Minuet step

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The minuet step is the dance step performed in the dance minuet. It is composed of four plain straight steps or walks, and may be performed forwards, backward, sideways, or four different Ways, to which there are the like Number of Names annexed, to distinguish them from one another, arriving, not improperly speaking, from the Placing of the Marks upon them: For Example, a Movement, or Sink and Rise, being added to the first Step of the three belonging to the Minuet Step, produces a Bouree; and the like to the fourth and last a Half Coupee, which together compose what is commonly called the English Minuet Step.

The second Method of its Performance is with a Bound; that is to say, instead of the Half Coupee or Movement to the lat Step made upon the Floor, as in the aforesaid, you bound instead thereof, which is the only Variation from the foregoing.

The third Method is quite the Reverse, because, instead of the Bouree, the Half Coupee is made first and afterwards the Bouree, or as the French term it, One and a Fleuret, which is usually called the French Step.

The fourth Way of performing this Step is, by adding another Movement to the third Step of the aforesaid Fleuret, or the fourth of the Minuet Step; and it will then be notwithstanding the fame Step, only of three Movements. As to the two first foregoing Steps, little shall be said concerning them, for the following Reasons: In the first Place, because they are now rarely, if ever, practiced amongst Persons of the first Rank, and seem to be, for the present, entirely laid aside; not as being ungraceful, or that the Dancer could not give Pleasure to the Beholders, or raise to himself a Reputation, in their Performance, but merely through Alteration of Fashion, which varies in this Respect, as in Dressing, &c.