ODE. Cheerily wave, thou gnarled Oak, Thine ancient branches to the breeze; Still proudly bear thine emerald crown, Shall guard from wrong; thy verdant charms Then oft, by beauty's power subdued, O'er Ella spread thy sheltering arms. For when, at evening's stealthy hour, But late, within this quiet grove Burst the pent current from my breast; Would, Ella, that my artless tongue I'll carve upon the uncouth seat, Branched over by thy spreading shade, A name these lips could oft repeat, 'Ere grief's full tide my heart obeyed. Let not with that relenting tear Grant to a life that barely lives, Lives but to love,-and loves forlorn, The boon, good tree, true pity givesPreserve that precious tear till morn. LI. WALTZING AND WALTZERS. Endearing waltz! to thy more pleasing tune Scotch reels, avaunt! and country.dance, forego Waltz-waltz alone BYRON. OUR fathers have told us, nor are Lord Byron's lays wanting to confirm the tale, how astonishment sat on every face when first the waltz bloomed, a tender exotic, in the chilling atmosphere of an English ball-room; how the hopes of the young, the fears of the old, and the evident surprise of all, left it uncertain whether the beauteous stranger would be welcomed or rejected by our most sober ancestors. We, in our more enlightened days, may at first wonder at such hesitation; but we have only to look back a few years, and all cause for wonderment will cease, or, if any remain, it will be only how a couple could be found so bold as to introduce the mazes of the magic dance among those, whose dreams of the poetry of motion found their realization in the country-dance and the minuet! The country-dance-with its commencing formality to be equalled only by its subsequent confusion, with everybody hopelessly in everybody else's way, and none able to ascertain their proper positions, with toes at a discount and trains in jeopardy, with partners so separated that any flirtation (pardon the word, we mean conversation) was utterly out of the question, unless all the assembled guests were to be admitted confidants to its pleasing nothings-formed a tout ensemble most conducive, we doubt not, to propriety, but sadly destructive of the softer feelings. The minuet-with its solemn grandeur and intense stupidity, with its formal looks out-formalling its steps, its ceremonious bows and elaborate curtsies, its meeting of fingers and averting of eyes, its tediousness and monotony-completed the enlivening hilarity of the olden time. Yes! these were the favored dances of our departed grandmothers, and from them, we fervently exclaim, may the Muse of the many twinkling feet protect their descendants. They hesitated and were lost, for while they looked on amazed, the young plant took such root in the affections of the rising generation, that all subsequent efforts to eradicate it were fruitless. The sons first turned rebellious, nor were the daughters long to follow the example, in vain were these last desired by anxious mothers, some on no account to waltz at all, they merely became wall-flowers for the evening; some to waltz only with brothers or cousins; they took the latter word in a Scotch sense, and refused no one-every restriction became useless, and the contest from the first unequal. Still, it was some time before the waltz found its way from the palace to the mansion, and thence to the humbler dwelling; the fantastic morality of England, of which we boast so much, and which we fear in virtue low as heaven is high In pride of virtue toppeth lofty heaven," made a vigorous resistance, and, in the spirit of the Scotch covenanter, looked on waltzing as a "Popish abomination!" Even now we too often hear from the lips of some hesitating young lady, in white muslin, pink ribbons, and blushes to match, strange scruples as to the decorum of the dance, mixed with a very proper degree of anxiety for mama's consent; and even now, as though in deference to the tender feelings of her subjects, Her Most Gracious Majesty, if she have not banished the waltz from her presence, has, at least, recalled the exiled country-dance to share its happy lot, and form (if possible) part of the amusements of Windsor. He only who is initiated can form an idea of the pleasures of the waltz, the raptures of its fairy circles, where music in her gayest dress, and beauty in her liveliest form, have thrown the spell of enchantment; but to all are visible its outward grace and elegance, the poetry of its motion, the gliding swiftness of its steps, its waving ringlets, and its animated eyes, its beauty and abandon. And let the veriest sceptic of its power but contrast the listless aspect of the ball-room, when the quadrille drags its slow length along, with the outbreak of joyousness that accompanies the waltz, and decide in favour of the former if he can. But enough of its allurements, we feel how unequal we are to sing its praises, how poor a substitute for eloquence is enthusiasm on a subject where eloquence itself were feeble. To those who see it not my words were weak; To those who gaze on it what language could they speak? Turn we, therefore, from waltzing to its votaries, from the faultless beauties of the dance per se, to the peculiarities or absurdities of many of its perpetrators; the fair sex, however, we must leave to some more able pen, and be content to delineate the less refined characteristics of their lords. No question of precedence will trouble our commencement, as all will give way to the original inventor and now most accomplished oracle of the dance, THE GERMAN WALTZER. To him life without waltzing were a blank; the fancy has become a passion, the luxury a necessary, and the recreation a very business of existence. To him the choice of a partner, where all dance well, is a matter of perfect indifference; youth, beauty, and agreeability totally uncared for, and so that the steps but tallied with his own, he would as lief whirl round an aged grandmother as a blooming cousin. To him it is “the dance, the whole dance, and nothing but the dance.” "He asks no fairy form, no eyes of fire, To waltz contents his natural desire." And if ever the waltz is beautiful, if ever its reality surpasses expectation, and its practice outshames theory, it is under his guidance, and he who would see it in all purity and elegance, must seek it in the halls of Germany. There with every aid that music can supply, with bands of whose power we in England can form no idea, with perchance Straus or Lanner in person to direct them, we gaze upon the gliding step, so silent yet so swift, an echo to the music in all but sound, the arm that lifts yet drags not, and the hand which steadies yet offends not. THE WALTZER FROM GERMANY. Next comes the Germanized Waltzer,-a jackdaw in borrowed plumes, proud of the illset feathers that betray him; a wretched satire on the preceding-a copy, yet no likeness, or the likeness only of a caricature. Fresh from Wiesbaden and the Rhine, where he may have waltzed some dozen times, he deems himself the very pink and mirror of accomplishment, and plays the self-elected judge on all questions relating to the ball room. At parties he superciliously eyes the waltzers, finds the music too slow, the airs too antiquated, and the ladies too ignorant of his own, or the fashionable style. Should he condescend to dance, he places one arm akimbo to his side, as though about to put his hand in his pocket, and, with his body painfully erect, shuffle-scuffles round the room, occasionally rushes across the circle for effect, and finally gets himself and partner involved in strangest confusion with the other couples, after a vain attempt to execute double time. He has asked his partner to "valse;" he has discoursed learnedly on the " valse;" he has praised his own style of the "valse," and if he end not by criticising her's, he is a most favorable specimen of his tribe. THE TIMID WALTZER. This retiring individual, if he be not one of that numerous body, all blunders and blushes, whom nature, whatever her other views, never intended for the ball-room, belongs rather to a state of transition than to any permanently developed class. As yet his partners have been limited to his sisters, a few chairs and perhaps a stray cousin or two, with whom relationship may romp, so that his timidity and hesitation are but the necessary results of imperfect practice. His first appearance on the stage of public life is a moment of intense excitement, a thousand anxieties annoy him, he may not suit his partner's style, he may dance out of time, he may wander from his proper orbit, and (the very idea makes his blood run cold) he may |