OLD DANCING.
An "Old Subscriber," who loves a friend and a jest's prosperity, has sent us a few leaves of "The Dancing Master," printed in 1728, which form a curious contrast with Mr. Lindsay's elegant treatise, printed at Mr. Clowes's musical office. What will some of the quadrillers say to the following exquisite morsel of dancing, entitled, "The Old Maid in Tears?"—"Longways for as many as will".—(then the notes, and the following instructions:)—"Note: Each strain is to be play'd twice ov'er.—The first wo. holds her handkerchief on her face, and goes on the outside, below the 3d wo. and comes up the middle to her place; first man follows her (at the same time pointing and smiling at her) up to his place. First man do the same, only he beckons his wo. to him. First woman makes a motion of drying first one eye, then the other, and claps her hands one after another on her sides, (the first man looks surprizingly at her at the same time,) and turn her partner. First cu. move with two slow steps down the middle and back again. The first cu. sett and cast off."
As we love to keep up the dance, if we are not leading the reader a dance, we give A Dance in Hoops, as described in a fashionable novel, just published:—
When the whole party was put in motion, but little trace of a regular dance remained; all was a perfect maze, and the cutting in and out (as the fraternity of the whip would phrase it) of these cumbrous machines presented to the mind only the figure of a most formidable affray.
The nearest assimilation to this strange exhibition of the dance in full career, at all familiar to our minds, is the prancing of the basket-horses in Mr. Peake's humorous farce of Quadrupeds.
An entertaining variety of appearance arose also from the conformity of the steps to the diversified measure of the tune. The jig measure, which corresponds to the canter in a horse's paces, produced a strong bounding up and down of the hoop—and the gavotte measure, which corresponds to the short trot, produced a tremulous and agitated motion. The numerous ornaments, also, with which the hoops were bespread and decorated—the festoons—the tassels—the rich embroidery—all of a most catching and taking nature, every now and then affectionately hitched together in unpremeditated and close embrace. To the parties in action, it is not difficult to suppose these combinations might prove something short of perfectly agreeable, more especially, as on such occasions as these, some of the fair daughters of our courtly belles were undergoing the awful ordeal of a first ball-room appearance, on whom these contingencies would inflict ten-fold embarrassment.—The Ball, or a Glance at Almack's in 1829.