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._

* * * * *

FRENCH PAINTINGS.

General le Jeune has added a new picture to his collection of battle
paintings, exhibiting at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly. It represents
one of the general's perilous adventures in the Peninsular War, and is a
vigorous addition to these admirable productions of the French school.
The whole series will be found noticed at page 212 of our vol. xi.

* * * * *

FLOWERS ON THE ALPS.

The flowers of the mountains--they must not be forgotten. It is worth a
botanist's while to traverse all these high passes; nay, it is worth the
while of a painter, or any one who delights to look upon graceful
flowers