For an iron education in cold virtue there is no school like the position of sitting master to the wall flowers at a church sociable, but it is humbly conjectured that even the austere morality of a bald headed Prude might receive an added iciness if he would but attend one of these simple dancing bouts disguised as a sweet young girl. IX COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENSE Nearly all the great writers of antiquity and of the medieval period who have mentioned dancing at all have done so in terms of unmistakable favor; of modern famous authors, they only have condemned it from whose work, or from what is known of their personal character, we may justly infer an equal aversion to pretty much everything in the way of pleasure that a Christian needs not die in order to enjoy. English literature--I use the word in its noble sense, to exclude all manner of preaching, whether clerical or lay--is full of the dance; the sound of merry makers footing it featly to the music runs like an undertone through all the variations of its theme and fills all its pauses. In the "Miller's Tale," Chaucer mentions dancing among the accomplishments of the parish clerk, along with blood letting and the drawing of legal documents: A merry child he was so God me save, Wel coud he leten blood and clippe and shave, And make a chartre of land, and a quitance, In twenty maners could he trip and dance, After the scole of Oxenforde tho And with his legges casten to and fro[A] [Footnote A: On this passage Tyrwhit makes the following judicious comment: The school of Oxford seems to have been in much the same estimation for its dancing as that of Stratford for its French--alluding of course to what is, said in the Prologue of the French spoken by the Prioress: And French she spoke full fayre and fetisly After the scole of Stratford atte bowe For French of Paris was to hire unknowe] Milton, the greatest of the Puritans--intellectual ancestry of the modern degenerate Prudes--had a wholesome love of the dance, and nowhere is his pen so joyous as in its description in the well known passage from "Comus" which, should it occur to my memory while delivering a funeral oration, I am sure I could not forbear to quote, albeit this, our present argument, is but little furthered by its context Meanwhile welcome joy and feast Midnight shout and revelry Tipsy dance and jollity Braid your locks with rosy twine Dropping odors dropping wine Rigor now is gone to bed And advice with scrupulous head Strict age and sour severity With their grave saws in slumber lie We that are of purer fire Imitate the starry quire Who in their nightly watching spheres Lead in swift round the months and years The sounds and seas with all their finny drove And on the tawny sands and shelves Trip the pert fairies and the dapper elves