentle Irving, writing in 1807.............