midst of my resolutions, my feet have unconsciously carried me to it again.* Years have since rolled away, and I can now think of Fanny without- —. Forgive me, Mr. Editor, but a tear has fallen upon the very spot where I was about to make a boast of my stoicism. I may, however, without emotion declare, that of all the girls I ever knew, Fanny- Psha! another tear! I will not write a word more upon the subject. 2. " LE CAVALIER SEUL." [New Monthly Magazine-April, 1821.] One of the most pitiable objects in civilized life is a bashful man; mortification is ever at his right hand, and ridicule tracks his steps. A woman, however overcome by timidity, looks neither silly nor awkward; her fears and tremblings excite interest. her blushes admiration. Oh! that I had been born of that privileged sex, or that Nature, when she gave me a beard, had given me a proper stock of ease and assurance, by which Í might support its dignity! I am fond of society; I love conversation; I enjoy dancing; but wherever I go, my confounded sheepishness goes with me, keeps me in a constant nervous flurry, and turns my very pleasures into pains. The height of a bashful man's ambition, when he enters a room full of company, is to hurry over his salutations as quickly as possible, to creep into some obscure corner, and to stay there, very quietly, as long as he is permitted. How I have hated the officious kindness, which makes tiresome old ladies, and pert young ones, notice me in my retirement, and fix the eyes of every soul in the room upon me, by fearing I am very dull, and asking if I have been to the Play lately, or seen the new Panorama. I believe they call this "drawing me out," and, I dare say, think I ought to be obliged to them for their notice. I wish I could teach them that notice is the very thing I most earnestly desire to avoid. One unavoidable consequence of my dislike to putting myself forward is, that I am accused of being very rude and bearish in my manners. I am never sufficiently alert in handing old ladies down to dinner, or asking their daughters to drink wine. I never ring a bell, snuff a candle, or carve a chicken, till the office is forced upon me, and all the merit of the performance destroyed by my previous incivility. Then, I have a tormenting habit of * "Juravi quoties rediturum ad limina nunquam ? fancying myself the object of general notice, "the observed of all observers." If a girl giggles, she is laughing at me; if another whispers, she is animadverting upon my words, dress, or behaviour; and when two grave old ladies are discussing family matters, or a few steady old men shaking their heads over the state of the nation, I often imagine that my faults and follies are the occasion of so many serious looks, so many uplifted eyes and hands. Boileau has said that "Jamais, quoiqu'il fasse, un Mortel ici-bas Ne peut aux yeux du monde être ce qu'il n'est pas." But Boileau is wrong; for I know I am supposed proud by some, cross by others, and silly by all; and yet I think I may with truth affirm, that each of these charges is false. I learned dancing in early youth; and, while country-dances were in fashion, I could join in them with considerable comfort. Long habit had accustomed me to the performance; many persons were moving at the same time, and no extraordinary grace or dexterity was requisite in the dancers. But alas! peace came, and with it my worst enemies-quadrilles. "Maledetto sia il giorno, e l'ora, e'l momento." Gradually they encroached upon their less elegant predecessors, and at length gained complete and exclusive possession of the ball-room. Countrydances were banished to the kitchen, and I deprived of my favorite amusement. Some of my friends endeavoured to persuade me to put myself under the tuition of a dancing-master, but really this was too much to expect of a shy man. What! skip about a room in broad day-light, turn out my toes, and arrange my elbows at command? My cheeks are even now tingling at the notion. Last Christmas I was staying at the house of an uncle in the country; my cousins danced quadrilles every evening, and at length they partly forced, partly persuaded me to stand up with them, assuring me that it was only necessary to use my old steps and mind the figures. My cousin Ellen, too, one of the loveliest and liveliest of her sex, engaged to be my partner and instructress; and added, in her easy, sprightly manner, that she hoped we should dance together in the spring, as we used to do some years ago. This temptation, this bribe, was irresistible; I sufferred her to lead me to the set, and I made my debut in quadrille-dancing. My performance, of course, met with the most encouraging praise. I was urged to persevere in my new accomplishment; and ere I came to town, I gave Ellen a parting promise that I would dance at the first ball, to which I should be invited. I did more than keep my word-I have danced at several; and I do verily believe that habit, all-powerful habit, might in time enable me to derive more pleasure than pain from my performance, were it not for one odious and awful figure, invented, I suppose, for the peculiar misery of modest men. In this cruel quadrille, I am positively required to dance, (horresco referens,) during eight entire bars, alone-yes, quite alone; it appears scarcely credible, but so it really is. I am expected to figure away by myself, while no other creature is moving. The other actors and actresses in the quadrille have nothing to do but to stare and to quiz; and three of them are ranged in a line opposite to me, in order to look as formidable as possible. Why, the strongest nerves might tremble, the wisest man look silly, the most elegant appear awkward, in such a situation; and Iwhat I suffer is far beyond description; and I am often tempted to exclaim, in the words of one who seems to have suffered occasionally from my wretched complaint, "Thinks I to myself, I wish I was dead and buried." Let no one suppose that I am inclined to jest upon my sufferings. Alas! they are much too serious a subject; and I hope I have never made myself an enemy whose rancour must not sub side into pity, when he beholds me preparing to submit to that tremendous sentence, "Le Cavalier seul, en avant deux fois." Move I must; to stand still would be so ridiculous; but my feet seem tied together-every action is tremulous and indecisivemy ear no longer catches the tune-my eyes refuse to quit the ground-my cheeks redden into flames-and, after the dreadful task is over, I fancy I read derision in every countenance, and endeavour, in vain, to hide myself from the finger of scorn. Once, in despair, I wrote to my cousin Ellen, stated my distress, and asked her advice. With her usual kindness, she sent me an immediate answer, and directed me, when next I danced my solo, to turn round several times. At first I found this an excellent plan; I had some definite mode of action, and I thought that the whirling motion had a sort of numbing effect, which deadened the acuteness of my feelings. But alas! I am afraid. I exceeded Ellen's instructions, and turned too often, for I certainly used to feel very giddy; and one evening I heard a lady. whisper the word "tetotum" to my partner, which put a speedy and complete termination to my rotatory movements. I have never danced a quadrille since. Ellen is come to town, but is the partner of bolder and happier men; and I can hope for no change in these vexatious circumstances, unless some little compassion is shown towards bashful dancers, and "Le Cavalier seul" is allowed a companion. Surely, this would not be a very unreasonable sacrifice to the weakness and distress of others, and it seems a most unjust regulation to prevent a man's dancing at all, because he cannot make up his mind to dance a hornpipe. From the observations I have made, I am convinced that nine men out of ten would rejoice at the demise of that unnatural character "Le Cavalier seul"-And unnatural he is. Men were never intended either to live or to dance alone; and when they persevere in opposing their proper destiny, they generally become absurd or unhappy. Yet some anomalies there are in a ball-room, as in life, and instances are to be found of bachelors and of cavaliers-seuls, who appear to take pleasure in their solitude. I have seen dancers, who would regret to share their glory with another pair of feet, and who are all animation and delight at that identical period, and in those very circumstances which to me are so appalling. Heavens! how they will skip and fly about, as if anxious to crowd as many capers as possible into the eight masculine bars. What bounding, what pirouetting, while the body is slightly bent, the arms are a little extended, the face flushed with exercise, the eyes flashing triumph! But I do not envy these performers their glory; a lurking contempt mingles with the admiration they excite, and I have often heard Ellen quote and approve the words of some wise man, who once said, "To dance too exquisitely is so laborious a vanity, that a man ought to be ashamed to let the world see, by his dexterity in it, that he has spent so much time in learning such a trifle." These few wonderful persons excepted, however, I am quite convinced that the rest of my sex will rejoice in the permission to assume no more their solitary character. Many, who move gracefully and easily at other times, are but awkward cavaliers-seuls; notwithstanding an air of indifference, which they attempt to put on, a lurking constraint proves them to be uncomfortable, and various are the methods to which they have recourse, in order to pass through the dancing ordeal with tolerable credit. Some perform numerous finikin steps on the same spot, while their arms have a kind of tremulous jerking motion; others move with straggling strides over the whole extent of their domain, and seem to say, 66 you see we are not frightened," but they cannot deceive me, well read as I am in the symptoms of my own disorder. Many have recourse to the tetotum system; some appear quite undecided, and entirely at the mercy of chance; and a few miserable creatures positively stand still, cast a few puzzled glances around them, as if in ignorance what ought to be done, then appear to awake from their fit of absence, put on a faint and forced smile, and hurry forward to take their place in the sociable tour de quatre. Upon all these, and upon me, above them all, the publication of this will confer a considerable favour, as it may, perchance, awaken the compassionate part of the dancing public to a sense of the misery VOL. III. 22 inflicted upon a few, the discomfort upon many, and the awk wardness upon nearly all, by that odious figure-"Le Cavalier seul." Upon the tender feelings and kind sympathies of the ladies, I throw myself and my companions in misery; surely they will not be inexorable to the petition of those, who thus humbly acknowledge their power and intreat their society, who have a mortal antipathy to being single, even for three minutes, and who feel the want of the grace of woman's presence, the comfort of woman's support, even through eight bars of a quadrille. A BASHFUL MAN. ART. IV. THE POETRY OF THE TROUBadours. [New Monthly Magazine-March, 1821.] -Chivalrie, Trouth and honour, fredom and curtesie.-Chaucer. THERE are certain ages, in the history of the world, on which the heart dwells with strong interest and affection: but there are none which excite our curiosity, our admiration, and our love, more intensely than the days of chivalry. At that period, the world was enchanted, and history was a romance. The heart of man was bolder, and his arm firmer, than in these days of dull reality, while the spirit of adventurous knighthood was softened with heroic gentleness, and gallant love. The beauty of woman then was a boast and a treasure, and the "mortal mixture of earth's mould" was worshipped as a starry divinity. But "the last crowning rose of all the wreath" was the universal spirit of poetical feeling, which was awakened in the heart of the nations, and which, in its mighty consequences, tended most powerfully to refine away the ignorance and barbarity, which had been the accumulation of centuries. The fountains of purer and gentler feelings were opened, and the impetuosity of their first gushing carried away the corruptions, which had confined them in their source. The effect of this spirit, on the happiness and manners of after-times, was prodigious. It spread refinement and civilization through the world, and, by awakening the soul to a sense of its own powers, it gave the first impulse to that progress of the intellect, which ensures, in its mighty advances, the liberty and the welfare of man. But while such beneficial effects have resulted from this early dawn, and outbreak of mental power, it was necessarily accompanied by many counterbalancing circumstances. The human mind had suffered a great convulsion, and the disordered |