From a poem by Thomas Moore (Thomas Brown ) called Country Dance and Quadrille 1823 :
The Quadrille arrived in England from France after the Congress of Vienna. It had enjoyed a glorious period at the Napoleonic Court and continued to be danced throughout Europe until the beginning of the 20th century. Its arrival in England brought about a gradual decline of the Country Dance as the principal form of social dancing. This satirical poem comments on the Quadrilles debut in upper class circles and the survival of Country Dances away from the society centres.
The poem opens introducing the two characters, “the nymph called COUNTRY DANCE (whom folks, of late, have used so ill), preferring a coquette from France, that mincing thing, Mamselle QUADRILLE.”
COUNTRY DANCE has been “chas’d from London” where nobody wishes to know her and gone to a country town New Year’s ball. She comments “Here still I reign, and fresh in charms, My throne like Magna Charta raise ’Mong sturdy, freeborn legs and arms, that scorn the threatened chaȋne Anglaise ”.
As she climbs the stairs to the ballroom she hears “some new, outlandish airs, From the first fiddle (which) set her trembling” as the musicians start up an aria from a Rossini opera.
She enters and “her worst of foes, QUADRILLE, there meets her face to face” on the dance floor. QUADRILLE’S French terre-à-terre dancing style is caricatured : “And, when she danc’d – so slidingly, So near the ground she plied her art, You’d swear her mother earth and she Had made a compact ne’er to part.” Likewise the controlled countenance and poise of her upper body is ridiculed “Her face too,all the while, sedate, No sign of life or motion showing, like a bright pendule’s dial-plate – So still, you’d hardly think ‘twas going.”
COUNTRY DANCE on the other hand is “A little gauche, ‘tis fair to own, And rather given to skips and bounces; Endangering thereby many a gown, And playing, oft, the devil with flounces”
But a recent victory was still in COUNTRY DANCE’S “eyes of blue (eyes of that bright victorious tint, Which English maids call ‘Waterloo’) and as “The Steward of the night advance(d) To lead her to her birthright place”…“Instant the cry was ‘Country dance!....And for one happy night at least, Old England’s triumph was complete”