So then, the worst to which Napoleon could force this turbulent generation was, to exert industry, somewhat more than formerly to labour more diligently, in order to meet the pressure of the expences necessarily incurred in defending the Sacred Island against his visitation, and, at length, hurling him from his throne. By this diligence, we sold our productions cheap ; and his tormented slaves could afford to defy his most terrific prohibitions! So much for his Berlin and Milan Decrees! against this "nation of shopkeepers.". Nor is this all the habit of industry formed by necessity, will continue its action for many a day to come. If to this be added, that consummate skill and care which we have repeatedly pressed on our population, we confess, that the secret is manifest on which we depend for that favourable reception in foreign markets, which is now indispensable to us; and for the continuance of that superiority which has hitherto been assigned to our productions by the verdict of the world at large. But, if male issue were denied by nature to the Duke of Marlborough; must his descendants by his daughters be overlooked? They too were heroines in their way and it is well known, that one of them struck such awe into a footpad who presented a pistol at her, that he failed of his purpose: "No, indeed, fellow! what! the daughter of John Duke of Marlborough be robbed!" The State of the United Kingdom at the Peace of Paris, November 20, 1815, repecting the People; their Domestic Energies; their Agriculture; their Trade; their Shipping; and their Finances. By George Chalmers. F. R. S. S. A. Price 1s. Stockdale, London, 1816. Let it not be thought that we are insensible to the difficulties of our country: we both see them, and feel them: but, at the same time, we indulge the persuasion that they are not insurmountable; and while we look at them steadily, we equally steadily look around, to discover not the shortest, but,-the best method of surmounting them. Nor let this nation abate its gratitude to those worthies in every department of the State who have been conspicuously successful in humbling the foe. Our mer-. chants, our manufacturers, our gineers, with others beyond number deserve statues, in our opinion; but we THE best answer that can be given to trust they have received, generally Foreign prognosticaters of evil, may be speaking, more substantial rewards.-derived from the Official Tables, of Not so, our military chiefs: where is the Briton who will not rejoice in the ability of his country to continue to reward the posterity of the Hero of Blenheim, and the family of the Hero of Trafalgar. Says M. S. en I do not know.up to what point political justice requires that the money of a nation should be given to a citizen who has done nothing for it, and who is not recommended by any particular talent or virtue, a which this sheet is an Epitome. As to native predictors of ruin, we would not willingly spoil their pleasure; and, therefore, we acknowledge the fact, as matter of course-ruined we certainly are. Mr. Chalmers has heretofore farnished acceptable matter for our pages: -again he appears, and speaks the language of chearfulness. Our PEOPLE, says Mr. C. were, about 1780 not less than 8,447,000 souls: in 1801 they were found by Parliamentary Enquiry to be 9,340,000: in 1811 they were by the same authority, 10,150,615. The number in Scotland in 1801 was 1,618,303; in 1811, it was 1,805,000. The population of Ireland in 1800 was supposed to be 4,000,000; in 1814, it approached to 6,000,000. The LOCAL IMPROVEMENTS in the United Kingdom, Mr. C. deduces from the number of Acts of Parliament passed: these were from 1784 to 1792.... 750 1792 to 1800....1,124 - 1806 to 1814....1,632. AGRICULTURE has received under its cultivation, during the present reign, at least 3,500,000 acres: the number of Acts of Parliament for draining wet lands, for dividing commons, &c. was 1,591. Of course these are suspended for the moment; but, he must be a bold man, who will venture to affirm, that they will not be either confirmed, or resumed, in two or three years from this time. Our Readers will have observed the gradual reduction of prices of GOLD and SILVER, as marked in our Commercial Report: Gold is now at £4. 0. 0. per oz. for the best coined gold. Silver at 4s. 11d. for Dollar Silver. These prices have lately tallen with great deliberation; but, we hope and expect to see them continue falling, notwithstanding that reluctance. Mr. C. states the SINKING FUND on February 1, 1815 at £11,324,760, but, he has not stated its amount for the year 1816. We doubted the propriety of touching it, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer trespassed on it for a part of the Assignments to the Public Creditor: and, we should be glad to see it considered as sacred; for a long, a very long, time to come. The proportion which its available amount bears to that of the National Debt fairly met, and fully stated, should be constantly kept within view of Parliament. Every quarter, every month, COMMERCE presents a very lively Pic-bers; in a more effectual way than by it should be put into the hands of memture: our Exports from Britain, in 1756 were about. being merely laid on the table." 12,371,867 .24,753,867 .33,614,992 .50,301,763 ..56,591,514. 1793 1803 1809 1814 ..... .... ..... The Exports from Ireland were: in 1751 about 1801 1809 1814 ...1,854,605 ..4,100,526 .5,739,843 ...7,139,437. Now it must be acknowledged, that no small part of this encreased value consisted in the amount of taxes, added to the cost price of the goods: nevertheless, the encreased quantity of goods produced, and exported, was very considerable, and absolutely undeniable: as appears from many pages of our work, in which this is justified by Tables. The quantity of SHIPPING has kept pace with the quantity of goods to be carried abroad. The Tonnage, was, in Tons British. Foreign. 496,254 76,456 1,255,939 262,558 1,470,520 589,404 1756 1793 1803 66 In our opinion the Health and Strength of the Body Politic resembles that of the Body Natural. While the circulation flows freely from the heart and to the heart, the Constitution is safe, though the arms and the legs may be weary and overworked. Fever, announced by too rapid motion of the blood, is dangerous; not less a motion too slow and languid. Let us hope, that Britain is in no danger from failure in her other systems;-that but, her heart and her head being she need fear no paralysis, for instance; sound, however the Doctors may disagree on the treatment proper to certain symptoms, that she may yet enjoy a life Doctors do not kill her. of ages. She will do very well, if the Mr. C. will probably include this sheet in a larger work. For particulars of the Former "Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Great Britain, after every war since the Revolution," by the same Author, see Literary Panorama. Vol. IX. p. 1019, et seq. same time, another subscription was profund, in order to provide for ultimate payposed to the public in name of a guarantee ment, if the expenses of the Festival should happen to exceed the produce of the most liberally entered into by the public; tickets. Both of these subscriptions were and the Directors having now solid grounds to support their hopes of success, pursued the object in view with additional ardour and unwearied diligence. An Account of the First Edinburgh Musical Festival, held between October 30 and November 5, 1815. By G. F. Graham, Esq. Edinburgh, Blackwood; Baldwin, and Co. London. 1816. MUSIC, as a study with professors of Music, seeking in it their gratification, is placed in a situation not without difFor some time previous to the Festival, ficulty; though it must be recognized the concourse of strangers towards Edinas a natural talent, and a gift derived burgh was unexampled. From England, from the Author of our nature. To for- and the remotest parts of Scotiand, indibid the exercise of a power, in itself viduals and whole families poured into the neither detrimental, nor blameable, were city. Every house and every room that to be wiser than the Wisdom to which ould be obtained, was occupied by persons we owe our being; on the other hand, of all rauks and ages, who had left, for a it cannot be denied that the study has time, their own habitations, incited by proved a snare to many an ingenuous eager curiosity, and animated by high hopes mind, and has issued in the ruin of many the splendour and magnificence of an enter of pleasure which were to be gratified by a hopeful youth. On this we speak feel- taiumeut altogether new in Scotland, and ingly the reputation of singing a good no where surpassed in point of select music, song, has issued, to our certain know-eminent professors, and accurate performledge, in an augmentation of the number of "Whereas's" in the Gazette. Mr. Graham, aware of the force of facts, endeavours to parry their consequences, in the opening of his Introduction to this pleasing volume. He justly lays the blame on the want of self-controul in the person injured; but, his reference to other indulgencies, no less pernicious than music, affords no logical consequence, such as he endeavours to draw from it. The sleep-producing pipes of Mercury, were found irresistibly powerful by the hundred eyes of Argus; and when those vigilant optics were all gradually closed-we know the issue. ance. is truly respectable; and the historical It is very remarkable, that the Greek The melodies of Scotland hold a dis- Dorian Mode, as altered by Olympus, (actinguished rank among national airs; cording to Aristoxenus, who lived $40 and it cannot be wondered at, that they sions, the scale in which many of the old years A. C.) exactly resembles, in its omisshould be firmly fixed on the minds of Scottish melodies are composed. In these the population. It appears, however, scales the fourth and seventh of the key that more scientific compositions of are omitted This seems to shew, that the sweet sounds are relished with avidity, origin of the Scottish music is of much by the musical amateurs of that country. greater antiquity than is commonly imaAbout the close of 1814, a few gen- gined.* That this peculiar kind of scale tlemen, of refined taste, agreed to intro-was not derived from the Irish or Welsh, duce a Musical Festival into Edinburgh, and as the public charities stood in need of assistance, this mode of extending help to them, was readily adopted." appears from the circumstance of these people having, at a very remote period, harps capable of producing the whole se By putting the series of sounds used by Olympus into a major key, for instance C major, we shall have exactly the ancient Scottish scale. mitonic series contained in the compass of but a learned fool; and Purcell himupwards of four octaves; and from the ua self, who signify "they that go down ture of their ancient melodies, in which to the sea in ships," made the music the fourth and seventh of the scale are go down to D D, was surely ill employfreely used. Their melodies, too, have a character more regular than the Scottish; ed, for so great a composer. In the and their use of the sharp seventh, and Stabat Mater of Pergolesi, and in the other chromatic intervals in the minoressiah of Handel, there is an expres→ scale, shews that their music was become very artificial at a time when the Scottish music was yet in its infancy. The scale of the old Scottish melodies, and likewise the ancient Greek modes, did not admit the sharp seventh of the key It is a curious characteristic of the ancient Greek music, that all their modes, or keys, (fifteen in number,) were minor; that is to say, that in each of them the third note in the first tetrachord, was a minor third from the key note. This must have given to their melodies a cast of melancholy, like that which tinctures many of the ancient Scottish, Irish, aud Welsh airs, as well as those fragments of African and Asiatic melody, which have been brought to Europe. That the Chinese musical scale contains omissions nearly allied to those in the altered Greek Dorian mode before mentioned, is proved by the late existence in Paris of a musical instrument brought from China, which, as described by Dr. Burney who saw it there," was a kind of Sticcado, consisting of bars of wood cf different lengths, as sonorous as if they had been of metal; these were placed across a hollow vessel resembling the hulk of a ship." sion of whipping attempted, which, if understood, is either profane or ridiculous. The air "All we like sheep have gone astray," has been thought to resemble exactly the bustle of a number of sheep breaking their fold; if this is true, it impeaches the character of the composer; if it is false, it degrades the judgment of the hearer. If these remarks needed any support, they might derive it from the sentiments of the rational critic before us. Some, even of the greatest composers, have attempted things beyond the province of their art, in endeavouring to imitate such sounds as the dashing of rain, the pattering of hail, the whistling of wind, the roaring of thunder; or such motions as the flow of a river, the zigzag movement of lightning, the rolling of the waves of the sea, and the failing of buildings, or other heavy bodies, &c. It appears, however, that the only sounds that Music can imitate successfully, are those expressive of certain human passions, or affections; the notes of a very few birds, and the cries of two or three other animals. Certain motions of particular bodies may, The existence of Music in every nation in some degree, be expressed by Music, of the known world, shews the congeniality though always imperfectly and indistinctly. of the language of modulated sound to the In general, imitative passages produce their general nature of man. Wherever Music greatest effect when introduced in the inis to be found, certain melodies are ap- strumental accompaniments to Vocal Mupropriated to express rejoicing, or lameu- sic, where they derive their chief force tation; and where it has assumed the as- from the explanatory indications of the pect of an art, it is also employed to sig. words which usually precede, or follow nify the intermediate shades of difference them. Some composers have occasionally between these two extremes. The pro- indulged their inclination to buffoonery, by gressions of melody, in the minor scale, introducing, in their lighter works, imitagenerally convey the impression of melan- tious of the braying of asses, the screechcholy, while those of the major scale ex-ing of owls, the gabbling of geese, &c. but cite emotions of cheerfulness, or amatory these ludicrous and disagreeable noises are not among the legitimate objects of musi cal expression. tenderness. It must be acknowledged, that the Art has been rendered more ridiculous Music obtains its purpose most comby the misapplied talents, or prepos-pletely, when it takes advantage of terous attempts of professors, than by the recollective sympathies of the hearer. any other means. The desire of exces- A cuckoo song will remind us of spring; sive expression has produced nonsense: the cooing of the dove, and the singing the wight who to denote a rainbow of small birds, rouzes the memory; the, placed his notes in a semi-circle, was ringing of bells, marks a country church yard; and these, by reminding the If these sentiments are heresy, we must take the consequences of avowing them. Happily, there is no Musical Inquisition whose authority we need to dread; and we protest against being included in the list destined by the Holy The distribution of the profits derived Now these combinations are far, very from this Musical Festival, does too much far, from cramping the science or skill honour to the managers to be omitted; of the Professor: they merely shew and indeed, the whole is well entitled to that the art is infinite, in its extent; be handsomely recorded, for the inforbut a judicious choice caunot be dis-mation not of contemporaries only, but of pensed with. It is probable, that this successors. touches on the reason why the Italian Opera fails of obtaining that success among us, which it enjoys at home. It is usually, much more fashionable than popular. Here again we meet our author. The Opera forms a portion of the public entertainment in London. This, under proper regulations, would certainly tend much to improve the general taste in Music; but, as it now exists, nothing, or rather worse than nothing, may be expected from it. The absurd and incongruous productions generally received and applauded in the modern theatres under the name of operas, seem to have been long ago prophetically characterised by Horace, in the beginning of his epistle to the Pisos on the Art of Poetry. Such extraordinary and monstrous performances deservedly fell under the lash of Addison's criticism in the Spectator: but, notwithstanding that their absurdities (I mean their poetical ones, for, of their Music that gentleman was no judge) were then and since forcibly enough indicated, they still continue to possess a high degree of favour in England, as well as in the country in which they originated. Among a thinking and intelligent people like the English, this encouragement of miserable mixtures of bad Poetry and indifferent Music, can arise only from a general ignorance of the language and seutiments of these pieces, and a still more general ignorance of the style of good musical composition. While the operas of Metastasio, and ⚫ther Italians of real talent, are supplanted by those of contemptible authors, and while the puerile and watery compositions of certain favoured artists are preferred to the elegant, energetic, aud masterly productions of such men as Haydn, Mozart, Winter, and Cimarosa, it would be vain to expect, that the opera style should ever appear in its true splendour and magnificence. £400 0 0 400 O O "The following distribution of the profits arising from the Edinburgh Musical Festival, has been made by the Lord Provost, Lord President, Lord Justice Clerk, and Lord Chief Baron, who were appointed Trustees for that purpose:~ The Royal Infirmary Lunatic Asylum Magdalene Asylum Destitute Sick Society House of Industry Industrious Blind Senior Female Society Edinburgh Charity Workhouse Parochial Schools 100 0 0 100 0 0 60 0 0 55 0 0 50 O O 50 0 0 |