Weaver’s own letter is too long to quote in its entirety, but I cannot refrain from giving at least the following, since, while speaking of his own work, he offers incidentally several peculiarly interesting glimpses as to the state of the art in 1712. “MR. SPECTATOR, “Since there are scarce any of the arts or sciences that have not been recommended to the world by the pens of some of the professors, masters, or lovers of them, whereby the usefulness, excellence, and benefit arising from them, both as to the speculative and practical part, have been made public, to the great advantage and improvement of such arts and sciences; _why should dancing, an art celebrated by the ancients in so extraordinary a manner, be totally neglected by the moderns, and left destitute of any pen to recommend its various excellencies and substantial merit to mankind?_ “_The low ebb to which dancing is now fallen_ is altogether owing to this silence. _The art is esteemed only as an amusing trifle_; it lies altogether uncultivated, and is unhappily fallen under the imputation of being illiterate and ‘mechanic.’ And as Terence, in one of his prologues, complains of the rope-dancers drawing all the spectators from his play; so may we well say, that capering and tumbling is now preferred to, and _supplies the place of, just and regular dancing in our theatres_. It is, therefore, in my opinion, high time that someone should come to its assistance and relieve it from the many gross and growing errors that have crept into it, and overcast its real beauties; and to set dancing in its true light, would show the usefulness and elegance of it, with the pleasure and instruction produced from it; and also lay down some fundamental rules, that might so tend to the improvement of its professors, and information of the spectators, that the first might be the better enabled to perform, and the latter rendered more capable of judging what is (if there be anything) valuable in this art.