Would want both ball and powder; Must want both sword and gun to kill; For why? The general's at quadrille.
People are not now the fixtures they used to be in their respective localities, finding their amusements within their own limited circle. Half the inhabitants of a country place are here to-day and gone to-morrow. Even of those who are more what they call settled, the greater portion is less, probably, at home than whisking about the world. Then, again, where cards are played at all, whist is more consentaneous to modern solemnity: there is more wiseacre-ism about it: in the same manner that this other sort of quadrille, in which people walk to and from one another with faces of exemplary gravity, has taken the place of the old-fashioned country-dance. 'The merry dance, I dearly love' would never suggest the idea of a quadrille, any more than 'merry England' would call up any image not drawn from ancient ballads and the old English drama.
_Mr. Gryll._ Well, doctor, I intend to have a ball at Christmas, in which all modes of dancing shall have fair play, but country-dances shall have their full share.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ I rejoice in the prospect. I shall be glad to see the young dancing as if they were young.
_Miss Ilex._ The variety of the game called tredrille--the Ombre of Pope's _Rape of the Lock_--is a pleasant game for three. Pope had many opportunities of seeing it played, yet he has not described it correctly; and I do not know that this has been observed.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Indeed, I never observed it. I shall be glad to know how it is so.
_Miss Ilex._ Quadrille is played with forty cards: tredrille usually with thirty: sometimes, as in Pope's Ombre, with twenty-seven. In forty cards, the number of trumps is eleven in the black suits, twelve in the red:{ 1} in thirty, nine in all suits alike.{ 2} In twenty-seven, they cannot be more than nine in one suit, and eight in the other three. In Pope's Ombre spades are trumps, and the number is eleven: the number which they would be if the cards were forty. If you follow his description carefully, you will find it to be so.
1 Nine cards in the black, and ten in the red suits, in addition to the aces of spades and clubs, Spadille and Basto, which are trumps in all suits.