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