this instrument invisibly; and the soul seems at one moment to be wafted to the empyrean; at another it is hushed into the melody of tranquillity;-sounds become, as it were, embodied; and the soul almost visible. It has been justly observed, that, of all relaxations for the poor, the most delightful would be that of music. This art it is, that gives such a charm to the winter evenings of the French and German peasantry. A taste of this kind it would be wise in masters and magistrates to encourage; since it would tend to soften the hearts of the poor, and civilise their manners. The German with his flute, the Frenchman with his violin, the Spaniard with his guitar, and the Italian with his mandolino, are far more graceful to the imagination, than whole groups of English boxers and wrestlers. One day, it may be hoped, English lands may be more equally divided; small farmers again be known; the peasantry again smile; have cottages, resembling those of Java: and that each cottage may have a garden, a well, a few fruit-trees, three or four hives of bees, and a right of cutting fuel on heaths and commons. These, added to the pleasure of hearing their children modulate on some rustic instrument,-it would rejoice my heart to see, and please my soul to hear ©. b Eolian instrument, formed of bamboo. Mons. Labillardière listened to one hanging vertically by the sea-shore. It elicited some fine cadences, intermixed with discordant notes. "I cannot convey a better idea of this instrument," says he, "than by comparing its notes to those of the Harmonica." a Vid. Raffles' Hist. Java, i. p. 472. b Whatever a musician has to do is comprised in the simple word "modulation."-Augustine de Music. lib. i. Macrobius sums up the beneficial effects of music in a single passage :-" Dat somnos adimitque, nec non curas immitit at retrahit, iram suggerit, clementiam suadet. Corporumque quoque morbis medetur."—In Somn. Scipionis, lib. ii. c. 2. C I presume to take the liberty of warning the gentry of this country to beware of the arguments employed by some superficial economists of the present day. In the whole history of human imperfection, throughout the entire body of political ignorance, and in all the works, ancient or modern, which have the smallest reference to the happiness of nations, there is no passage so entirely heartless, so completely offensive in a moral view, and so * Voy. in Search of La Pérouse, by D'Entrecasteaux, vol. i. 349–350. In some parts of North Wales the women used to assemble at each other's houses, or under some large tree, in summer, and spin their woollen yarn, having a harper to amuse and delight them. The harp is still in frequent use in that diametrically opposite to the benevolent spirit of the Christian code, as the following canon. It is, in fact, one of the most atheistical and detestable doctrines ever broached: and it is a passage which Mr. Malthus ought immediately to cancel :—“ A man, who is born into a world, already possessed, if he cannot get subsistence from his parents, on whom he has a just demand, and if the society do not want his labour, has no claim of right to the smallest portion of food; and, in fact, has no business to be where he is. At Nature's mighty feast there is no vacant cover for him. She tells him to be gone, and will quickly execute her own orders, if he does not work upon the compassion of some of the guests. If these guests get up, and make room for him, the order and harmony of the feast are disturbed."-If this system is to be adopted, adieu to all the comforts of the poor; and an equal adieu to all the respectability of the rich. Since these remarks appeared, the whole passage has been cancelled: but, alas! the spirit of the precept spread far and wide; and at length the LEPROSY crept into the two houses of Parliament, and produced the most heartless, ignominious, and disgusting act of legislation ever known in this country-the POOR-LAW AMENDMENT BILL. There are still hopes, however, that some of its clauses may be moderated. April, 1837. a ON THE DECLINE OF SERENADING IN ITALY.-In former times, the practice was very general in Spain and Italy, among the great and high-born. Α serenata, indeed, was held to be an essential part of gallantry; and the towns of the south, during the beautiful nights of summer, were kept musical from midnight to day-dawn by amorous cavaliers. As all knights had not good voices, many of them employed vocalists; but, during many ages, the proudest of them thought it not beneath them to take a part in the concert. One of the earliest serenaders we read of in Italy was, perhaps, the loftiest of them all. This was Manfredi, son of the Emperor Frederic the Second, who afterwards became king of Naples and Sicily, and whose misfortunes were made immortal by the genius of Dante. According to Matteo Spinelli, a chronicler of the thirteenth century, this accomplished prince, before he succeeded to the cares of a crown, resided a good deal at the pleasant town of Barletta, on the shores of the Adriatic sea; "and there it was his wont to stroll by night through the town, singing songs and ballads; and so he breathed the cool air, and with him there went two Sicilian musicians, who were great makers of ballads and romances." We know not how it has happened, but the fact is obvious in Spain and Italy, that the practice, after a decline which. commenced about the middle of the last century, has fallen into disuse, and out of fashion. with the upper classes, and is almost confined now to the lowest class. At Venice, which used to take the lead, the chief serenaders now are barbers, and they rarely take the field. country, though in South Wales it is almost unknown: and no traveller of taste but remembers with pleasure the national tunes, he has heard at the various inns, at which he has been entertained a. In Naples, where the exquisite moonlight nights inspire love with music-its most natural voice-if you hear a guitar in the streets, it is almost sure to be in the hands of an amorous coachman or sentimental barber. The style and execution of these minstrels rarely entitle them to a hearing; and, so far from meeting the respect paid in the olden times to serenaders, they are not unfrequently saluted from the windows and house-tops, in the same manner that Gil Blas was, when going to serenade Donna Mergelina-" on lui coiffa d'une cassolette qui ne chatouillait point l'odorat." At Rome, where the popular taste is better, very pretty sweet music is sometimes heard by night; and young mechanics and servants sing airs, regularly distributed into parts, with much feeling and ability. A modern traveller observes," Here the serenade is a compliment of gallantry by no means confined to the rich. It is customary for a lover, even of the lowest class, to haunt the dwelling of his mistress, chaunting a rondo, or roundelay, during the period of his courtship." But, in truth, this accomplished writer might have said, that there, too, the compliment, instead of being monopolised by the rich, was almost confined to the poor. He only recollects the serenades of mechanics; and during our different stays at Rome, we seldom, indeed, heard street-music by night from any other class. A Roman nobleman would no more think of thrumming the guitar under his mistress's window in the Corso or the Piazzi di Spagna, than an English lord would of doing the like in Grosvenor-square.Anon. * The British bards sung the brave actions of their chiefs to the sound of the lyre; and the Scythians + to those of the harp, which they are supposed to have invented. At the time of Archbishop Baldwin's itinerary through Wales, there was a harp in every house of respectability throughout the principality. The utmost hospitality prevailed; the dishes, plain and simple, were placed on mats; their platters were full of herbs; the family waited while the guests were served; universal good-humour prevailed; and the art of playing on the harp was preferred to all other descriptions of learning ‡. In the art of singing, these artless sons of nature seem to have had even a knowledge of counterpoint, for they sung in as many different parts as there were voices, which united in one consonance in organic melody §: a custom which prevailed at the same period in Britain, beyond the Humber. Blackstone || informs us, that, in some manors, copyholders were bound to hedge the lord's grounds, to top his trees, and reap his corn; in return for * Ammian. Marcellinus, lib. xv. c. 9. Girald. Camb. ii. 293. Hoare. Diod. Sic. v. 31. p. 360, in notis. § Giral. Camb. p. 320. || B. ii. c. 6. The Scotch peasantry are attached to their bagpipes; and the superior orders are so delighted with music, that it is said alone to have the power of making them enthusiasts. Previous to the rebellion in 1745, the Highlanders used to assemble at each other's cottages, and listen with delight, of a winter's evening, to those fragments of Gaelic poetry, from which Macpherson composed those poems, now dignified by the name of Ossian. These fragments were, not unfrequently, sung to national airs. Genuine Scotch music owes the peculiarity, by which it is distinguished, to its containing the fourth and the seventh of the modern diatonic scale of music. The same system of intervals is said to distinguish the music of Japan and China. If, as ancient sages ween,— Can mingle with the mortal throng; The deep ton'd music of the soul, That warbles in our Scottish song b a The Dervises of the East hold the flute to be the most sacred of instruments; because the shepherds of the Old Testament sung hymns to it. The Turks and Moors are partial to their cymbals and dulcimers; and the Greeks are still delighted with their lyres and flutes. They are indeed so partial to music, that they seldom hear a nightingale, but they stop to listen to it. How delightful, too, in former times, was it to hear the violins of the peasantry in France; and not unfrequently to which he gave them meat and drink, and not unfrequently engaged a minstrel for their diversion. He quotes also an instance of the same kind in the kingdom of Whidah *, in South-Western Africa, where the people in the king's field are entertained with music during all the time of their labour. In many parts of England, and Wales too, farmers employ fiddlers to play in the field, while men are reaping or mowing. a Macculloch. b Leyden. e De Guys, vol. iii. 83. * Mod. Univ. Hist. xvi. 429. hear them sing anthems in the open air at the doors of their cottages! The Russian airs resemble Italian ones so much, that when Kotzebue heard an Italian, at any time, sing in the fields, he almost imagined himself transported into Russia. This similitude has been attributed to the airs of both countries having been originally derived from the ancient Greeks. Even the Americans begin to relish music. In the time of Brissot they were accustomed to sit with their families on benches in the front of their houses, enjoying the placidity of the summer's evenings:-a patriarchal picture now seldom witnessed in that land of worldly impulses. But the backsettler, in the midst of boundless forests, cheers the hours of leisure and of winter frequently with an old violin: and the boatmen, plying from La Prairie to Montreal, amuse themselves and their passengers, across the Saint Laurence, singing, in full chorus, songs in French; keeping time with their oars; and pausing at the end of each stanza; when the thread of the song is resumed by the steersman. How far superior are those pictures by Italian masters, which represent peasants, dancing by the light of the moon, to the merry-makings of a Dutch painter, or even Wilkie's Penny-wedding! Claude frequently embellishes the most lovely of his landscapes with similar groups. The vintage in France is a season sacred to the poet and the painter; it was equally so in ancient Greece; and few of its pictures were more agreeable to the imagination than those, describing the young of both sexes dancing; while a youth in the midst of them was tuning the fate of Linus. After dancing a short time, the whole circle suddenly stopped, took up the melody, and answered in chorus. Lucian informs us, that in his time a shepherd was accustomed to place himself in the midst of his companions, who danced round him, while he played upon the flute. At length a Palmer's Trav, Amer. p. 210. |