ch 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.

2 Seven cards in each of the four suits in addition to
Spadille and Basto.

_Mr. MacBorrowdale._ Why, then, we can only say, as a great philosopher
said on another occasion: The description is sufficient 'to impose on
the degree of attention with which poetry is read.'

_Miss Ilex._ It is a pity it should be so. Truth to Nature is essential
to poetry. Few may perceive an inaccuracy: but to those who do, it
causes a great diminution, if not a total destruction, of pleasure
in perusal. Shakespeare never makes a flower blossom out of season.
Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey are true to Nature in this and in all
other respects: even in their wildest imaginings.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Yet here is a combination by one of our greatest
poets, of flowers that never blossom in the same season--

Bring the rathe primrose, that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe and pale jessamine,
The white pink, and the pansie freakt with jet,
The glowing violet,

The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine,
With cowslips wan, that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears: