It is a great mistake under which the Scotch people lie, in supposing themselves to be excellent dancers; and yet one hears the mistake reechoed by the most sensible, sedate, and danceabhorring Presbyterians one meets with. If the test of good dancing were activity, there is indeed no question, the northern beaux and belles might justly claim the pre-eminence over their brethren and sisters of the south. In an Edinburgh ball-room, there appears to be the same pride of bustle, the same glorying in muscular agitation and alertness-the same "sudor immanis," to use the poet's phrase, which used of old to distinguish the sports of the Circus or the Campus Martius. But this is all;-the want of grace is as conspicuous in their performances, as the abundance of vigour. We desiderate the conscious towerlike poise-the easy, slow, unfatigu ing glide of the fair pupils of D'Estainville. To say the truth, the ladies in Scotland dance in

not a more sincere admirer than myself. As for the gentleman, who chose to take what I said of him in so much dudgeon, he will observe, that I have allowed what I said to remain exactly in statu quo, which I certainly should not have done had he expressed his displeasure in a more rational manner.

P. M.

common pretty much like our country lasses at a harvest-home. They kick and pant as if the devil were in them; and when they are young and pretty, it is undoubtedly no disagreeable thing to be a spectator of their athletic display; but I think they are very ignorant of dancing as a science. Comparatively few of them manage their feet well, and of these few what a very insignificant portion know any thing about that equally important part of the art-the management of the arms. And then how absurdly they thrust out their shoulder blades! How they ne glect the undulation of the back! One may compare them to fine masses of silver, the little awkward workmanship bestowed on which rather takes from than adds to the natural beauty of the materials. As for the gentlemen, they seldom display even vigour and animation, unless they be half-cut-and they never display any thing else.

It is fair, however, to mention, that in the true indigenous dances of the country, above all in the reel (the few times I have seen it), these defects seem in a great measure to vanish, so that ambition and affectation are after all at the bottom of their bad dancing in the present day, as well as of their bad writing. The quadrille, notwithstand

ing, begins to take with the soil, and the girls can already go through most of its manœuvres without having recourse to their fans. But their beaux continue certainly to perform these newfangled evolutions, in a way that would move the utmost spleen of a Parisian butcher. What big, lazy, clumsy fellows one sees lumbering cautiously, on toes that should not be called light and fantastic, but rather heavy and syllogistic. It seems that there goes a vast deal of ratiocination to decide upon the moves of their game. The automaton does not play chess with such an air of lugubrious gravity. Of a surety, Terpsichore was never before worshipped by such a solemn set of devotees. One of our own gloomy Welsh Jumpers, could he be suddenly transported among some sets that I have seen, would undoubtedly imagine himself to be in a saltatory prayer-meeting; and yet these good people, put them fairly into a reel, can frisk it about with all possible demonstrations of hilarity. They prefer the quadrille, I imagine, upon something of the same principle which leads a maid-servant to spend her two shillings on a tragedy rather than on a comedy. I could not help in my own mind likening these dolorous pas seuls performed in rotation by each of the quadrillers, and then suc

ceeded by the more clamorous display of sadness in their chaine Angloise, &c. to the account which Miss Edgeworth gives us of the Irish lyke wake, wherein each of the cousins chants a stave of lamentation, solo, and then the whole generation of them join in the screaming treble of the choral ulululuh! hu!" Why did Why did you leave the potatoes?" "What ailed thee, Pat, with the butter-milk!" &c. &c. &c.

The waltz has been even more unfortunate than the quadrille; it is still entirely an exotic in the North. Nor, in truth, am I much inclined to find fault with the prejudices which have checked the progress of this fascinating dance among the disciples of John Knox and Andrew Melville. I really am of opinion, that it might have been as well, had we of the South been equally shy of the importation.

As for myself, I assure you, that ever since I spent a week at Lady L's, and saw those great fat girls of her's waltzing every night with that odious Dr B, I cannot endure the very name of the thing. By the way, I met the other day with a very nice poem, entitled, "Waltz an Apostrophic Hymn, by Francis Hornem, Esq.; and as I think you have never

seen it, I shall transcribe a few lines for your

amusement.

"Borne on the breath of Hyperborean gales,

From Hamburgh's port (while Hamburgh yet had Mails)

Ere yet unlucky Fame-compelled to creep

To snowy Gottenburgh-was chilled to sleep;
Or, starting from her slumbers, deigned arise,
Heligoland! to stock thy mart with lies;
While unburnt Moscow yet had news to send,
Nor owed her fiery exit to a friend,

She came

-Waltz came-and with her certain sets

Of true despatches, and as true Gazettes ;
Then flamed of Austerlitz the blest despatch,
Which Moniteur nor Morning Post can match;
And almost crushed beneath the glorious news,
Ten plays and forty tales of Kotzebue's;

One envoy's letters, six composers' airs,

And loads from Frankfort and from Leipsig fairs;
Meiner's four volumes upon womankind,
Like Lapland witches to ensure a wind;
Brunk's heaviest tome for ballast, and, to back it,
Of Heynê, such as should not sink the packet.

"Fraught with this cargo-and her fairest freight, Delightful Waltz, on tiptoe for a mate,

The welcome vessel reached the genial strand,
And round her flocked the daughters of the land.

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