And recollect, ladies, these were dancing days--I mean days when knowledge of figures as well as skill was required, more than twenty forgotten dances being in vogue, the very names of which may surprise you as I recapitulate them.

There was the Passamezzo, a great favourite with Queen Elizabeth, who used to foot it merrily, when, as you are told by Gray-- "The great Lord-keeper led the brawls, And seals and maces danced before him!" the grave Pavane, likewise a favourite with the Virgin Queen, and which I should like to see supersede the eternal polka at Almack's and elsewhere, and in which-- "Five was the number of the music's feet Which still the dance did with live paces meet;" the Couranto, with its "current traverses," "sliding passages," and solemn tune, wherein, according to Sir John Davies-- -- "that dancer greatest praise hath won Who with best order can all order shun;" the Lavolta, also delineated by the same knowing hand-- "Where arm in arm two dancers are entwined, And whirl themselves with strict embracements bound, their feet an anapest do sound." Is not this very much like a waltz?
Yes, ladies, you have been dancing the lavolta of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries without being aware of it.

But there was another waltz still older, called the Sauteuse, which I suspect answered to your favourite polka.

Then there were brawls, galliards, paspys, sarabands, country-dances of various figures, cushion dances (another dance I long to see revived), kissing dances, and rounds, any of which are better than the objectionable polka.

Thus you will see that there was infinite variety at least at the period under consideration, and that you have rather retrograded than advanced in the saltatory art.