Very little change would be needed to fit the above to the Jazzmania of to-day. The polka had a long innings. When the 'forties opened, the waltz and the quadrille were firmly entrenched in fashionable favour. The waltz, as we write, shows signs of rearing its diminished head, but the quadrille, in those days a most elaborate business with a variety of figures--La Pastorale, L'Été, La Trénitz, La Poule, etc.--is dead beyond redemption. But the polka mania raged with little abatement for a good ten years.[17] In 1844, amongst other advertisements of teachers of the art of dancing, was that of a young lady who had been instructed by a Bohemian nobleman. In spite of much ridicule and many appeals (in which Thackeray joined) for the suppression of the pest, the malady was described as still acute in the dog-days of 1856, and, in more subdued phases, lasted for another fifty years. The mazurka also came into vogue in the mid-'forties, but was never a serious rival to the polka in its prime. It was an age of famous professional dancers--Taglioni (who gave her name to an overcoat), Fanny Ellsler, Cerito, and Grisi, the cousin of the _prima-donna_; but though there were schools of dancing, and _Thés dansants_, which _Punch_ heavily ridiculed, and though the fashionables occasionally secured the exclusive use of the lawns at Cremorne, there was no competition between amateurs and professionals, as in modern times. The latter were left the monopoly of the higher flights of the art. Besides the polka, the accomplishments of the young lady of fashion were mainly decorative. If they did not toil or spin, at least they occupied themselves with fancy knitting, crochet, and the practice of Poonah painting--an early and crude imitation of Oriental art, so popular that the advertisements of instructors in "Indian Poonah painting" figure in the newspapers and directories of the time. The fashionable pets were spaniels, macaws, and Persian cats. The prevailing tastes in art and letters in fashionable or genteel society are (allowing for a little exaggeration) not badly hit off in a paper on the Natural History of Courtship, giving hints for the nice conduct of conversation at a social gathering:-- [Footnote 17: A correspondent wrote to _The Times_ in 1846 complaining that at Ramsgate "the ladies dance polkas in their bathing dresses," and suggesting a stricter supervision of the proprieties by policemen.] [Sidenote: _Modish Futilities_]