applied to the subject under consideration. At the card-table money is placed under the control of the contingencies which accompany the game. The person who deposits the money, either needs it for his own use, or he does not. In the former case, he cannot lose it without inconvenience; in the latter, he possesses a superfluity, which he is bound to appropriate to such a purpose as may render it the probable instrument of benefit to another. If he loses the sum, he parts with it criminally; if he gains to it an additional sum, he is guilty of a species of robbery, inasmuch as he returns for it no suitable equivalent. Every one will immediately recognize the validity of this reasoning as applied to the practice of gaming when conducted on an extensive scale. The vice is then universally censured; but when trifling amounts of money only are involved, the same act undergoes, it would appear, a change of moral character, and loses the features which in the former instance are viewed with disapprobation and disgust. A gross error, however, is here committed. What is inherently wrong in the grearer, cannot be right in the less; the obnoxious elements, which exist in an extensive system of gaming, pervade, in a proportionate degree, every modification of the practice, and convey a corresponding measure of criminality. If gaming is immoral in all its gradations, it must be in card-playing, which is one. 80 CHAPTER IV. DANCING. Blame, cynic, if you can, quadrille or ball, The snug close party, or the splendid hall, Where Night, down drooping from her ebon throne, Views constellations brighter than her own. COWPER. EVERY one acquainted with this elegant amusement is aware that it presents to the lovers of pleasure the most powerful attractions. There is no scene in which pleasure reigns more triumphantly than in the ball-room. The assemblage of fashion, of beauty, of elegance, and taste; the music rising "with its voluptuous swell;" the elegant attitudes, and airy evolutions of graceful forms; the mirth in every step, and joy in every eye, unite to give to the spirits a buoyancy, to the heart a gaiety, and to the passions a warmth, unequalled by any other species of amusement. What emotions of pleasure are equal to those which are felt when Upsprings the dance along the lighted dome, The circle deepens; beamed from gaudy robes, That it should, therefore, find many admirers and advocates is naturally to be expected, and he who declares himself an opponent of the gratification, and enters the lists against it, had need to be liberally supplied at once with courage, weapons, and address. The present discussion, however, involves a task, if not less difficult, at least less formidable; demanding rather sagacity and caution, than confidence and courage. Its design is not, at all events, to oppose, declaim against, and censure, *Thomson's Seasons. G but to observe, investigate, argue, and decide. Prejudice may regard the effort with an evil eye, but intelligence and candour will meet it with civility and respect. If conviction can be obtained, that the amusement is harmless and pure, sanction for it will be cheerfully granted; and approbation will be withheld only on the ground of manifest and formidable injury or danger. No sensible person, it is presumed, would think of maintaining, that dancing, when conducted under proper restrictions, is, in its own nature, criminal; some evil attendant circumstances can alone form the ground of objection. For young persons the amusement appears both suitable and desirable; as an art it is elegant, and as an exercise necessary for young people. To it they are instinctively led, and by it their health and growth are promoted. The flow of their animal spirits, and their gaiety of heart communicate a corresponding influence to the animal frame, |