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The mirror of the graces; or, the English lady's costume: combining and harmonizing taste and judgment, elegance and grace, modesty, simplicity and economy, with fashion in dress; and adapting the various articles of female embellishments to different ages, forms, and complexions; to the seasons of the year, rank, and situation in life: with useful advice on female accomplishments, politeness, and manners; the cultivation of the mind and the disposition and carriage of the body: offering also the most efficacious means of preserving beauty, health, and loveliness. The whole according with the general principles of nature and rules of propriety
(1811)
On the management of the person in dancing, and in the exercise of other female accomplishments, pp. 174-202
Page 184
184 MIRROR OF THE GRACES. cheerfulness; hence the female, who engages in it, must aim at nothing more, in treading its easy mazes, than executing a few simple steps with unaffected elegance. Her body, her arms, the turn of her head, the expres. sion of her countenance, all must bear the same character of negligent grace, of elegant activity, of decorous gaiety. The Scotch reel has steps appropriated to itself, and in the dance can never be dis. placed for those of France, without an ab- surdity too ridiculous to even imagine with- out laughing. There are no dancers in the world more expressive of inward hilarity and happiness than the Scotch are, when perfor. ming in their own reels. The music is suffi- cient (so jocund are its sounds) to set a whole company on their feet in a moment, and to dance with all their might till it 'ceases, like people bit by the tarantula. Hence, as the character of reels is merriment, they must be performed with much more joyance of man- ner than even the country-dance ; and there- fore they are better adapted (as society is now constituted) to the social private circle thao
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