The Scotch reel has steps appropriated to itself, and in the dance can never be displaced for those of France, without an absurdity too ridiculous even to imagine without laughing. There are no dancers in the world more expressive of inward hilarity and happiness than the Scotch are, when performing in their own reels. The music is sufficient--so jocund are its sounds--to set a whole company on their feet in a moment, and to dance with all their might, till it ceases, like people bit by the tarantula. Hence, as the character of reels is merriment, they must be performed with much more _joyance_ of manner than even the country-dance; and, therefore, they are better adapted, as society is now constituted, to the social private circle, than to the public ball. They demand a frankness of deportment, an undisguised jocularity, which few large parties will properly admit; therefore, they are more at home in the baronial and kindred-filled hall of the thane of the Highland clan, than in the splendid and mixed ball-room of the now modish Anglo-Scottish earl. French dances, which includes minuets, cotillons, and all the round of _ballet_ figures, admit of every new refinement and dexterity in the agile art; and, while exhibiting in them, there is no step, no turn, no attitude, within the verge of maiden delicacy, that the dancer may not adopt and practise. I must acknowledge that there is something in the harmonious and undulating movements of the minuet, particularly pleasing to my idea of female grace and dignity; and I remember seeing her Highness the Princess de P----, at the court of Naples, go through the _minuet de la Cour_ with so eminent a degree of enchanting elegance, that there was not a person present who was not in raptures with her deportment. The young Archduke, C----, of A----, was then a youth, and an incognito visitant with the Prince de V---- F----, and he was so charmed with the dancing of her highness, whose partner was the renowned General Marchese di M----, that, in his own heroic manner, he exclaimed to me, who then sat by his side,--“Ah! madam, that is more interesting than even the Pyrrhic dance! It reminds me of the beautiful movement of the sun and moon in the heavens!” The _minuet_ is now almost out of fashion, but we yet have its serious movements in many of the dances adopted from the French _ballet_; and in these every gradation of grace, and, if I may say it, sentiment in action, may be discovered. The rapid changes of the cotillon are admirably calculated for the display of elegant gaiety; and I hope that their animated evolvements will long continue a favorite accomplishment and amusement with our youthful fair. Though much of graceful display is made in these dances, yet there are many rivals in the cotillon contending for the palm of superiority; and the contest, throughout, if maintained with the original elegant decorum of the design, may be continued with undeviating modesty and discretion.