swell in! It seems as if none should dance a minuet after Louis XIV and his Montespans. It is the excess of pretension, becoming something real on that account; and belongs to an age of false triumph and flattered assumptions. The Minuet de la Cour is the best minuet, and seems to have been inspired by its name. Mozart's minuet in Don Juan is beautiful and victorious; but it is not as pregnant with assumptions as the other, like a hoop petticoat; it does not rise and fall, and step about, in the same style of quiet and undoubted perfection, like a Sir Charles Grandison or Lady Grave-airs it is more natural and sincere, and might be danced anywhere by any two lovers, not the nicest in the world, proclaiming their triumph. We have seen Charles Vestris and somebody else, we forget whom, dance the Minuet de la Cour; but it was not the real thing. You missed the real pretenders, the proper fine gentleman and lady. Mr Kemble should have danced a minuet, if he could have danced at all; and Mrs Oldfield risen in her "chintz and Brussels lace" to accompany him.

Let us not however be ungrateful to all stage-dancing in England. Three stage loves have we known in the days of our youth; as good love, and better, than is usually entertained towards persons one is not acquainted with; for it gave us an interest ever after in the fair inspirers and two of these ladies were dancers. Our first passion of the kind was for the fine eyes and cordial voice of Miss Murray, afterwards Mrs Henry Siddons; our second for the lady-like figure and sweet serious countenance of Miss Searle, a dancer (since dead), who married the brother of Sir Gilbert Heathcote; and our third for the pretty embonpoint and ripe little black head of Miss Lupino, since Mrs Noble, whose clever self and husband may dancing preserve! We thought, when she married, she had made the fittest choice in the world. We hope these declarations, which are the first we ever made, are innocent; especially as we make them only to our Companion the reader. They are for nobody else to hear. We speak in a stage whisper. Our theatrical passion, at present, as he well knows, is for Madame Pasta; and we shall proceed, as we did in the other cases, to show our gratitude for the pleasure she gives us, by doing her all the good in our power, and

not letting her know a word on the subject. If this is not a disinterested passion, we know not what is.

A word or two on our English manner of dancing in private; our quadrilles and country-dances. A fair friend of ours, whenever she has an objection to make to the style of a person's behaviour, says, he "requires a good shaking." This is what may be said of most of the performers in our ball-rooms, particularly the male. Our gentlemen dancers forget the part they assume on all other occasions, as encouragers, and payers of compliment; and seem, as if in despair of equalling their fair friends, they had no object but to get through the dance undetected. The best thing they do for their partner, is to hand her an ice or a lemonade; the very going for which appears to be as great a refreshment to them, as the taking it is to the other. When the dance is resumed, all their gravity returns. They look very cut and dry, and succinct; jog along with an air of indifference; and leave the vivacity of the young lady to shift for itself. The most self-satisfied male dancer we ever saw, was one, who being contented with his own legs, could never take his eyes off them, but seemed eternally congratulating them and himself that they were fit to be seen. The next thing to this, is to be always thinking of the figure; which indeed is the main consideration both of gentlemen and ladies. Where there is anything beyond, the ladies have it, out and out. The best private dancer we know among the male sex is one who makes it his business to attend to his partner; to set off with her, as if she were a part of his pleasure; and to move among the others, as if there were such things in the world as companionship, and a sense of it. And this he does with equal spirit and modesty. Our readers may know of more instances, and may help to furnish them; but the reverse is assuredly the case in general. Perhaps it was not so in the livelier times of our ancestors, when taxation had not forced us to think so much of "number one;" and the general knowledge, that is preparing a still better era, had not unsettled the minds of all classes of people as to their individual pretensions. Perhaps also dress makes a difference. Men may have been more confident in cloaks and doublets, than in the flaps

and horse-collars of the present day. To get up a dance on the sudden, now-a-days, on a green lawn, would look ridiculous on the men's part. At least, they feel as if it would; and this would help to make it so. On the other hand, a set of gallant apprentices in their caps and doublets, or of wits and cavaliers in their mantles and plumage, had all the world before them, for action or for grace; and a painter could put them on canvass, with no detriment to the scenery. We are far from desiring to bring back those distinctions. It is very possible for an apprentice now-a-days to know twice as much as a cavalier; and we would have no distinctions at all but between spirit and spirit. But a dress disadvantageous to everybody, is good for nothing but to increase other disadvantages. Above all, a little more spirit in our mode of dancing, and a little more of the dancing itself, without the formality of regular balls, would do us good, and give our energies a fillip on the side of cheerfulness. Families and intimate friends would find themselves benefited in health and spirits, perhaps to an extent of which they have no conception, by setting apart an evening or so in the week for a dance among themselves. If we have not much of the poetry of motion" among us, we may have plenty of the motion itself, which is the healthy part of it; and the next best performer to such a one as we have described, is he who gives himself up to the pleasure and sociality of the moment, whether a good dancer or not.

SPECIMENS OF SIR JOHN SUCKLING,

(Concluded.)

THE CONSTANT LOVER.

Our upon it, I have lov'd
Three whole days together;
And am like to love three more,
If it prove fair weather.

Time shall moult away his wings,
E'er he shall discover,

In the whole wide world again,
Such a constant lover.

But the spite on't is, no praise

Is due at all to me :

Love with me had made no stays,
Had it any been but she.

I WILL not love one minute more, I swear,
No not a minute; not a sigh or tear

Thou gett'st from me, or one kind look again,

Though thou shouldst court me to't, and wouldst begin.
I will not think of thee but as men do

Of debts and sins, and then I'll curse thee too :
For thy sake woman shall be now to me

Less welcome, than at midnight ghosts shall be:
I'll hate so perfectly, that it shall be
Treason to love that man that loves a she;
Nay, I will hate the very good, I swear,
That's in thy sex, because it does lie there;
Their very virtue, grace, discourse, and wit,

And all for thee:-What! wilt thou love me yet?

TO HIS RIVAL.

My dearest rival, lest our love

Should with excentrique motion move,

Before it learn to go astray,

We'll teach and set it in a way,

And such directions give unto 't,

That it shall never wander foot.

Know first then, we will serve as true
For one poor smile, as we wou'd do
If we had what our higher fame
Or our vainer wish could frame.
Impossible shall be our hope;
And love shall only have his scope
To join with fancy now and then,

And think what reason wou'd condemn :
And on these grounds we'll love as true
As if they were most sure to ensue ;
And chastely for these things we'll stay,
As if tomorrow were the day.
Meantime we two will teach our hearts
In love's burdens to bear our parts:
Thou first shall sigh, and say she's fair;
And I'll still answer, "Past compare:"
Thou shalt set out each part o' th' face,
While I extol each little grace :

There is something extremely touching, playful, and natural in the surprise at the conclusion of this little copy of verses. The compliment which the last line but one conveys into it is exquisite. The lovers are set before us; the poet with his face of pretended renouncement, and the lady anticipating his last words with a movement of grateful fondness.

Thou shalt be ravish'd at her wit;
And I, that she so governs it:

Thou shalt like well that hand, that eye,
That lip, that look, that majesty;
And in good language them adore,
While I want words, and do it more.
Yea, we will sit and sigh a while,

And with soft thoughts some time beguile,
But straight again break out, and praise
All we had done before, new ways.
Thus will we do, till paler death
Come with a warrant for our breath;
And then whose fate shall be to die
First of us two, by legacy

Shall all his store bequeath, and give
His love to him that shall survive :
For no one stock can ever serve
To love so much as she'll deserve.

TO HALES OF ETON.

SIR, WHETHER these lines do find you out,
Putting or clearing of a doubt;
(Whether predestination,

Or reconciling three in one,
Or the unriddling how men die,
And live at once eternally,

Now take you up), know 'tis decreed

You straight bestride the College steed,

Leave Socinus and the schoolmen,

(Which Jack Bond swears do but fool men
And come to town; 'tis fit you show
Your self abroad, that men may know
(Whate'er some learned men have guest)
That oracles are not yet ceas'd;
There you shall find the wit and wine
Flowing alike, and both divine :

Dishes, with names not known in books,
And less amongst the College cooks,
With sauce so poignant that you need
Not stay till hunger bids you feed.
The sweat of learned Jonson's brain,
And gentle Shakespear's easier strain
A hackney-coach conveys you to,
In spite of all that rain can do:
And for your eighteen-pence you sit
The lord and judge of all fresh wit.
News in one day as much we've here
As serves all Windsor for a year;
And which the carrier brings to you,
After t' has here been found not true.
Then think what company's design'd
To meet you here; men so refin'd,
Their very common talk at board,
Makes wise, or mad, a young court-lor