There seems to be an increasing disposition among us to regard music as an agent of civilisation, and therefore an increasing anxiety to diffuse a taste for the art throughout all classes of the people. The simple songs that are found in countries in an early stage of progress cannot constitute the music of a refined nation, any more than their rude ballads can be the staple, instead of the mere germ, of their poetry. Both, however, serve as an excellent foundation for the superstructures of taste; and to both we return occasionally from amid the complications of art, to snatch from them a healthy inspiration.

It is not in mere refinement that the operation of music is obvious and powerful: it humanises, and 'makes the whole world kin.' 'There is no free-masonry so intimate and immediate, I believe,' says a recent author when relating a conversation with Mrs Hemans, 'as that which exists among the lovers of music; and although, when we parted, I could not tell the colour of her eyes and hair, I felt that a confidence and a good understanding had arisen between us, which the discussion of no subject less fascinating could have excited.' It is in this point of view that music should be regarded by philanthropists: the science should be given to the masses of the people as a bond of sympathy between them and the upper stratum of society. But while many efforts are making in this direction, there is still great sluggishness in one important branch of the business: the lower classes have no good instruments, and have no great artists; the inspiration derived from a Jenny Lind or a Sontag never descends beneath a certain line in the social scale; and the pianoforte, the most useful of all musical instruments, has never served for a rallying-point in the domestic circles of the poor.

To deal with the former of these two difficulties is arduous—perhaps impossible. Even in this country, where everything bears a money value, including even the light that enters our houses, there are some galleries where the works of great painters are patent to the public. But the sister art is a monopoly of the rich, because the efforts of performers produce no permanent creations, but merely an evanescent sound, which may elevate the mind and linger on the memory, but can never be reproduced by the listener. A painter lives by the sale of works which survive even himself perhaps for hundreds of years; but a musician retails performances that are not prolonged even by an echo. The great singer, however, demands a higher reward than the great poet; and the great actor grows rich while the great dramatist barely lives. Who can help it? We give willingly what they demand: there is no compulsion in the case, and the day of sumptuary laws is gone by.

But this deprivation does not press so much upon the poor as upon a great portion of the middle-classes. We cannot find fault with musical artists for demanding half a guinea or a guinea from every one who chooses to listen to a few songs; because such sums are voluntarily paid, and all dealers, even those who deal in harmonious sounds, have the same right to sell them in the dearest market that they have to buy their wines and jewels in the cheapest. But unluckily the deprivation is felt by the very class which would benefit the most, and confer the most benefit, by being admitted on reasonable terms to such exhibitions of high art. It is neither from among the poor nor the rich that great artists usually spring, but from that large middle-class in which the genius of individuals receives an impulse from pecuniary necessity. In that rank large sums cannot be paid for a song, and their claims to gentility will not permit them to class themselves even at a concert with the grade beneath them, permitted to listen for a lower price in organ lofts and at the back of galleries. We do not say that there is no remedy even for this evil. The genius of the present age is fertile in expedients, and perhaps some plan may be hit upon to satisfy the exorbitant expectations of musical artists, by providing a larger and more frequent audience at prices better adapted to ordinary means. So long as the present system, however, continues, music cannot be expected to make any rapid progress among us; for the effect of the system is to degrade art to the level of fashion, and thus repress the noble and generous aspirations of genius.

But the difficulty arising from the enormous expense of such musical instruments as the piano is less complicated; and indeed it would appear at first sight to be very extraordinary that in an age of almost unbounded speculation and competition it should exist at all. There is nothing in the construction of the machinery of a piano which ought to prevent it from being found in tens of thousands of houses in this country from which it is at present entirely excluded. The existing piano, however, is a traditional instrument—an heir-loom of the wealthy; and for them alone it must be manufactured. Its case must be of expensive foreign woods, and its keys of ivory; its legs must be elegantly turned; its handsome feet must roll on brazen wheels adapted for the rich carpet; and generally it must be decorated with carvings in wood, such as of themselves, entirely superfluous as they are, add several pounds to the expense. The manufacturers say that all this is so because the instruments must be made exclusively for the rich, who would not purchase them if they were not elegant in form, and costly in material and workmanship. But this, we strongly suspect, is no longer true. Music has now descended lower in the social scale than it did in the last generation, and thousands of hearts are beating with the feeling of art and its aspirations, which were formerly cold and silent. The comparatively poor and the really economical do not buy pianos, simply because they are far beyond their means; and in England the cause of musical science and kindly feeling is deprived of the aid of a family instrument, which in Germany is found even in the parlour of the village public-houses.

Tables and chairs, bedsteads, and other articles of furniture, are manufactured on purpose to suit the means of the various classes of purchasers. Bedsteads may be had in London, and we presume elsewhere with equal ease, at 18s. and at L.50 a piece; and chairs which, in one form, cost L.2 or L.3 each, in another—of stained wood, with cane seats, extremely pretty and lasting—sell for 15s. the half-dozen. Why should not the less wealthy families have their own piano as well as their own chair or bedstead? And the humbleness of the materials, it should be remarked, would not necessarily involve any want of elegance in shape. The cheap chairs alluded to are sometimes very passable imitations of rosewood chairs—and they answer the purpose as well! Let us add, that the introduction of the new process of desiccation applied to timber would seem to render the present a very favourable juncture for such speculations as we hint at. Formerly, many years' warehousing would have been required to divest the wood of those juices which interrupt sound, and the trade in the material would thus be a monopoly of wealthy capitalists; but now, thanks to the science of the day, timber may be thoroughly dried in hours instead of years, and thus a ruinous interest on invested money saved.

Should this new manufacture, however, be commenced, the speculators must please to bear in mind that we do not ask for inferior instruments, but for cheap materials and plain workmanship. Some time ago an attempt was made to introduce watches with imitative gold cases: but the works were spurious imitations likewise; and these out-of-time-pieces, brought forward, if we recollect rightly, at 15s., sank speedily to 5s., and are now rarely seen at all. This should be a lesson to piano-makers for the million. They should further recollect, however, that an instrument, hitherto the prescriptive property of the rich and refined, must, however humble its materials, retain a certain elegance of form. A plain deal piano, for instance, even if the wood were suitable, would not be bought; but one made of birch, and French polished, with cheap keys, &c. would not disgrace a drawing-room. We remember seeing furniture of this timber in some of the small country inns in Russia; and it struck us as having an enormously-extravagant look, having all the appearance of satin-wood. This, however, we give merely as an illustration of our meaning. We put forth these paragraphs as nothing more than a hint to set thinking on the subject persons who possess the mechanical knowledge we cannot pretend to; and having so done, we take leave of the subject.

L. R.