ts of good
sense, in any rank of life, who will not perceive that their
daughter's manners cannot be formed or polished by a dancing-master.
We are not to consider dancing in a grave and moral light; it is an
amusement much more agreeable to young people, and much better suited
to them in every respect, than cards, or silent assemblies of formal
visiters. It promotes cheerfulness, and prevents, in some measure, the
habits of gossiping conversation, and the love of scandal. So far we
most willingly agree with its most vivacious advocates, in its common
eulogium. But this is not, we fear, saying enough. We see, or fancy
that we see, the sober matron lay down her carefully assorted cards
upon the card-table, and with dictatorial solemnity she pronounces,
"That dancing is something more than an amusement; that girls must
learn to dance, because they must appear well in public; because the
young ladies who dance the best, are usually most _taken notice_ of in
public; most admired by the other sex; most likely, in short, not only
to-have their choice of the best partner in a ball room, but sometimes
of the best partner for life."

With submission to maternal authority, these arguments do not seem to
be justified of late years. Girls, who dance remarkably well, are, it
is true, admired in a ball room, and followed, perhaps, by those idle,
thoughtless young men, who frequent public places merely for want of
something else to do. This race of beings are not particularly
calculated to make good husbands in any sense of the word; nor are
they usually disposed to think of marriage in any other light than as
the last desperate expedient to repair their injured fortunes. They
set their wits against the sex in general, and consider themselves as
in danger of being jockeyed into the matrimonial state. Some few,
perhaps, who have not brought their imagination sufficiently under the
command of the calculating faculty, are _caught_ by beauty and
accomplishments, and marry against the common rules of interest. These
men are considered with pity, or with ridicule, by their companions,
as dupes who have suffered themselves to be taken in: others are
warned by their fate; and the future probability of similar _errours_,
of course, must be diminished. The fashionable apathy, whether real or
affected, with which young men lounge in public places, with scarcely
the appearance of attention to the fair exhibitors before them,
sufficiently marks t