So good a man as Adam Clarke is not to be suspected of acting like an Advocate here, and adducing arguments which he knew to be fallacious, in support of a cause not tenable by fair reasoning. And how so wise a man could have reasoned so weakly, is explained by a passage in his most interesting and most valuable autobiography. “_Malâ ave_, when about twelve or thirteen years of age, I learned to _dance_. I long resisted all solicitations to this employment, but at last I suffered myself to be overcome; and learnt, and profited beyond most of my fellows. I grew passionately fond of it, would scarcely walk but in _measured time_, and was continually _tripping_, moving and _shuffling_, in all times and places. I began now to value myself, which, as far as I can recollect, I had never thought of before; I grew impatient of control, was fond of company, wished to mingle more than I had ever done with young people; I got also a passion for _better clothing_, than that which fell to my lot in life, was discontented when I found a neighbour's son _dressed better_ than myself. I lost the spirit of _subordination_, and did not _love work_, imbibed a spirit of _idleness_, and in short, drunk in all the brain-sickening effluvia of _pleasure_; dancing and company took the place of _reading_ and _study_; and the authority of my parents was feared indeed, but not respected; and few serious impressions could prevail in a mind imbued now with frivolity, and the love of pleasure; yet I entered into no disreputable assembly, and in no one case, ever kept any improper company; I formed no illegal connection, nor associated with any whose characters were either tarnished or suspicious. Nevertheless _dancing_ was to me a _perverting influence_, an _unmixed moral evil_; for although by the mercy of God, it led me not to depravity of manners, it greatly weakened the _moral principle_, drowned the voice of a well instructed conscience, and was the first cause of impelling me _to seek my happiness in this life_. Every thing yielded to the disposition it had produced, and every thing was absorbed by it. I have it justly in abhorrence for the moral injury it did me; and I can testify, (as far as my own observations have extended, and they have had a pretty wide range,) I have known it to produce the same evil in others that it produced in me. I consider it therefore as a branch of that _worldly education_, which leads from heaven to earth, from things spiritual to things sensual, and from God to Satan. Let them plead for it who will; I know it to be _evil_, and that _only_. They who bring up their children in this way, or send them to these schools where _dancing_ is taught, are consecrating them to the service of Moloch, and cultivating the passions, so as to cause them to bring forth the weeds of a fallen nature, with an additional rankness, deep rooted inveteracy, and inexhaustible fertility. _Nemo