observed that Rover had quite lost his spirits, and appeared to pine. Seeing him in this state one day, when in company with the widowed labourer, and thinking in some measure to divert the poor fellow's thoughts from his own sorrows, I remarked to him the state that Rover was in, and asked him if he could guess the cause. "He is fretting after poor Peggy," was his reply, giving vent at the same time to a flood of tears. JAMES HOGG. * * * * * NOTES OF A READER. 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_.