The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 1. PoetryByron, George Gordon Byron, Baron
General
The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 1. Poetry
Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron
Poetry
A year later, H.C. Robinson, writing from Frankfort in 1800 ('Diary and
Letters', i. 76), says, "The dancing is unlike anything you ever saw.
You must have heard of it under the name of waltzing, that is rolling
and turning, though the rolling is not horizontal but perpendicular. Yet
Werther, after describing his first waltz with Charlotte, says, and I
say so too, 'I felt that if I were married my wife should waltz (or
roll) with no one but myself.'" Ten years later, Gillray publishes a
caricature of the waltz, as a French dance, which he styles, "Le bon
Genre." It is not a pretty picture. By degrees, however, and with some
reluctance, society yielded to the fascinations of the stranger.
"My cousin Hartington," writes Lady Caroline Lamb, in 1812 ('Memoirs
of Viscount Melbourne', by W.T. McCullagh Torrens, i. 105), "wanted to
have waltzes and quadrilles; and at Devonshire House it could not be
allowed, so we had them in the great drawing-room at Whitehall. All
the 'bon ton' assembled there continually. There was nothing so
fashionable."
"No event," says Thomas Raikes ('Personal Reminiscences', p. 284), ever
produced so great a sensation in English society as the introduction of
the German waltz.... Old and young returned to school, and the mornings
were now absorbed at home in practising the figures of a French
quadrille or whirling a chair round the room to learn the step and
measure of the German waltz. The anti-waltzing party took the alarm,
cried it down; mothers forbad it, and every ballroom became a scene of
feud and contention. The foreigners were not idle in forming their
'élèves'; Baron Tripp, Neumann, St. Aldegonde, etc., persevered in spite
of all prejudices which were marshalled against them. It was not,
however, till Byron's "malicious publication" had been issued and
forgotten that the new dance received full recognition. "When," Raikes
concludes, "the Emperor Alexander was seen waltzing round the room at
Almack's with his tight uniform and numerous decorations," or [Gronow,
'Recollections', 1860, pp. 32, 33] "Lord Palmerston might have been seen
describing an infinite number of circles with Madame de Lieven," insular
prejudices gave way, and waltzing became general.
THE WALTZ:
AN APOSTROPHIC HYMN.
BY HORACE HORNEM, ESQ.
"Qualis in Eurotæ ripis, aut per juga Cynthi,
Exercet DIANA choros."
VIRGIL, 'Æn'. i. 502.
"Such on Eurotas's banks, or Cynthus's height,
Diana seems: and so she charms the sight,
When in the dance the graceful goddess leads
The quire of nymphs, and overtops their heads."
DRYDEN'S _Virgil_.
NOTE.
The title-page of the first edition (4to.) of _The Waltz_ bears the
imprint:
London:
Printed by S. Gosnell,
Little Queen Street, Holborn.
For Sherwood, Neely and Jones,
Paternoster Row. 1813.
(Price Three Shillings.)
Successive Revises had run as follows:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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