[ 174 ] [ Fes. 
DANCING, 
I never to a ball will go, 
That poor pretence for prancing, 
Where Jenkins dislocates a toe, 
And Tomkins thinks he’s dancing : 
And most I execrate that ball, 
Of balls the most atrocious, 
Held yearly in old Magog’s hall, 
The feasting and ferocious. 
I execrate the mob, the squeeze, 
The rough refreshment-scramble ; 
The dancers, keeping time with knees 
That knock as down they amble ; 
Between two lines of bankers’ clerks, 
Stared at by two of loobies— 
All mighty fine for city sparks, 
But all and each one boobies :— 
Boobies with heads like poodle dogs, 
With curls like clew-lines dangling ; 
With limbs like galvanizing frogs, 
And necks stiff-starched and strangling ; 
With pigeon-breasts and pigeon-wings, 
And waists like wasps and spiders ; 
With whiskers like Macready’s kings’, 
Mustachios like El Hyder's. 
Miss Jones, the Moorfields milliner, 
With Toilinet, the draper, _ 
May waltz—for none are willinger 
To cut cloth or a caper :— | 
Miss Moses of the Minories, . 
With Mr. Wicks of Wapping, : 
May love such light tracasseries, 
Such shuffle-shoe and hopping :— | 
Miss Hicks, the belle of Holywell, ; 
And pride of Norton Falgate, } 
In waltzing may the world excel, 
Except Miss Hicks of Aldgate. . 
Well, let them—'tis their nature—twirl, 
And Smiths adore their twirlings, 
Which kill with envy every girl 
That fingers lace at Urling’s. 
I laugh while I Jament to see 
A fellow, made to measure 
’Gainst grenadiers of six feet three, 
*‘ Die down the dance” with pleasure. 
I laugh to see a man with thews 
His way through Misses picking, 
Like pig with tender pettitoes, 
Or chicken-hearted chicken ; 
