A LITTLE NEWS OF MR. LEDBURY CONNECTED WITH THE POLKA. It is now a little more than twelve months since we last encountered our old acquaintance, Mr. Titus Ledbury, in these pages. His friends will be glad to hear, that during this interval he has been well and happy; that his manners and general bearing in society are, if possible, more elegant than ever; and his graceful attitudes have greatly distinguished him in the salons of the Transislingtonian districts. At the same time, his mind has lost nothing of its well-poised intentions; albeit, as formerly, they do not altogether at times produce the exactly desired effect. But he is a good creature, and everybody is always happy to see him. Of course Mr. Ledbury was one of the first to learn the Polka. Like everybody else, as long as he could not dance it, he said it was very uninteresting, and would never keep its ground; but when he came to know it, he was most indomitable, and, after supper, completely frénétique in its mazes, especially in the "chasse" and the "back-step, upon which he rather prided himself. He has been known, at this period of the evening, to tire down three young ladies, and then ask to be introduced to a fourth,-madly, wildly, desperately, even after she had confessed that she only knew it a little. And this, too, when he saw there was no chance of the tune coming to a conclusion, by reason of the cornet and piano having numbed their feelings with sherry, and played on mechanically, with the dogged action of a culprit who anticipates much exercise on the treadmill. It is a merciful dispensation that the cornet can be played with the eyes shut, in common with many other Terpsichorean instruments. If it could not, polkas and cotillons would gradually vanish from the face of the drawingroom, to the fiendish delight of those manchons de société (muffs of society), who tell you that the aforesaid polkas and cotillons are very strange kinds of dances, which they never wish their girls to join in." Old Mr. Ledbury did not see much in the Polka: in fact, he had a dislike generally to what he termed "people kicking their heels about in outlandish fashions." But the instant Titus perceived that every one who wished to distinguish himself in society must learn the Polka -not to mention the valse à deux temps and Cellarius, which he had scarcely courage enough yet to attempt-he determined to conquer its difficulties. And to this end, he joined a class at a professor's who taught polkas night and day; in whose house the violin never stopped, in whose first-floor windows the blinds were never drawn up. The professor was connected with the ballet at the theatres, and he used to bring one or two of the "pets" of that department to be partners on the occasion-pretty little girls, with glossy braided hair and bright eyes, who tripped about in the morning in blue check Polka cloaks, and in the evening in pink tights and gauze petticoats,-sylphs that people paid money to see-peris whom men in white neckcloths and private boxes had looked at through binocular glasses. What happi VOL. XVII. Y ness for Titus! Under such tuition he improved rapidly. He went out everywhere, and polked all the evening: at last, nothing could satisfy him but that his people must give a polka party themselves. There was a great deal to be said against this. Since his sister Emma's marriage, there had not been much gaiety at home; and, besides, Emma had now a little baby, regarding whose appearance, in reply to Master Walter Ledbury's too minute inquiries, the most remarkable horticultural stories connected with silver spades and the vegetation of parsley, had been promulgated, a tiny, fair, velvetcheeked doll, in whose face everybody found a different likeness. The other little Ledbury girls were not old enough to be brought out, and Mrs. Ledbury said she could not take all the trouble upon herself. But there was a greater obstacle than all this to contend with. The family had left Islington, at the expiration of their lease, and taken a new house somewhere on the outskirts of the Regent's Park, in a freshly made colony, which cabmen never could find out, but wandered about for hours over rudely gravelled roads, without lamps and policemen, and between skeleton houses, until, at break of day, they found themselves somewhere impinging upon Primrose Hill, at an elevation of a considerable number of feet above the level of Lord's cricketground. And, moreover, there was a clause in the leases of these houses, that no dancing could be allowed therein, under heavy forfeits, which threw aspersions on their stability. But architectural improvement is daily progressing; and economy of time and material being the great desiderata in all arts and sciences, particular attention is paid to this point. Houses are run up, like Aladdin's palace, in one night; and the same ingenuity that could formerly overspread Vauxhall Gardens with a single ham, is put into fresh requisition, to see how many acres of building-ground may be covered with the same number of bricks that were employed, in times gone by, for one family mansion. All these facts were urged by Mr. Ledbury senior; but Titus did not give it up, for all that. He knew that his father was as insensible as a rock to his hints, but he also knew that the constant dropping of hints would at last have a softening effect; and so it proved. He implored so earnestly, and impressed the fact so frequently upon his parents that the landlord need never know anything about it, as at last to get their consent. And then he struck the iron whilst it was hot. He bought some engraved invitation note-paper, with "Polka" in the corner: drew up a list of friends; and, lastly, got his mother to ask Miss Seymour to come and stay with them for the time being. Fanny Wilmer, his country friend, was also asked up from Clumpley, to which place the Polka had not yet reached. Baby required all Emma's attention, and so she was left out of the question; but her husband promised to come, and be Jack Johnson as heretofore, "by particular desire and upon that occasion only." For having passed through that stage of feeling, during the time he was engaged, which rude people designate as spooney," and the subsequent enchantment, after matrimony, during the premières illusions,-in both which states a man is not fit company for anybody except one-he was now returning once more, as is the invariable rule, to a capital fellow. The chief occupation of Titus before the ball was to teach Fanny Wilmer the Polka. And to this end they practised all day long, whilst Miss Seymour kindly played the Annen and the opera editions until her fingers were as weary as their feet. They did the promenade, and the waltz, and the return, and the double polka on the square, and the chasse, and the whirl, turning round so fast and leaning back to such a degree, that at last they resembled a revolving V made of two human figures, like an animated initial letter. All this practising, however, had its desired end. Fanny Wilmer learnt the Polka, and Titus was so charmed at the effect he was certain they would produce together, that he had some vague notion of putting on a pair of red morocco boots with brass heels, that would click together, expressly for the occasion. At last the night came. By dint of much previous instruction, everybody found their way to the house pretty well, except old Mrs. Hoddle, who came in a fly all the way from Islington, not believing in cabs, and missing the proper road, got benighted in St. John's Wood, which, in her imagination, she peopled with North American Indians, having some vague recollections of an Ioway encampment thereabouts. Jack assisted Titus in his duties as master of the ceremonies, for he knew almost everybody there; and then the festivities of the evening commenced. Old Mr. Ledbury gave himself up to his misery with great resignation. He intended, as heretofore, either to have visited a friend, or to have gone to bed: but, in the first case, everybody he knew lived too far off; and in the second, his bed-room was turned out of window for the evening. The supper was laid in the dining-room, the door of which was locked; and the ices and cherry-water were dispensed in the back parlour, which Titus, from the presence of a few grave volumes, and some loose numbers of periodicals, called his "study." They had a quadrille, and then a waltz; then a quadrille, then a polka, and so on. Mr. Ledbury greatly distinguished himself, and was much admired. Nor was Jack Johnson less conspicuous. He had not regularly learned the Polka, but he said it was merely a diluted edition of a Quartier Latin dance, for which he had sometimes been compelled to leave the chaumière, and therefore he did not find it very difficult. Of course, there was, as there always is, a large proportion of the guests who did not dance the Polka; but they stood round the room, and looked pleasant, which was all that was required of them. Nor were they, in this capacity of wall-flowers, without their value: for spectators are useful things in a party to inspirit the others; and the bare idea that you are doing something which somebody else cannot who is looking on, encourages you to perform unexpected marvels of Terpsichorean agility. Some people call this vanity; others human nature. However, the enthusiasm spread, and every Polka was more energetic than the last, until the room trembled again. It would have been well had this been the only sensation created. The servants had entered the dining-room, to make the last preparations for supper, when a wild scene of horror presented itself unparalleled even in the annals of the Lisbon and Gaudaloupe earthquakes. Well might the landlord have prohibited dancing in his tenement. The ceiling had curved round, and was bulging into the room, like an inverted arch, whilst from its patera the lamp was swinging recklessly, as though it had been an incense-burner in the hands of a priest. Every glass on the table, chattering its own music, was polking with its fellow, until it fell off the edge; a Crusader in blackleaded plaster had chassée'd from his bracket, and was lying piecemeal on the carpet; a bust of Shakspeare was nodding time to the tune, as he prepared to follow its example: and there was not a barley-sugar ship or windmill which had not been jolted into fragments that left no trace of the original form. Well enough might the domestic supernumeraries, engaged for the night, have been scared. There was a momentary expectation of all the guests coming down to supper by a much quicker method than the staircase. Terrible and general was the alarm, when the remarkable state of architectural affairs was promulgated. There was only one person happy, and that was old Mr. Ledbury. As soon as he saw his guests were frightened, he rubbed his hands and smiled, and promulgated the intelligence that the floor was about to fall in, with the same glee as he would have done the news of a favourable change in the ministry, or a rise in the railway shares, of which he was a large participator. Titus, who was stopped in the middle of a distinguished step, turned pale; Jack laughed; and Mrs. Ledbury hurried all her visitors down stairs, with the most nervous eagerness, which gave them a pretty broad hint, that they were to bolt their supper and go away. They took it very speedily. This was Mr. Ledbury's first Polka party, and his last. It certainly had created a sensation, but not the one he had anticipated. He determined, if he danced the Polka again, to do so at the residences of other people; and old Mr. Ledbury, who got involved in a mild lawsuit in consequence, after many anathemas against outlandish dances and their followers, finally gravitated into a determination to leave his present abode, which never recovered its right angles; and for the future, next to the Polka, to abhor all houses run up to be let in suburban neighbourhoods, which were as picturesque and fragile as those of the illuminated village carried at evening on the head of the ingenious Italian in quiet neighbourhoods. DROOP NOT, MY HEART! BY WILLIAM JONES. DROOP not, my heart, with thy burden of sadness, Where grief cannot enter to weaken the breast! But find, when too late, that the best can deceive! The words that would melt, for we thought them sincere ; Alas! they survive but to waken the tear! The dew of the evening refreshes the flow'r, Nor leaves till the sun doth its beauty sustain, But where is the friendship that 'bides the long hour Rest, rest thee, my heart! though deserted and lonely, |