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English country dancing continued to enjoy popularity into the first decades of the 19th century. The dance vocabulary, however, now included such figures as 'allemande' (discussed earlier) and 'swing' (a simple hand turn, often of 'corners') and a dance evening might now include, besides an opening minuet and a closing 'Sir Roger de Coverley' (two dances from the previous century), a 'Scotch Reel' and the French-import 'La Boulangere' (the Baker's wife - involves alternately turning/swing your partner and someone elses partner and perhaps alluding to how the baker's wife occuppied herself when her husband was off in the early hours baking). It was the longways triple minor 'country' dances which were, however, the centre pieces of balls, and it was the ball that was the centre of middle and upper class social life. As Jane Austen, who is known to have loved dancing, observed in Emma, 1816: 

It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been known of young people passing many, many months successively without being at any ball of any description, and no material injury accrue either to body or mind; - but when a beginning is made - when the felicities of rapid motion have once beeen, though slightly, felt - it must be a very heavy set that does not ask for more. 

Similarly in Pride and Prejudice, 1813, it was observed that 

To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love

and

What a charming amusement for young people this is, Mr. Darcy! -- There is nothing like dancing after all. -- I consider it as one of the first refinements of polished societies.

and Mr Bingley is praised for having

soon made himself acquainted with all the principal people in the room; he was lively and unreserved, danced every dance, was angry that the ball closed so early, and talked of giving one himself at Netherfield. Such amiable qualities must speak for themselves

while Mr Collins is condemned for being

awkward and solemn, apologising instead of attending, and often moving wrong without being aware of it, gave her all the shame and misery which a disagreeable partner for a couple of dances can give. The moment of her release from him was exstacy.

The physical and social pleasure of the ball is also commented on in many contemporary texts. In an etiquettte manual written by 'A Lady of Distinction' in 1811, the spectator of a well-ordered English ball is said to see:

every species of female loveliness.. But the pleasure stops not there. His best feelings receive their share also. He looks on each gay countenance, he sees hilarity in every step; he listens to their delighted converse, communicated by snatches; and, with a plearsure sympathizing with theirs, he cannot but acknowledge that dancing is one of the most innocent and rational, as well as the most elegant, amusements of youth.

In Northanger Abbey, 1817, Austen has Catherine Morland's clever dance partner Mr Tilney declare:

I consider a country-dance as an emblem of marriage. Fidelity and complaisance are the principle duties of both; and those men who do not chuse to dance or marry themselves, have no business with the partners or wives of their neighbours

and when his comparison of dancing to matrimony is challenged on the grounds that 'people that marry can never part, but must go and keep house together' while 'People that dance, only stand opposite each other in a long room for half an hour', argued:

You will allow, that in both, man has the advantage of choice, woman only the power of refusal; that in both, it is an engagement between man and woman, formed for the advantage of each; and that when once entered into, they belong exclusively to each other till the moment of its dissolution; that it is their duty, each to endeavour to give the other no cause for wishing that he or she had bestowed themselves elsewhere, and their best interest to keep their own imaginations from wandering towards the perfections of their neighbours, or fancying that they should have been better off with anyone else.

The Jane Austen novels also offer many insights into dance practise in the regency period. In the Northanger Abbey extract quoted above there is reference to a country dance lasting half an hour. This time frame is also alluded to in other Austen novels, along with other expectations, firstly that you would have no more than two dances with the same person on any one night and secondly that you would chat politely during the dance. Thus in Mansfield Park, 1814, Edmund asks Fanny Price:

'...you must keep two dances for me; any two that you like, except the first.'

In Pride and Prejudice Elizabeth at the Netherfield Ball after surviving two dance with Mr Collins:

She danced next with an officer, and had the refreshment of talking of Wickaham, and of hearing that he was universally liked.

and after that dance/converstion found herself accepting an invitation form Mr Darcy and standing in a set opposite him:

They stood for some time without speaking a word; and she began to imagine that their silence was to last through the two dances, and, at first was resolved not to break it; till suddenly fancying that it would be the greater punishment to her partner to oblige him to talk, she made some slight observation on the dance. He replied, and was again silent. After a pause of some minutes, she addressed him a second time, with-
' It is your turn to say something now, Mr. Darcy. I talked about the dance, and you ought to make some kind of remark on the size of the room, or the number of couples.'
He smiled, and assured her that whatever she wished him to say should be said.
'Very well: that reply will do for the present. Perhaps, by and by, I may observe that private balls are much pleasanter than public ones; but now we may be silent.'
'Do you talk by rule, then, while you are dancing?'
' Sometimes. One must speak a little, you know. It would look odd to be entirely silent for half an hour together; and yet, for the advantage of some, conversation ought to be so arranged as that they may have the trouble of saying as little as possible.'

And so the dance continued through verbal sparing - indeed, dances were one of the few opportunities young gentlefolk of the day had to converse without chaperones.

In Austen's 1811 Sense and Sensibility Marianne Dashwood and Mr Willoughby break the unwritten rule that a couple should only 'stand up' for two dances together and should speak with all their partners:

.... they were parnters for half the time; and when obliged to separate for a couple of dances, were careful to stand together and scarcely spoke a word to any body else. Such conduct made them of course most exceedingly laughted at; but ridicule could not shame, and seeemed hardly to provoke them.

It is also apparent from Austen's work that for those who wanted to show some accomplishment it was important to do more than just walk country dances. Thus in Mansfield Park, while waiting for her dance with Edmund to come around, Fanny was 'practicing her steps about the drawing-room', but:

When her two dances with him were over, her inclination and strength for more were pretty well at an end; and Sir Thomas having seen her rather walk than dance down the shortening set, breathless and with her hand at her side, gave his orders for her sitting down entirely.

The steps used in country dances need not, however, be as fancy as those appropriate to the French imports of the cotillion. As Barclay Dun's wrote in his 1818 A Translation of Nine of the Most Fashionable Quadrilles:

... the English country-dance and the French cotillion require totally different movements. I know that it is a common thing to introduce all the varieties of opera-steps into the simple figure of the former. this ill-judged fashion is inconsitent with the character of the dance, and, consequently, so destroys the effect, that no pleasure is produced to the eye of the judicious spectator by so discordant an exhibition. The characteristic of an English country-dance is that of gay simplicity. the steps should be few and easy; and the corresponding motion of the arms and body unaffected, modest, and graceful.
 

Perhaps offering the greatest insights of all into Regency period dancing are the London editions (between 1808 and 1821) of Thomas Wilson's An Analysis of Country Dancing, The Complete system of English Country Dancing and The Treasures of Terpsichore; or, A Companion for the Ballroom. These manuals not only offer records of dozens of recently-composed dances (often two the same tune), but offer detail guides as to how to 'set' figures to a tune. They make it clear that dance-composition had become central to the tradition. With only one longways formation (the triple minor) and a limited number of figures now in favour, it was expected that guests would take turns calling or leading a dance, that the caller could devise an original combination of 'short', 'long' and 'double' figures to fit a chosen piece of music, that the dance would progress the lead couple one place down the set each time and that others in the set would catch on as the dance progressed. Thus, in his 1816 The Treasures of Terpichore, his rules for ballroom etiquette included the following:

The couple about to call the Dance, should inform the Master of the Cermonies of the Tune and the Figure, that he may give directions to the different sets (if more than one) and direct the band accordingly; the tune should be once played over before the Dance commences.

The Master of the Ceremonies can object to any call that affords reasonable ground of complaint, such as lengh or difficulty of Figure; but the cople whose call is rejected, have the liberty of calling another Dance less objectionable and more suitable to the ability of the company.

Should any couple after calling a Dance, find themselves incapable of performing it, they may call another; but if the same dificulty occurs in the second call, the masetr of the Ceremonies may transfer the call to the next couple, and place the couple so failing at the bottom of the set.

When the couple calling the Dance has gone down three couples, then the second couple should begin, and so on with all the couples in succession, till after the one that called it has regained the top and proceeded again three couples downwards, where the Dance is finished; and the couple that called it must stand at the bottom for the next Dance.

He does warn, however in The Complete System of English Country Dancing that making up and leading a satisfying dance is not easy:

The persons who take upon themselves the calling of the dance should possess the necessary requisites for performing the duty they may have to execute, in setting the company an example, and directing them (when required) in the performance of the dance. Such a dance should be called, as they thoroughly understand, and are able to perform with facility. When part of the company are indifferent dancers, the persons forming the dance should be selected and placed according to their talent and knowledge of dancing; the best couples at and near the top, that by their performance the others may become instructed in the figure, previous to their having to lead off, otherwise it frequently happens, that the dance is obliged to be changed.
 

He advised that:

In the selecting of figures... it is necessary that a knoweledge should be had of their various effects in the dance, notwithstanding that many of them are of the same length, and performed from the same situation in a minor set, yet they have a different appearance in the dance, and though directed at, or from the top, are yet not so well adapted to the commencement of the dance: it is the same with figures adapted to the conclusion of the dance. Care should be taken, not to choose all such figures as bear too great a similarity in appearacne to each other, either in form or effect, or such figures that only employ the leading couple, (unless there be particular reason) the other couples being consequently unemployed, render it irksome to them, particularly if the set be numerous... A dance ought not to be wholly composed of circular figures, as they tend to excite giddiness in the dancers, and produce a sameness of appearance... In selecting the figures for a dance, it is not advisable to take too many for one class, or of those perfomed from one situation; but to take some from each, and give them as much variety as the length of the tune and the talent of the company will admit.
 

To illustrate how the 'setting' of figures might not always go to plan and also the regrettable lack of respect for musicians (for whom in his writings he generally showed a lot of sympathy) in The Treasures of Terpichore he imagines a foreign visitor witnessing the following fracas:

A stripling of nineteen was brandishing a fiddle-stick over the head of its owner, a decent looking man of forty-five who with a spirit that should ever characterise the human soul, snatched the catgut weapon from the lily lingers of this puny little lord, and shook him so heartily, that his quizzing glass flew from his neck and broke in a thousand pieces ... This little conceited ape of nobility had called a dance, which was instantly played, but he, after several attempts to set a figure to it without success, began to acuse the musicians.
 

Wilson also has much to say on the subjects, broached already above, of dance length, partners, talking and steps. In The Complete System of English Country Dancing he said a dance may take an hour or may take five minutes, that you should not dance with the same partner more than twice, bemoaned the fact that 'it too frequently occurs, that one half of the persons composing the dance are inconversation on subjects unconnected with the dance' and insisted on dancing with steps appropriate to the figure and tune. Wilson, however, lamented (as every dancing master in every age has) the abysmal standard of his day and the depths to which the art has plunged. In The Treasures of Terpsichore he called it 'a national disgrace' and in The Complete System of English Country Dancing claimed 'ten couples out of a hundred scarcely know what they are about, being equally deficient in Steps as in Figures'.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic in America, dancing had become more socially acceptable than it had been in the preceeding century. The middle and upper classes did not want to believe they were any less cultivated than the English or French. Dance schools started to flourish and the word 'contredanse' was heard in high society. The New Englanders started to call their longways dances 'contras' and this, in the rural areas, soon became 'contrys' (a hybrid with 'country'?). In the early 1800s Daniel Webster wrote that dancing was:

A good and ... innocent amusement... But we never need to go to balls and assembly rooms to enjoy it... The world is nothing but a contra-dance, and everyone, volens-nolens, has a part in it. Some are sinking, others rising, others balancing, some gradually ascending towards the tops, others flamingly leading down. Some cast off from Fame and Fortune, and some again in a comfortable Allemande with both....

Back in England the country dance continued to be popular into the 1830s and 1840s. Thus, Charles Dickens, in his sketch Geenwich Fair (written under his journalist nom-de-plume of Boz in 1836) writes: 

The grandest and most numerously-frequented booth in the whole [Greenwich] fair, however, is 'the Crown and Anchor' - a temporary ball-room we forget how many hundred feet long, the price of admission to which is one shilling. Immediately on your right hand as you enter, after paying your money, is a refreshment place, at which cold beef, roast and boiled, French rolls, stout, wine, tongue, ham, even fowls, if we recollect right, are displayed in tempting array. There is a raised orchestra, and the place is boarded all the way down, in patches, just wide enough for a country dance.

There is no master of the ceremonies in this artificial Eden - all is primitive, unreserved, and unstudied. The dust is blinding, the heat insupportable, the company somewhat noisy, and in the highest spirits possible: the ladies, in the height of their innocent animation, dancing in the gentlemen's hats, and the gentlemen promenading 'the gay and festive scene' in the ladies' bonnets, or with the more expensive ornaments of false noses, and low-crowned, tinder-box-looking hats: playing children's drums, and accompanied by ladies on the penny trumpet.

The noise of these various instruments, the orchestra, the shouting, the 'scratchers,' and the dancing, is perfectly bewildering. The dancing, itself, beggars description - every figure lasts about an hour, and the ladies bounce up and down the middle, with a degree of spirit which is quite indescribable. As to the gentlemen, they stamp their feet against the ground, every time 'hands four round' begins, go down the middle and up again, with cigars in their mouths, and silk handkerchiefs in their hands, and whirl their partners round, nothing loth, scrambling and falling, and embracing, and knocking up against the other couples, until they are fairly tired out, and can move no longer. The same scene is repeated again and again (slightly varied by an occasional 'row') until a late hour at night: and a great many clerks and 'prentices find themselves next morning with aching heads, empty pockets, damaged hats, and a very imperfect recollection of how it was they did not get home.

Six years later Charles Dickens was again describing longways country dancing when he gave the following account of Mr Fezziwig's Christmas Party in his 1843 A Christmas Carol:

Away they all went, twenty couple at once, hands half round and back again the other way; down the middle and up again; round and round in various stages of affectionate grouping; old top couple always turning up in the wrong place; new top couple starting off again, as soon as they got there; all top couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them.

The account goes on to reveal that smart stepping and the fun Sir Roger de Coverley were also still in fashion:

But the great effect of the evening came after the Roast and Boiled, when the fiddler.... struck up 'Sir Roger de Coverley'. Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. top couple, too, with a geood stiff piece of work cut out for them; three or four and twenty pairs of partners: people who were not to be trifled with; people who would dance, and had no ntion of walking.

But if they had been twice as many - ah, four times - old Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and so would Mrs Fezziwig. As to her, she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term...And when old Fezziwig and Mrs Fezziwig had gone all through the dance; advance and retire, both hands to your partner, bow and curtsey, corkscrew, thread-the needle, and back again to your place: Fezziwig 'cut' - cut so deftly, that he appeared to wink with his legs and came upon his feet again without a stagger.

Country dancing, in a country setting, is also described inWinthrop Mackworth Praed (180201836) poem 'The Belle of the Ball', published in 1844:

I saw her at the coutnry ball;
There, when the sounds of flute and fiddle
Gave signal sweet in that old hall
Of hands across and down the middle...

However, as popular as the country dances continued to be in less formal and less metropolitan settings, a dance revolution was under way in the cities. It was a revolution born of embrassing in turn of the quadrille, the waltz, and the polka. These three developments might be taken in turn.

The quadrille evolved out of the cotillon and gained favour in London ballrooms upon the return of Wellington's officers from the continent in 1814. Instead of alternating between changes and figures, as in the earlier dance, 5 or so figures would be combined in a set and several sets, separated by a brief pause, would be combined to create a single dance. Figures characteristic of these dances included the 'forward and back', 'going to the right and left', 'crossing over', 'balance/set to partner's, 'hands around', 'chain', 'ladies chain' and 'promenade'. After preliminary bows to partners and corners, the combination of figures would be performed or lead first by the head couples then by the side. There were ballroom favourites such as the Lancer's which pemiered at Almack's in 1817 (for other favourites see Barclay Dun's 1818 A Translation of Nine of the Most Fashionable Quadrilles) as well as hundreds of original combinations suggested by dance writers (see, for example, Thomas Wilson's 1818 The Quadrille and Cotillion Panorama). Dancing masters recommended as appropriate to quadrilles French-inspired technically challenging footwork, but etiquete writers made it clear that his should not be overdone. As Charles W. Day wrote in his 1836 Hints on Etiquette:

You will not, if you are wise, stand up in a quadrille without knowing something of the figure; and if you are master of a few of the steps, so much the better. But dance quietly; do not kick and caper about, nor sway your body to and fro: dance only from the hips downwards; and lead the lady as lightly as you would tread a measure with a spirt of gossamer.

Do not pride yourself on doing 'steps neatly', unless you are ambitious of being taken for a dancing-master; between whom and to dance like a gentleman there is a great difference.

This new grace-filled dance quickly vanquished the country dance in city ballrooms, but not quiet so quickly in the smaller towns. The battle was characterised in a poem of c. 1822 by the popular Irish poet Thomas Moore (1779-1852) as that between a lusty English nymph and a painted French coquette:

One night the nymph called country dance-
(Whom folks, of late, have used so ill,
Preferring a coquette from France,
That mincing thing, Mamselle Quadrille)-

Having been chas'd from London down
To that most humble haunt of all
She used to grace- a country Town -
went smiling to the New-Year's Ball.

'Here, here, at least,' she cried, 'though driven
From London's gay and shining tracks-
Though, like a Peri cast from heaven,
I've lost, for ever lost, Almack's-

'Though not a London Miss alive
Would now for her acquaintance own me;
And spinsters, even of forty-five,
Upon their honours ne'er have known me;

'Here, here at least, I triumph still,
And - spite of some few dandy Lancers,
Who vainly try to preach Quadrille -
See nought but true-blue Country Dancers...

Just as she is about to enter the ballroom she hears the violinsts playing an aria by Rossini

'Courage!' however - in she goes,
With her best, sweeping country grace;
When, ah too true, her worsts of foes,
Quadrille, there meets her face to face...

There stood Quadrille, with cat-like face
(the beau-ideal of French beauty)...

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...

Full fronting her stood Country Dance -
A fresh, frank nymph, whom you would know
For English, at a single glance -
English all o'er, from top to toe.

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.

When the fiddles began to play the tune Money Musk, Country dance proudly spoke:

'Heard you that strain - that joyous strain
'Twas such as England loved to hear,
Ere thou, and all they frippery train,
Corrupted both her foot and ear -

'Ere Waltz, that rake from foreign lands,
Presumed, in sight of all beholders,
To lay his rude, licentious hands
On virtuous English backs and shoulders - ....

'Ah did you know how blest we rang'd,
Ere vile Quadrille usurp'd the fiddle -
What looks in setting were exchanged,
What tender words in down the middle;

'How many a couple, like the wind,
Which nothing in its course controls,
Left time and chaperons far behind,
And gave a loose to legs and souls;

'How matrimony throve - ere stopp'd
By this cold, silent, foot-coquetting -
How charmingly one's partner popp'd
The important question in poussetting.'

Instant the cry was 'Country dances!'
And the maid saw, with brightening face,
The Steward of the night advance,
And lead her to her birthright place.

The fiddles, which awhile had ceased
Now tuned again their summons sweet,
And, for one happy night at least,
Old England's triumph was complete.

The waltz, which is mentioned in the above poem as another foreign challenger to the country dance, and which had entered European ballroom consciousness in the late 18th century, had by 1810 gained sufficient acceptance among the continental nobility that Napolean thought it necessary to learn the dance in order to impress his young Austrian fiance, Marie Louise. So filled with waltzing couples were the dance halls of Vienna at the time of the 1815 Congress of Vienna, that delegates declare 'Le Congres ne marche pas - il danse'. The dance was soon raising suspicions and passions around the world. In France L.J.Vigee's declared 1804: 

I can understand that the mothers like the waltz, but I cannot understand that they allow their daughters to dance it. 

In America the novelist and satirist James Kirke Paulding wrote in his 1828 The New Mirror for Travelers that:

Among the most disgusting of these importations is the fashion of waltzing, which is becoming common here of late. It was introduced, as I understand, by a party of would-be fashionables that saw it practiced at the operas, with such enchanting languor, grace, and lasciviousness that they fell in love with it and determined to bless their country by transplanting the precious exotic. I would not be understood to censure those nations among whom the waltz is, as it were, indigenous - a national dance. Habit, example, and practice from their earliest youth accustom the women of these countries to the exhibition, and excuse it. But for an American woman, with all her habits and opinions already formed, accustomed to certain restraints, and brought up with certain notions of propriety, to rush into a waltz, to brave the just sentiment of the delicate of her own and the other sex, with whom she has been brought up and continues to associate, is little creditable to good sense, her delicacy, or her morals. Every woman does, or ought to, know that she cannot exhibit herself in the whirling and lascivious windings of a waltz without calling up in the minds of men feelings and associations unworthy of the dignity and purity of a delicate female. The lascivious motions - the upturned eyes, the dizzy circlings, the twining arms and projecting front - all combine to waken in the bosom of the spectators analogies, associations, and passions, which no woman who values the respect of the world ought ever willfully challenge or excite.

Similarly, The Gentleman and Lady's Book of Politeness, Boston,1833 suggested:

The waltz is a dance of quite too loose a character, and unmarried ladies should refrain from it... very young married ladies maybe allowed to waltz if it is very seldom.

The close hold of the new dance (and indeed it was closer than is common in the modern ballroom waltz... and with a wide range of possible landler derived arm holds) shocked an England which had long ago forgotten the pleasures of 'La Volta'. The waltz was not mentioned by Jane Austen until in her 1816 Emma it is mentioned, perhaps as a tune for listening or setting a country dance to, but not as a couples dance. The first recorded dancing of the couples dance in England was druing the peace celebrations of the summer of 1814 when the wife of the Russian Ambassador, the countess Lieven, performed the dance at Almack's, when it caused a great stir. It was not included on the program of any respectable ball till it was included in one given by the Prince Regent in July 1816. A few days later the Times offered the following comment:

We remark with pain that the indecent foreign dance called the 'Waltz' was introduced (we believed for the first time) at the English court on Friday last. This is a circumstance which ought not to be passed over in silence. National morals depend on national habits and it is quite sufficient to cast one's eyes on the voluptuous intertwining of the limbs, and close compressure on the bodies, in their dance, to see that it is indeed far removed from the modest reserve which has hitherto been considered distinctive of English females. So long as this obscene display was confined to prostitutes and adulteresses we did not think it deserving of notice; but now that it is attempted to be forced on the respectable classes of society by the evil example of their superiors, we feel it a duty to warn every parent against exposing his daughter to so fatal a contagion. Amicus plato sed magis amica veritas. We owe a due deference to superior in rank, but we owe a higher duty to morality. We know not how it has happened (probably by the recommendation of some worthless and ignorant French dancing master) that so indecent a dance has now for the first time been exhibited at the English Court; but the novelty is one deserving of severe reprobation, and we trust it will never again be tolerated in any moral English society.

The most surprising condemnation came, however, from the pen of the English poet Lord Byron, who elsewhere had waxed lyrically about dance. In The Waltz: an Apostrophic Hymn which he published in 1814 under the pseudonym of Horace Hornem, Esq. he recounts how Mr. and Mrs Hornem from a midland estate attend a London ball hosted by the Countess of Waltzaway. There Mr Hornem is astounded to see 

dear Mrs.Hornem with her arms half round the loins of a huge hussar-looking gentleman I never set eyes on before: and his, to say truth, rather more than half round her waise, turning round and round to a d -- d see-saw up-and-down sort of tune

The poet goes on to declare:

Endearing Waltz! - to they more melting tune
Bow Irish jig and ancient rigadoon.
Scotch reels, avaunt1 and country-dance, forego
Your future claims to each fantastic toe!
Waltz - Waltz alone - both legs and arms demands,
Liberal of feet and lavish of her hands;
Hands which may freely range in public sight
Where ne'er before - but - pray ' put out the lights'...

Hot from the hands promiscuiously applied,
Round the slight waist, or down the glowing side,
Where were the rapture then to calsp the form
Fom this lew grasp and lawless contact warm?

Approach the lip which all, without restraint,
Come near enough - if not to touch - to taint:

Was this patriotism, sour grapes (born with a clubfoot he may have had difficulty with the dance) or snobbery?

Wide and more wide thy witching circle spreads,
And turns - if nothing else- at least our head;
With thee even clumsy cits attempt to bounce,
And cockneys practise what they can't pronounce.

The waltz, however, seeemed right for this post-minuet, post-French revolution Age, with its rising middle-class, its romanticism and its light classsical dress sense. As it won more and more devotees some country dance teachers seem to have calculated, if you can't beat them join them. Thus Thomas Wilson released in 1817 A Description of the Correct Method of Waltzing in which he outlined the different steps of the 'Slow French Waltz', 'The Sauteuse Waltz' and 'the Jetee' or 'Quick Sauteuse Waltz', and went through the different figures that might be employed (including many knotty allemande-like holds and turns). Indeed, some such as Wilson might have also calculated, if you can't beat them co-opt and subvert them. Thus in his 1816 A Companion to the Ball Room, Wilson joined others of his contemporaries in devising country dances which could be done using waltz rythmns and steps. Wilson called this 'Waltz Country Dancing' or 'Country Dance Waltzing' - using 'Country' in the twin sense of traditional English set dancing and of couple-contre-couple dancing. Sometimes, however, the praise which these counry dancing masters offer the watz seems a little two edged. For example, in his Description of the Correct Method of Waltzing Thomas Wilson wrote that the waltz 

is totally destitute of the complained-of attitudes and movements used in warmer and lighter climates

and hence is 

not an enemy of true morals and endanger virtue

but indeed

chaste in comparison with Country dancing, Cotillons and other species of dancing .

Reservations about the waltz increasingly fell away. Joseph Lanner (1801-43) and Strauss senior (1804-49) helped the rhythm shed its folk image, their small 'pub' bands growing under the genius of their violin bows (doubling as batons) to full touring orchestras. For some, however, the acceptance of the dance was still conditional. Thus the 1833 edition of the Boston manual The Gentleman and Lady's Book of Politeness states: 

The waltz is a dance of quite too loose character, and unmarried ladies should refrain from it... very young married ladies may be allowed to waltz if it is very seldom. 

One version of the waltz was regarded with particular suspicion, that was the 'Vals  deux temps'. Cellarius noted in his 1847 La danse des salons that it is rarely danced properly and similarly The Ballroom Guide (New York and London, uncertain date) observes that:

there are few dances which have amongst their pledged admirers such a vast assemblage of bad dancers as the Valse  Deux Temps. Its rapid temps induces many youths to drag their partners round in a wild scramble, with a total disregard of time and step. 

In Vienna, it was known as the 'Langaus' and Adolph B¯ulerle observed its temporary popularity:

The Mondschein-Saal made an immortal name for itself by the mortality among the young people who visited it, and there danced nothing but the Langaus. At that time it was the fashion to be a dashing dancer, and the man had to waltz his partner from one end of the hall to the other with the greatest possible speed. If one round of the immense hall had been considered sufficient, on might perhaps have allowed this bacchantic dance to pass. But the circle had to be made six to eight times at a breathless speed and without pause. Each couple tried to outdo the other and it was no rare thing for an apoplexy of the lungs to put an end to the madness. Such frightful intermezzi finally made the police forbid the Langaus.

Not everyone in the 1840s was, however, as au fait with the waltz as the times required. Robert Smith Surtees, in his 1843 Jorrock's Jaunts and Jollities, has his English grocer hero visit a middle class ball in Paris where he takes the guests for countesses and dukes and:

In an unlucky moment he took into into his head he could waltz, and surprised the Countess Benvolio by claiming her hand for the next dance. 'It seems werry easy', said he to himself, as he eyed the couples gliding round the room;- 'at all ewents there's nothing like trying...'.... The Countess, it seems, had some misgivings as to his prowess in the dancing line, and used all her strength to get him well off, but the majority of the dancers started before him. At length, however, he began to move, and went rolling away in something between a gallop and a waltz, effecting two turns, like a great cart-wheel, which brought him bang across the room, right into the track of another couple, who were swinging down at full speed, making a cannon of his head against both theirs, and ending by all four coming down upon the hard boards with a tremendous crash - the Countess Benvolio undermost, then the partner of the other Countess, then Jorrock, and then the other Countess herself. Great was the comotion, and the music stopped; Jorrocks lost his wig, and split his Beelzebub breeches acrsso the knees, while the other gentleman cracked his behind and the Countess Benvolio and the other Countess were considerably damaged; particularly the other Countess, who lost four false teeth and broke and ear-ring.

Joining the waltz as an acceptable ballroom dance in this period was the mazurka. As noted in the preceeding section, in the course of the 18th century the mazurka had spread from Poland to most centres of dance on the continent. In the early 19th century this wild and exotic was tamed into a respectable collection of 'tours', variants and related forms, such as the Redowa. Both waltz and mazurka steps were also incorporated into the most fashionable dance of the day, the quadrille - indeed mazurka steps were possibly more popular in this form than any other and contemporary manuals include many mazurka quadrille figures..

No sooner had the waltz and the mazurka found an acceptable place in the ballroom than a new dance, the polka, was laying siege to western European sensibilities. A Bohemian folk dance, some believe it took its name from the Czech word for 'half', in recognition of the half-step with which the foot sequence begins, others that it came from the Czech for 'paddock' or 'yard', in recognition of its rural origins, and still others that it came from the Czech for 'Polish girl', in recognition of the Polish love of dancing and the Polish revolution of 1831. The dance was introduced to Prague in 1837 and the Prague dancing master Johann Raab introduced it to Paris in 1840. By March 1844 The Times' Paris correspondent was reporting that:

politics are for the moment suspended in public regard by the new and all-absorbing pursuit - the polka - a dance recently imported from Bohemia, and which embraces in its qualities the intimacy of the waltz, with the vivacity of the Irish jig. You may conceive how completely is 'the Polka' the rage from the (I am assured) fact that the lady of a celebrated ex-minister desiring to figure in it at a soiree dansante, monopolised the professor par excellence of that specialité, for three hours on Wednesday....

In April 1844 an article in the Illustrated London News was highly critical of the new dance:

The weathercock heads of the Parisians have been delighted always by any innovation, but they never imported anything more ridiculous or ungraceful than this Polka. It is a hybrid confusion of Scotch Lilt, Irish Jig and Bohemian Waltz, and needs only to be seen once to be avoided for ever!

A month later, on 11 May 1844, after the dance's debut at Almack's, the prestigious London ballroom, The Illustrated London News carried the following note:

The Polka begins with an introduction and consists of five figures. Of these, the heel and toe step, which was the most characteristic feature of the dance, has been abandoned probably owing to the difficulty I executing it properly, which generally caused it to result in the dancers' stamping their own heels upon other people's toes. We would observe the La Polka is a noiseless dance; there is no stamping of heels, toes, or kicking of legs in sharp angles forward. This may do very well at the threshold of a Bohemian auberge, but is inadmissible in the salons of London. As now danced by us it is elegant, graceful and fascinating in the extreme; it is replete with opportunities of showing care and attention to your partner....

That same month the dance appeared in the United States and there was even an attempt by Mr James Polk to use the dances populartiry as part of his presidential campaign that same year. By 1845 it was being danced as far away as Calcutta at a ball in honour of Queen Victoria.

Meanwhile, back in Paris dance teachers could hardly cope with demand for lessons. In La Polka ensiegnée sans maître (Paris, 1845) - a work drawing on Coralli, Perrot and Roberts, a collection of aphorisms on the polka included the following.  

'To dance the polka men and women must have hearts that beat high and strong. Tell me how you do the polka, and I will tell you how you love.

'One keeps his secret in the contre-danse, but it escapes in the polka'

'One must polka before being truly loved, for fear of dying without having done the polka'

'Love, poetry and liberty. There in three words is all of the polka'. 

This same book also gives an account of how arrangements were made for the two most celebrated teachers of the day, Cellarius and Coralli, together with their best students, to meet 'polka-to-polka':

As the familiar strains fell on the ears the Cellarians took courage; they advanced with great spirit, bringing their heel up under the coat tails in the most daring fashion, and remained masters in the field. But their triumph was not of long duration. The crowd presently parted to make way for their terrible rivals, whose very first steps ensured the discomfiture of the Cellarians.

Though defeated that day on the field of footwork, Cellarius' triumphed over all contemporaries in the field of publication. His 1847 La danse des salons, provide excellent descriptions of numerous waltz, polka and mazurka variants. The work was translated into English in 1847 as The Drawingroom Dances and the text was incorporated into many manuals subsequently published in Europe, the United States and Australia (e.g. the 1875 Melbourne publication by Roberts, Manual of Fashionable Dancing)

The dancing masters from England and the Continent who settled in the coastal towns of the New World proclaimed contras unfashionable and introduced the new quadrilles and couples dances. They retreated almost entirely to rural New England where the same rural Puritan conservatism which had once nearly killed country dancing, now ensured its survival. As a contributor to the Claremont South Village newspaper in 1897 wrote:

We know of nothing connected with theses dances that could be called vulgar or immoral. Everything is conducted in an orderly and quiet manner, and if we believe the Bible, as I hope we all do, dancing is a pastime that has been indulged in almost from the beginning of creation.

In the relative isolation of the backblocks contra dancing continued to evolve. Dances which Scottish and Irish settlers had brought were 'contrified'. The 'set' became a stomping 'balance', the flowing of figures came to involve a constant giving of weight and the 'courtesy turn' became a tight side-by-side wheel.

Two innovations during this century proved above all to shape 'contras' as distinctive from English Country dancing. The first was the advent of the 'buzz step' swing- probably borrowed, along with many fine fiddle tunes, from the French-Canadians who crossed into northern New England (many more French speakers resettling after loosing Arcadia to the British in French held Louisiana and became known as the 'Cajuns' - much the same as 'Indians' became colloquially 'Injuns'.) When first introduced into New England social dance, men, rather than pressing their sweaty palm against their partner's back, often held a silk handkerchief and the spread in popularity of the swing can be traced in the sales of silk handkerchiefs as recorded in extant shopkeeping books. The second innovation was the crossing over of the first, third and every alternate couple thereafter in the duple minor longways set to create an 'improper' set. The two innovations ensured each other's adoption. This new 'improper' formation gave many more opportunities for swinging a person of the opposite sex and the pleasure of the swing ensured the popularity of the new formation. Together they also ensured the popularity of the 'duple minor' over the 'triple minor'.

With the new dance crazes of the early 19th century also came treatises condemning dance and ball going. Thus Reverend Jacob Ide noting in his 1818 sermon The Nature an Tendency of Balls arguing that balls excited undesirable feels and that the resulting love of company would lead to idleness, while B.M. Palmer of South Carolina warned in his 1849 sermon Social dancing inconsistent with a Christian profession that those who danced were 

fallen and depraved, subject to the domination of wicked passions. 

Writers in Germany and Switzerland attempted to prove that dancing broke the covenants.

The ball continued to be a centrally important social institution into the later half of the 19th century. It was seen to serve the purposes of both men and women. On the former R.S. Surtees (1803-1864) observed in Mr Facey's Hounds (1865): 

These sort of boobies think that people come to balls to do nothing but dance; whereas everyone knows that the real business of a ball is either to look out for a wife, to look after a wife, or to look after somebody else's wife.

On the later the American dancing master Charles Durang wrote in his 1856 work The Fashionable Dancer's Casket that dancing:

gives to the influence of woman to wean the male sex from those very gross habits of drinking, smoking, gambling, chewing and revelling, to which it is prone when left undireced; while it develops the inherent power of the female sex, when clothed with the polite accomplishments, to correct and reform from these revolting practices, restoring man to his original dignity and usefulness; which he repays by his chivalry, protection, atttentions and agreeable society.

Lousia May Alcott, in her 1868 Little Women, also makes it clear that a ball was a good vehicle for enflaming useful jealously, for Amy, at a ball in the French town of Nice, determined that Laurie should sit and watch her a while enjoy the company of other men. Her description of that 'travellers' ball makes it clear that there was something for everyone:

Or course, there were many light-footed, and shrill-voiced American girls, handscome, lifeless-looking English ditto, and a few plain but piqunante French demoiselles; likewise the usual set of travelling young gentlemen, who disported themselves gaily, while mamas of all nations lined the walls, and smiled upon them benignly when they danced with their daughters... everybody danced who could, and those who couldn't admired their neighbors with uncommon warmth... The Serene Tuton found the supp table, and happy, eating steadily through the bill of fare... the Emperor's friend covered himself with glory, for he danced everything, whether he knew it or not, and introduced inpromptu pirouettes when the figures bewildered him. The boyish abandon of that stout man was charming to behold... Amy and her Pole distinguished themselves by equal enthusiasm...

With interest in the latest quadrilles and couples dances spreading across Europe and the colonised world, so to the appetite for dance manual spread. Dozens were produced in every country from Russia to South America, Spain to Australia. Some notable ones in England and Europe include Rudoph Radestock's 1877 The Royal Ballroom Guide and Eugene Giraudet's 1870 Traité de la danse and his 1885 La danse. Some notable ones in the United States included Charles Durang's 1856 The Fashionable Dancer's Casket (quoted above), Edward Ferrero's 1859 The Art of Dancing, Thomas Hillgrove's 1863 A Complete Practical Guide, William De Garmo's 1865 The Prompter, Lawrence De Garmo Brookes' 1867 Brookes on Modern Dancing and Allen Dodswlorth 1870's student aid pamphlets. There were many manuals specifically aimed at assisting those who wanted to call quadrille figures e.g. Luis Papanti's 1878 De Witt's Ballroom Call Book and Frank Leslie Clendenen's 1899 Fashionable Quadrille Call Book or Charles Link's 1893 Unique Dancing Call Book.

It wasn't long before there were people satyrising the latest craze. Thus, you have Lewis Carroll in his 1865 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, almost making sense when he has the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle describe the first figure of the Lobster-Quadrille:

'... when you've cleared all the jelly-fish out of the way... you advance twice'
'Each with a lobster as a partner!' cried the Gryphon.
'Of course,' the Mock Turtle said: 'advance twice, set to partners-'
'-change lobsters, and retire in same order,' continued the gryphon

There were also humorous songs - such as this one, Dancing Quadrilles, which went to the tune 'Packingtons' Pound':

Monsieur Paris tonight cannot come to us,
Pity so many for nothing should meet,
Dinah our Aunt the Piano shall strum to us,
While we are trying to handle our feet;
'Queue du chat', 'dos a dos',
'Balancez', 'point the toe',
You who the figure know,
Share not our ills,
But without Masters,
We meet with disasters,
When first at thirty we practise Quadrilles.

Mister Longshank will dance with Miss Roundabout,
Little Miss Frizzle with tall Mr Post; -
Hush one moment! the Music don't sound about,
Not one half of us, Partners can boast;
One cannot talk to us,
One's a mere balk to us,
One of all folk to us,
Greatest of ills;
But e'en with Masters,
We meet with disasters,
Who first at thirty are learning Quadrilles.

Major Toledo shall dance with Miss Sprigginsby, -
Blow me! she'll scarcely reach up to my knees;
Tabitha Turtle with Alderman Higginsby; -
Now Aunt Dinah strike up if you please.
'Pastorelle' - 'Polonais'
'Corinne' - 'Paysan' - 'L'ete'
All you who know the way
Laugh at our ills,
But without Masters,
We meet with disasters,
When first at thirty we're learning Quadrilles.

Lord good Sir pray don't tread on one's flounces so!
Sure such a brute was before never known!
Pray dear Madam who blusters and bounces so? -
Mincing Miss Frizzle, O leave her alone!
'Retournez' - pray be calm,
'Rechassez' - 'Chaine des dames'
'En avant' - flattery's balm,
Soothes all her ills,
Still without Masters,
We meet Sad disasters,
Who first at thirty are learning Quadrilles.

Smiles and sentiment, mutt'rings and jealousies,
Chequer'd with pain are the pleasures we feel;
Lo! Miss Tabby that charming young fellow sees,
Soon on the Alderman she turns her heel.
He, dumb as Nox the while,
Stiff as the stocks the while
Stands, tho' his Locks the while
Rise at his ills;
Best without Masters,
To meet disasters,
Than thus to be teazed while we're learning Quadrilles.

Still we manage to kill our old enemy,
We can no longer of ennui complain;
Then for tomorrow agree we dis:nemine,
Once more to muster and practice again,
' Queue du chat' - 'dos a dos'
' Balancez' - 'point the toe'
You who the figure know
Share not our ills;
But without Masters,
We meet with disasters,
Who first at thirty are learning Quadrilles.

Although this song makes fun of some of the figures, and although one was advised to learn the figures before a ball night, the stepping which predominated in the later half of the 19th century was much simpler than that of the first half, being nothing more than a graceful walk. Thus in Alcott's Little Women, at the ball in Nice the set Amy found herself:

was composed of English, and Amy was compelled to walk decorously through a cotillon

Similarly in her Manners and Social Usages (New York, 1884), Mrs Sherwood writes:

The quadrille is a stately and a conversational dance. The figures are accurate, and everyone should know them well enough to respond to the voice of the leader. But inasmuch as the figures are always calling one away from his partner, the first law is to have large asupply of small-talk, so that , on rejoining, a remark and a smile may make up for lost time. A calm, graceful carriage, the power to make an elegant courtesy, are necessary to a lady. No one in these days takes steps; a sort of galop is, however, allowed in the rapid figures of the quadrille. A defiant manner, sometimes assumed by a bashful man, is out of place, although there are certain figures which make a man feel rather defiant... Then a man should equally avoid a boisterous demeanour in a quadrille, not swinging the lady round too gayly. It is never a romping dance, like the Virginia reel, for instance.

In every European and European-colonised country there were balls for every occasion - and the program, whether for a town hall vice-regal reception, a railway goods shed opening, an outdoor forester's fete or a goldfield miners dance (these examples coming from the Australian scene), would be made up nearly entirely of quadrilles and couples dances. One of the few exception was the opening dance which would often be a 'Polonaise' or grand march. As H.Meyen noted in his 1852 The Ballroom Guide 

every well-arranged ball should commence with this graceful dance in a conversational character' and that the figures should go 'either in a circle, a straight, or serpentine line, either across or round the ballroom

but that dancers should avoid figures that might 'endanger the head dress of the ladies'.

Less formal balls and dance parties in polite company would also include the 'cotillion', also know as the 'German cotillion' or simply 'the German'. This dance took its name from the proto-quadrille of a century earlier, but was quiet different. This dance was really a series of party-game done primarily to waltz music, but also to polkas, galops, mazurkas and, towards the end of the century, to the new one-steps and two-steps.. It had first been introduced into balls in Paris in 1827 by Count Rodolph Apponyi, cousin of the Austrian ambassador and as the very influential Duchesse de Berry took it up, it soon gained great populariry. The dance could involve all manner of accessories - a cushion, mirror, spare chair, paper flowers. It could even involve humiliation, e.g. the looser in Cellarius' 'La Kangaroo' (also known as 'the Fan') being required to hop around on one foot while fanning a dancing couple. The trinkets given in wealthier circles only added to the sense of competition. Thus the American dancing-master C.H.Cleveland, wrote in his 1878 Dancing at Home and Abroad:

The German among the ultra fashionable people of our larger cities at one time exercies an objectionable influence on young people, from the extravangce of rivalry in the costliness of the 'favours'... Diamond rings and studs; fans of ivory and ostrich plumes, inlaid with gold and set with jewels; lade hankercheifs, opera-chains, toilet-slippers, smoking-caps, and an infinity of other costly trifles, - were offered and accepted between ladies and ladies and gentlemen... 

It became so popular that there were some publications devoted entirely to the subject (e.g. F.Opual's 1877 Le cotillon and Harris B.Kick's 1895 How to lead the German). The anonymous authors ('Two Amateur Leaders') of the 1879 The German included in their comprehensive advice a warning:

Keep your temper if you can, but in any case have your figures go through. If people are stupid, take them by the hand, pull them here, or push them there, but make each and every figure 'run on' in order. Do not allow this or that couple to drop out of the fiugre and waltz. Do not permit Mr A to slip off and dance with Miss C, when he rightfully should dance with Miss B. This sort of thing must not be permitted, because it breaks up your figures and destroys your 'German'. People will be thoughtless and attempt these things always; but absolute firmness throughout a couple of figures will effectually put an end to such annoyances. Furthermore, by preserving entire order and not permitting any disarrangement of your figures, you will find it easy to keep your temper also.

It is the directing of a cotillion that Leo Tolstoy describes when, in his 1876 Anna Karenina, he has Korsunsky showing a 'complicated figure' which he had recently invented and 'all the time running about directing the figure'.

Despite the dance's popularity, given the complicated social dynamic involved in a successful one (not to mention the cruel cheekiness of many figures) it was not recommended for large public balls. As Mrs Sherwood wrote in her 1884 Manners and Social Usages:

The 'German' (the 'Cotillon' as the French call it) is, however, and probably long will be, the most fashionable dance in society. It ends every ball in New York, Washington, Boston, Philadelphia, and Newport; it is a part of the business of life, and demands consummate skill in its leadership. Any number may join in it; it often reaches twice around a long ballroom. All the couples in it are regarded as introduced to each other. No lady can refuse to dance with any gentleman who is brought to her in the German. So long as she remains in the charmed circle she must dance with any one in it. Therefor the German must only be introduced at select assemblies, not at a public ball...

The new couples dances of the first half of the 19th century continued to evolve. The 'Valse a deux temps' or 'Two-step waltz', which had been all the rage in the 1840s, started to fall from favour. In his 1885 The Art of Waltzing and Guide to the Ballroom, Edward Scott commented that the dance was 

little else than a galop performed to waltz music; it is rarely heard and we are fortunate in being rid of such an ungraceful movement. 

In that same year, in his Dancing and its Relations to Education and Social Life, Allen Dodsworth called it the 'Ignoramus Waltz', while the true waltz is 

the culmination of modern society dancing, the dance which has for fifty years resisted every kind of attack, and is today the most popular known. From palace to hovel its fascination is supreme, and it is truly worthy of this universal love, for no other dance so fully gratifies the sense of rhythmical motion as the modern waltz with its poetic time and phrasing. 

Mrs Sherwood, in her 1884 Manners and Social Usages, defends the valse a deux temps, but is herself possibly confusing it with the valse a trois temps. There was clearly a range of possible waltz styles:

In England the valse a deux temps is still the most fashionable, as it always will be the most beautiful, of dances. Some of the cirtics of all countries have said that only Germans, Russians, and Americans can dance it. The Germans dance it very quickly, with a great deal of motion, but render it elegant by slacking the pace every now and then. The Russians waltz so quietly, on the contrary, that they can go round the room holding a brinnimg glass of champagne without spilling a drop. This evenness in waltzing is very graceful, and can only be reached by long practice, a good ear fro music, and a natural gracefulness. Young Americans, who, as rule, are the best dancers in the world, achieve this step to admiration.

That some young gentlemen could not distinguish between the deux-temps and trois-temps waltz is clear from Courtenay Boyles' article on 'Ball-Giving and Ball-Going' published in Macmillan's, vol 27, November 1872-April 1873:

They valse as though the sole objective was to get round the room as quickly as possible, and the most perfect feat were to dance from one room into the other. In the majority of cases there is no thought whatever of the flow or rhythm of the music and very little of the time. A certain incomprehensible step, which is a jumble of deux-temps and trois-temps, is held quite sufficient for all practical purposes, and with this they whirl their unfortunate partners round and round in total disregard of smoothness and grace.

Though the American Mrs Sherman was dismissive of how the Germans waltzed, nowhere was the fascination for the waltz stronger than in the German speaking lands. A.Schultz reported in Das hofische Leben zu Zeit der Minnersinger that:

The people here are excessively fond of the pleasure of dancing; they need only hear the music of a waltz to begin to caper, no matter where they are. The public dance floors are visited by all classes; these are the places where ancestors and rank seem to be forgotten and aristocratic pride laid aside. Here we see artisans, artists, merchants, councillors, barons, counts, and excellencies dancing together with waitresses, women of the middle class, and ladies. Every stranger who stays here for a while is infected by this dance malady.

One other developement in the late 19th century ballroom was that the mazurka started to fall from favour. The expressive individualistic, improvised nature of the dance, not to mention the technical and athletic challenge it presented (there being many different footwork patterns and weight-change patterns), not really being suited to the western European, American or Australian ballroom. In Russia, however, it may have been a different matter. Tolstoy, in his 1876 Anna Karenina, describes Kitty longing for the dance:

She looked forwards with a thrill at her heart to the mazurka. She fancied that in the mazurka everything mus be decided. The fact that he did not during the quadrille ask her for the mazurka did not trouble her. She felt sure she would dance the mazurka with him as she had done at former balls, and refused five young men, saying she was engaged for the mazurka... But before the mazurka, when they were beginning to rearrange the chairs and a few couples moved out of the smaller rooms into the big room, a moment of despair and horror came for Kitty. She had refused five partners, and now she was not dancing the mazurka.

Even here, however, it is clear that the Mazurka is no longer the vital couples dance once meant by that name. It was instead, a form of the cotillon or German - or at least one part of the same. Thus the setting out of the chairs, thus Vronsky and Anna sitting at the beginning of the dance, and thus Anna

came forward into the centre of the circle, chose two gentelemen, and summoned a lady and Kitty.

Near relatives of the mazurka, such as the redowa, clearly continued to be taught to those who would be accomplished but many clearly didn't find it easy - thus Louisa May Alcott, in her 1870 An Old-Fashioned Girl, describes:

...Tom hoppping one way and Polly the other, in a most ungraceful manner.
'Keep time to the music,' gasped Polly.
'Can't; never could,' returned Tom.
'Keep step with me, then, and don't tread on my toes,' pleaded Polly.
'Never mind; keep bobbing, and we'll come right by and by,' muttered Tom, giving his unfortunte partner a sudden whisk, which nearly landed both on the floor.

Though the mazurka as a ballroom couples dance almost vanished, it had popular off-spring through marriage with both the polka and the the waltz -t he polka mazurka and the Varsovienna.

The polka retained its popularity in both England and France well into the 1880s. As late as 1886 George Grossmith published his song 'See me dance the polka':

'Tis sweet on summer eve to rove
By the banks of the river Tolka,
But the joys of life but little prove
Unles you dance the Polka.
Oh! Won't you dance the Polka?
Oh! Can't you dance the Polka?
The joys of life but little prove
Unless you dance the Polka.

The polka became crossed with other dances such as the galop and the mazurka to produce dances such as the polka redowa, polka mazurka, gitana and zingerilla. Indeed, so irresistible was the polka that it managed to take couples dancing into places, such as Scotland, which had resisted the temptations of the waltz, galop and mazurka.

Once the polka had breach Scottish resistance, the Scots attempt other couples dance, including a near relative of the polka which came to bear the name of Scotland, the Schottische. The schottische was not, however, of Scottish origins. It was almost certainly from Germany where the 'Rheinlander' had been danced since the 18th century. It came to England a few years after the polka and being similar to the polka, received a mixed reception. The Routledge's Ballroom Companion of 1860 considered the dance German both in music and character. The fact, however, that both the schottische rhythm and Scottish reels have a 'snap' to them, may have encouraged not only the adoption of the dance in Scotland (and northern England where they have a similar 'snap' to their hornpipes), but also some continenal dancing master to regard it as a 'Scottish' dance.

The Schottische had its ballroom critics. The author of Warne's Ballroom Guide from the 1860 claimed: 

This is, if possible, danced less than the Polka in the upper circles. It is deemed to be irretrievably vulgar. With children and young persons it is, however, still a favourite. 

Many schottische variants accordingly bypassed the ballrooms and went straight from the popular traditions of one country to the next - north to Scandinavia, south to Slovenia and west to North America. The Highland Schottische, a combination of the basic Schottische and the old Reel setting step, appeared in about 1855, became an immediate favourite in Scotland and spread not just through the highlands but also to the United States and Australia.

Right at the end of the 19th century, out of the schottische came the Two-step, often danced in America to John Philip Sousa 'The Washington Post' March.

Together, all the above couples dances, waltzes, mazurkas, varsoviennas, polkas, schottisches, two-steps and their variants became known in late 19th century America as 'Round dances' (M.B.Gilbert's 1890 Round Dancing had descriptions of more than 150 such couples dance variations). The new dances proved an easy target for anti-dance treatises. In his 1869 The Dance of Modern Society W.Wilkinson claimed the ball was simply a 

massing together of a jostling crowd of mute or merely gibbering animal'. 

W.E. Penn's 1884 There is No Harm in Dancing suggested that though itself not harmful, its fruit were

 pride, lasciviousness, lying, drunkenness, embezzlement, fornication, cruelty, idolatry, prostitution, abortion, and assassination. 

In 1894 James Kirby of Victoria, Australia, wrote:

I think, and have often said, that dancing went out when the Polka came in, which I think is not 50 years ago. The Polka was the first of the new fashioned dances, as they were then called, which came out, and then by degrees following the more fandangled rubbish which is now called dancing.

In his 1899 An Account of the Trial of Social Dance the Reverend George Davis put dance on trial, with public conscience as the jury and with witnesses including Mr Round Dancing Master and Miss Chicago Barmaid.

Many other publications denounced dancing as bad for health and a waste of time and money. In 1866 an article in the English magazine Belgravia reported:

We who go forth on nights and see without the slightest discomposure our sister and our wife siezed on by a strange man and subjected to violent embraces and cnaterings round a small-sized apartment - the only appareent excuse for such treatment being that is done to the sound of music - can scarcely realize the horror which greeted the introduction of this wicked dance.

Some such as John H. Young, Deportment; or The Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society, (Detroit, 1881) simply believed:

There should be an equal number of waltzes and quadrilles, with one or two contra dances, which would give an opportunity to those who object (or whose parents object) to round dances to appear on the floor.

Others, such as the Rev. Charles B. Goss, in the 1890 treatise Hot Shot Fired at Fashion's Follies and Society's Abominations...argued that the new dances are simply too pleasant:

I am not going to show that round dances are not a great pleasure, for they are. But I will show that the pleasure is entirely such a physical one as no pure girl or woman or man should enjoy outside of marriage. In other words, that all such pleasures are wicked. I do not mean that everyone who dances round dances is lewd or lives an adulterous life, but that at such places the holiest ties of marriage are made a jest. ... Young girls who feel the fires of this pleasure coursing through their veins in a sensuous flood do not analyze the sensations. They do not know what it means, except that it is most superlatively pleasant.

This feeling is part of love. In its highest pleasures love is the sweetest of all earthly bliss, but people are not ready for their daughters to learn this fact outside of matirmony and through the delights of the waltz.

For some,even the waltz should be avoided. Thus Thomas Faulkner devoted a whole treatise, his 1892 From the Ballroom to Hell to the dangers of the waltz:

When she raises her eyes, timidly at first, to that handsome but deceitful face, now so close to her own, the look that is in his eyes as they meet hers, seems to burn into her very soul. A strange, sweet thrill shakes her very being and leaves her weak and powerless and obliged to depend for support upon the arm which is pressing her to himself in such a suggestive manner, but the sensation is a pleasant one and grows to be the very essence of her life. She grows more bold, and from being able to return shy glances at first, is soon able to meet more daring ones until, with heart beating against heart, hand clasped in hand, and eyes looking burning words which lips dare not speak, the waltz becomes one long, sweet and purely sensual pleasure. But, let us turn our attention again to the dancers, at two o-clock the next morning. This is the favorite waltz, and the last and most furious of the night, as well as the most disgusting. Let us notice as an example, our fair friend once more. She is now in the vile embrace of the Apollo of the evening. Her head rests upon his shoulder, her face is upturned to his, her bare arm is almost around his neck, her partly nude swelling breast heaves tumultuously against his, face to face they whirl on, his limbs interwoven with hers, his strong right arm around her yielding form, he presses her to him until every curve in the contour of her body thrills with the amorous contact. Her eyes look into his, but she sees nothing; the soft music fills the room, but she hears it not; he bends her body to and fro, but she knows it not; his hot breath, tainted with strong drink, is on her hair and cheek, his lips almost fierce, intolerable lust, gloat over her, yet she does not quail. She is filled with the rapture of sin in its intensity; her spirit is inflamed with passion and lust is gratified in thought. With the last low wail the music ceases, and the dance for the night is ended, but not the evil work of the night.

So far had dance drifted in the course of the 19th century from what had been regarded as classically beautiful that some respected dancing masters started to include in their publications, descriptions of such baroque favourites as the minuet, gavotte, pavan and bourrée (e.g. Eugėne Giraudet's 1870 Traité de la danse, Allen Dodworth in his 1885 Dancing and its Relations to Education and Social Life, G. Descrat's c.100 Traité de la danse). Others, sought to combine the contemporary and the historical and thus Eugėne Giraudet's 1885 La danse contained directions for a gavotte-polka, a gavotte-valse and a pavan-valse, while M.B.Gilbert's 1890 Round Dancing included instructions for a waltz minuet.

Under pressure from the fast spreading quadrilles and new couples dances country dancing lost ground in both England, the US and Australia. The invention of dances in traditional country dance forms came to an end. The books of figures which were published regularly and sold like hot cakes right up to the Regency period gave way to manuals of instruction in the more fashionable dancing. A variety of country dances survived in rural England, but they were predominantly those without minor sets - simple longways dances of the kind which survive in modern English ceili dancing or Australian bushdancing. Thus, in Thomas Hardy's 1872 Under the Greenwood Tree, in the course of the countrydance called the 'Triumph or Follow my Lover', Dick, son of the local goods hauler, competes with the wealthy farmer Mr Shiner for possession of pretty Fancy Day:

Mr Shiner, according to the interesting rule laid down, deserted his own partner, and made off down the middle with this fair one of Dick's - the pair appearing from the top of the room like two persons tripping down a lane to be married. Dick trotted behind with what was intended to be a look of composure, but which was, in fact, a rather silly expression of feature ... then they turned and came back, when Dick grew more rigid around his mouth, and blushed with ingenuous ardour as he joined hands with the rival and formed the arch ovber his lady's head; relinquishing her again at setting to partners...

Only one longways country dances (also of the simple variety which did not require minor sets) survived in the fashionable ballroom scene- it was known as Sir Roger de Coverly in England and the Virginia Reel in America (in Australia both names were used). It is this dance, which Hardy describes a little further on in his 872 Under the Greenwood Tree, when Dick finally gets to dance with Fancy:

Again and again did Dick share his Love's hand with another man, and wheel round; then, more delightfully, promenade in a circle with her all to himself, his arm holding her waist more firmly each time, and his elbow getting futher and further behind her back, till the distance reached was rather noticeable; and, most blissful, swinging to places shoulder to shoulder, her breath curling round his neck like a summer zephyr that had strayed from its proper date. Threading the couples one by one they reached the bottom, when there arose in Dick's mind a minor misery lest the tune should end before they could work their way to the top again, and have anew the same exciting run down through. Dick's feelings on actually reaching the top in spite of his doubts were supplemented by a mortal fear that the fiddling might even stop at this supreme moment; which prompted him to convey a stealthy whisper to the far-gone musicians, to the effect that theyt were not to leave off till he and his partner had reached the bottom of the dance once more, which remark was replied to the nearest of those convulsed and quivering men by a private nod to the anxious young man between two semiquavers of the tune, and a simultaneous 'All right, ay, ay,' without opening the eyes.

It might also have been the outdoor village dance which Eustacia joined with Wildeve in Hardy's 1878 The Return of the Native with tragic romantic consequences:

Wildeve gave her his arm and took here down on the outside of the ring to the bottom of the dance, which they entered. In two minutes more they were involved in the figure and began working their way upwards to the top. Till they had advanced half-way thither Eustacia wished more than once that she had not yield to his request; from the middle to the top she felt that, since she had come out to seek pleasure, she was only doing a natural thing to obtain it. Fairly launched into the ceaseless glides and whirls which their new position as top couple opened up to them, Eustacia's pulses began to move too quickly for longer rumination of any kind.

Through the length of five and twenty couples they threaded their giddy way, and a new vitality entered her form.

The dance in its American form is amusingly described by Mark Twain in his article on the 'Grand Ball at La Plata' published in 1863 in Territorial Enterprise

We found it a very easy matter to dance it, as long as we had thirty of forty lookers-on to prompt us. The dancers were formed in two long ranks, facing each other, and the battle opens with some light skirmishing between the pickets, which is gradually resolved into a general engagement along the whole line: after that, you have nothing to do but stand by and grab every lady that drifts within reach of you, and swing her. It is very entertaining, and elaborately scientific also; but we observed that with a partner who had danced it before, we were able to perform it rather better than the balance of the guests.

The English and American country dance scenes, became cut off from one another. The country dance form survived, however, in rural and less formal settings where it was not seen as an art but as a necessary ingredient for a party.

In England every village had a few country dances they'd still do at all their celebrations. Thus, in a section of his novel Absent Mindedness in a Parish Choir Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) describes how:

'Twas a very dark afternoon, and by the end of the sermon all you could see of the inside of the church were the parson's two candles alongside of him in the pulpit, and his spaking face behind 'em. The sermon being ended at last, the parson asked for the Evening Hymn. But there was no sounding up of the tune, and people began to turn their heads to learn the reason why, and then, a boy who sat in the gallery, nudged Timothy and Nicholas, and said, 'Begin! Begin!'. 'Hey what?' says Nicholas, starting up, and the church being so dark and his head muddled, he thought he was at the party they had played at the night before, and away he went, bow and fiddle, at 'The Devil among the Tailors', the favourite jig of our neighbourhood. The rest of the band, being in the same state of mind, followed their leader with all their strength, according to custom. They poured out the tune till the bass notes made the cobwebs in the roof shiver like ghosts. Then Nicholas, seeing nobody moved, shouted out as he scraped, 'Top couples cross hands! And when I make the fiddle squeak at the end, every man kiss his partner under the mistletoe!' Then the unfortunate church band came to their senses, and remembered where they were. Twas a sight to see Nicholas and Timothy Thomas creep down the gallery stairs with their fiddles under their arms, with the rest of the band, all looking as little ninepins, and out they went. The parson might have forgiven them when he learned the truth but the squire would not. That very week he sent for a barrel organ that would play twenty new psalm-tunes so exact that however sinfully inclined you were, you could play nothing but psalm-tunes, and the old players played no more. 

In America the longways country dance form was kept alive in the Appalachia and in the small New England towns.

Although song is not the main theme of these dance history pages, we might briefly return to the subject of song, dance and ritual explored in the opening page of this chapter and observe that in the late 19th century, as part of the general re-invigoration of Christmas promoted by Albert and Victoria (and to no small degree also encouraged by Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol story), carols, as festive songs enjoyed a revival. They were no longer associated with dance, and no longer associated also with festivals outside the Christmas season, but a musical tradition which had developed largely outside the church, came inside the church. This revival coincided with important manuscript discoveries and a renewed intellectual interest in the subject. Many fine poets wrote new carols in old styles ... but its been left to use today to put the corpus to dance (see our Christmas Dances page).

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