A Gentleman of vast agility,
Who teaches capers and civility
And whose whole life consists of play days,
Informs the gentlemen and ladies
Of this good town and other places,
That he's Grand Master of the Graces --
Professor of the violin,
And hopes to suit them to a pin
In teaching arts and fascinations,
Dancing and other recreations;
When life is stressful I need a little bit of silliness, and where better to find it than in bad Regency verse full of double entendres? "Other recreations" indeed!
I first found this little "advertisement" for the services of one Signior Squeak, dancing master, in an 1818 issue of the Weekly Visitor and Ladies' Museum, a New York newspaper which claims to have reprinted it from the Vermont Intelligencer. It reappeared several years later in a Boston weekly, the New England Galaxy, which claimed that:
The following verses were printed some ten or fifteen years ago, in a Vermont paper, and had the run of the papers. Like a great many other good things, anecdotes, epigrams, rebusses, &c. it is about time that they should commence a new revolution.
Well, for values of "ten or fifteen years ago" that are more like seven -- The Vermont Intelligencer only started publishing in 1817.
Since I can't take my dance historian hat completely off even for comic relief...what jumps out as of particular interest in this little satire is the mix of accurate portrayal of a dancing master with the stereotype of the loose morals of the profession. Namely:
He teaches French cotillions. In the general confusion of American dance terminology in this era, those might be either actual cotillons or early sets of quadrilles.
Can teach young ladies nineteen millions
Of spick and span new French Cotillions,
Waltzing with ladies, presumably his students, is also mentioned.
He's an amazing dancer, and quite the showoff. Along with expertise in the honrpipe, a solo performance dance,
He whirls, and bounds, and sinks and rises,
Makes figures of all sorts and sizes,
He's nine times round the room, before
He condescends to touch the floor,
And now and then like lightning springs,
And borne aloft on pigeon's wings,
Cuts capers wonderful and rare,
Like fairy frolicking in air.
He plays the classic dancing master instrument, the fiddle.
Amphion, Orpheus, or Apollo,
In fiddling he can beat all hollow, --
But, dancing masters being stereotypically foreign, he's Italian ("Signior"). And we know what the proper Bostonians thought of Italians and their, ah, "delicate affairs".
Nota Bena. -- Ladies grown,
Said Signior waits upon alone,
Teaching graces, arts, and airs,
And other delicate affairs;
His name ("Squeak") also suggests a high-pitched voice, not just a squeaky fiddle, with the contradictory implication of effeminacy.
And, finally, he was expensive. It's hard to compare costs across time, but a little digging [opens Excel spreadsheet] suggests that the $20 he charged per quarter was about a month's wages for a Boston school master; on a quarterly basis, a third of his income. Signior Squeak was definitely catering to the upper classes!
All these and fifty other capers,
Not fit to publish in the papers,
Which put the genteel polish on,
And fit a tippy for the ton;
Said Signior Squeak will teach his scholars, --
Terms per quarter Twenty Dollars.
The complete poem is below. Enjoy!
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Signior Squeak's Dancing Advertisement
Vermont Intelligencer, date unknown (1817)
Weekly Visitor and Ladies' Museum (New York); January 3, 1818, p. 158.
The New England Galaxy and United States Literary Advertiser; July 16, 1824, p. 2.
A Gentleman of vast agility,
Who teaches Capers and Civility
And whose whole life consists of play days,
Informs the gentlemen and ladies
Of this good town and other places,
That he's Grand Master of the Graces --
Professor of the violin,
And hopes to suit them to a pin
In teaching arts and fascinations,
Dancing and other recreations;
Amphion, Orpheus, or Apollo,
In fiddling he can beat all hollow, --
And all those wonder-working elves,
Who made huge houses build themselves,
And rocks, responsive to their ditties,
Rise into palaces and cities,
Compared with him are every one,
Like fire-bugs likened to the sun.
He steps a Hornpipe so genteel,
You'd think him dealing with the de'il;
Can teach young ladies nineteen millions
Of spick and span new French cotillions,
With flourishes and turns and twists
Of arms and elbows, toes and wrists,
And attitudes of fascination,
Enough to ravish all creation.
He whirls, and bounds, and sinks and rises,
Makes figures of all sorts and sizes,
He's nine times round the room, before
He condescends to touch the floor,
And now and then like lightning springs,
And borne aloft on pigeon's wings,
Cuts capers wonderful and rare,
Like fairy frolicking in air.
He waltzes in a style so smart,
A lady's adamantine heart
Will be inevitably melted,
Like ore that's in a furnace smelted.
All these and fifty other capers,
Not fit to publish in the papers,
Which put the genteel polish on,
And fit a tippy for the ton;
Said Signior Squeak will teach his scholars, --
Terms per quarter Twenty Dollars.
Nota Bena. -- Ladies grown,
Said Signior waits upon alone,
Teaching graces, arts, and airs,
And other delicate affairs;
How to look and act as prettily,
As belles of England, France or Italy.
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