A DANDYESS, 1819.
WALTZING.
Read "The Waltz," by Lord Byron, and see what was thought of this dance. On June 9, 1817, we read: "Quadrilles have had but a short run. They have now had a lamentable descent, not from the drawing-room to the kitchen, to supersede the Contre Danse, but from Almack's to Hockley in the Hole. Though they have not yet fallen into the kitchen, the kitchen has risen to them. Some days ago the Lady of a Noble Admiral, lately returned from the Mediterranean, happened to come home from a Ball unexpectedly, when her Ladyship found all her domestics busily employed in a quadrille in the drawing-room, with the chandeliers lighted up, and a regular band of two violins, a bass, and a harp. Her Ladyship owns that they danced them with as much grace and spirit as is visible elsewhere." And they did dance in those days—there was no languid walking through a quadrille. All the steps were properly and accurately performed. I have before me engravings of a set of all the figures—1 Le Pantalon, 2 L'Été, 3 La Poule, 4 La Trenise, or 4 La Pastorale and La Finale, which are delicious, but are too large for reproduction in this book.
Of course, the Crême de la crême went to Almack's, but numberless were the Peris who sighed to enter that Paradise, and could not. Capt. Gronow, writing of 1814, says: "At the present time one can hardly conceive the importance which was attached to getting admission to Almack's, the seventh heaven of the fashionable world. Of the three hundred officers of the Foot Guards, not more than half a dozen were honoured with vouchers of admission to this exclusive temple of the beau monde; the gates of which were guarded by lady patronesses, whose smiles or frowns consigned men and women to happiness or despair. These lady patronesses were the Ladies Castlereagh, Jersey, Cowper, and Sefton, Mrs. Drummond Burrell, the Princess Esterhazy, and the Countess Lieven."
In a Newspaper of May 12, 1817, we read—"The rigorous rule of entry established at Almack's Rooms produced a curious incident at the last Ball. The Marquis and Marchioness of W——r, the Marchioness of T——, Lady Charlotte C——, and her daughter, had all been so imprudent as to come to the rooms without tickets; and, though so intimately known to the Lady Managers, and so perfectly unexceptionable, they were politely requested to withdraw, and accordingly they all submitted to the injunction."
Again, at the beginning of the season of 1819 we find these female tyrants issuing the following ukase: "An order has been issued, we understand, by the Lady Patronesses of Almack's, to prevent the admission of Gentlemen in Trowsers and Cossacks to the balls on Wednesdays—at the same time allowing an exception to those Gentlemen who may be knock-kneed, or otherwise deformed." But the male sex were equal to the occasion, as we find in the following lines:—
"TO THE LADY PATRONESSES OF ALMACK'S.
Tired of our trousers are ye grown?
But, since to them your anger reaches,
Is it because 'tis so well known,
You always love to wear the breeches?"