THE WAVERLEY QUADRILLE, AND OTHER MONUMENTAL MATTERS.
GOOD King JAMIE, according to Sir WALTER SCOTT, fairly worked his royal person into a fit of crying by his own pathetic description of his own funeral-obsequies. Sir WALTER himself might have enjoyed a less melancholy pleasure could he have foreseen the tribute paid to him in London this week, at Willis's Rooms. The object of " the Waverley Ball "—to raise a fund to aid in com- pleting the SCOTT Monument at Edinburgh—harmonized well with the graceful pageantry of " the Waverley Quadrille." A starched critic might, indeed, demur to the "keeping" of some of the characters forced into the service to tread a measure on this occasion. Most of the lovers in the novels—uniformly very amiable but rather uninteresting personages—may easily be fancied tripping it on the light fantastic toe. Queen Elizabeth was fond of dancing ; and at least one " Roy's wife" was celebrated for her skill in performing " the Hieland walloch " : but it is questionable whether the grave Presbyterian Markham Everard would have ap- proved of " promiscuous dancing "; assuredly "the minister," Reuben Butler, would have thought it a desecration of his sacred character ; and his high-hearted but simple and old-fashioned wife would have felt herself out of place in a ball-room. There was positive cruelty in obliging Rebecca to accept the hand of the Templar, and the Lady Hermione to take that of Dalgarno, though but for one quadrille. Poor Halbert Glendinning, (who, par parenthise, had probably as little time to cultivate the saltatory art as that of writing,) what had he done to be linked for the evening with the unearthly White Lady of Avenel ? Surely, if this esprit foldtre was to be allowed once more to revisit the glimpses of the moon and frolic it in a ball-room, she ought to have been fas- tened upon Father Nicholas, with whom she waltzed so merrily down the stream, or else upon Sir Percy Shafton, whose foppery might be supposed to merit such an elflike visitation.
Notwithstanding these peccadilloes, would that some leader of fashion would do for the NELSON Monument what the Marchioness of LONDONDERRY has done for that of Sir WALTER SCOTT ! It is not creditable to the nation that the monument of its greatest naval hero should go begging to foreign potentates for contribu- tions towards its completion. Is there not enough of the old spirit remaining to instigate us to complete it ourselves ? Is the London Nelson's Monument to be the counterpart of the Edinburgh Par- thenon? Will no fair and noble dame get up a Nelson, or a Nile, or a Trafalgar Quadrille ? The one-armed hero might foot it away with the plump Hamilton, (see Guitar for figure and cos- tume); the Boatswain of the Agamemnon with Portsmouth Sal vis- 1-via, would, unlike the Presbyterian parson and his wife, be quite in their sphere footing it to the fiddle; and Prince Caraccioli in his shroud would rival in attraction the water-spirit of The Monastery.
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