"There's Another
Exercise To Be Learned In France, Because There Are Better Teachers, And
The French Fashion Is In Most Request With Us, That Is, Of Dancing.
This
I meane to my Traveller that is young and meanes to follow the Court:
otherwise I hold it
Needelesse, and in some ridiculous."[227] This art
was indeed essential to courtiers, and a matter of great earnestness.
Chamberlain reports that Sir Henry Bowyer died of the violent exercise
he underwent while practising dancing.[228] Henri III. fell into a
tearful passion and called the Grand Prieur a liar, a poltroon, and a
villain, at a ball, because the Grand Prieur was heard to mutter "Unless
you dance better, I would you had your money again that your dancing has
cost you." [229] James I. was particularly anxious to have his "Babies"
excel in complicated boundings. His copy of Nuove Inventioni di
Balli[230] may be seen in the British Museum, with large plates
illustrating how to "gettare la gamba," that is, in the words of
Chaucer, "with his legges casten to and fro."[231] Prince Henry was
skilful in these matters. The Spanish Ambassador reports how "The Prince
of Wales was desired by his royal parents to open the ball with a
Spanish gallarda: he acquitted himself with much grace and delicacy,
introducing some occasional leaps."[232] Prince Charles and Buckingham,
during their stay in Spain, are earnestly implored by their "deare Dad
and Gossip" not to forget their dancing. "I praye you, my babie, take
heade of being hurt if ye runne at tilte, ... I praye you in the
meantyme keep your selfis in use of dawncing privatlie, thogh ye showlde
quhissell and sing one to another like Jakke and Tom for faulte of
better musike." [233]
However, Dallington is very much against the saltations of elderly
persons. "I remember a countriman of ours, well seene in artes and
language, well stricken in yeares, a mourner for his second wife, a
father of mariageable children, who with his other booke studies
abroade, joyned also the exercise of dancing: it was his hap in an
honourable Bal (as they call it) to take a fall, which in mine opinion
was not so disgracefull as the dancing it selfe, to a man of his
stuffe."[234]
Dallington would have criticized Frenchmen more severely than ever had
he known that even Sully gave way in private to a passion for dancing.
At least Tallemant des Reaux says that "every evening a valet de chambre
of the King played on the lute the dances of the day, and M. de Sully
danced all alone, in some sort of extraordinary hat - such as he always
wore in his cabinet - while his cronies applauded him, although he was
the most awkward man in the world."[235]
Tennis is another courtly exercise in which Dallington urges moderation.
"This is dangerous, (if used with too much violence) for the body; and
(if followed with too much diligence,) for the purse.
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