Modus in rebus—an admirable proverb, upon all common occasions—is inapplicable, of course, to musical matters. No doubt of it. The luxury of sweet sounds cannot be too dearly bought; and, for its procurement, mankind may go stark mad, without any diminution of their respectability.

Such I infer to be the popular philosophy of today—while it is called today. The moderns have been greatly perplexed, by the legends, which have come down to us, respecting the melody of swans. The carmina cycnorum of Ovid, and the Cantantes sublime ferent ad sidera cycni, of Virgil, are perfectly incomprehensible by us. Cicero also, in his Tusculan Questions, i. 74, says, they die, cum cantu et voluptate. Martial, xiii. 77, asserts the matter, very positively—

Dulcia defecta modulatur carmina lingua
Cantator cycnus funeris ipse sui.

I no more believe in the power of a living or a dying swan to make melody of any kind, than I believe in the antiquated hum-bug of immediate emancipation. Pliny had no confidence in the story, and expresses himself to that effect, x. 23, Olorum morte narratur flebilis cantus (falso, ut arbitror) aliquot experimentis.

No mortal has done more than Shakspeare, among the moderns, to perpetuate this pleasant fancy—no bard, when weary of Pegasus, and preferring a drive to a ride, has harnessed his cygnets more frequently—or compelled them to sing more sweetly, in a dying hour. A single example may suffice. When prince Henry is told, that his father, King John, sang, during his dying frenzy, he says—

“Tis strange, that death should sing—
I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan,
Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death:
And, from the organ pipe of frailty, sings
His soul and body to their lasting rest.”

One brief example more—Emilia, after the murder of her mistress—

“Hark! canst thou hear me? I will play the swan;
And die in music.”

In all this there lurks not one particle of sober prose—one syllable of truth. The most learned refutation of it may be found, in the Pseudodoxia of Sir Thomas Browne, ii. 517, Lond. 1835.

In the “Memoires de l’AcadÉmie des Inscriptions,” M. Morin discusses the question very agreeably, why swans, that sang so delightfully, of old, sing so miserably, at the present day. Tame swans, he observes, are mutes: but the wild swan exerts its vocal powers, after a fashion of its own. He introduces the observations of the AbbÉ Arnaud, upon the performances of a couple of wild swans, which had located, upon the lagoons of Chantilly. “One can hardly say,” says the AbbÉ, “that the swans of Chantilly sing—they cry; but their cries are truly and constantly modulated. Their voice is not sweet; on the contrary, it is shrill, piercing, and rather disagreeable; I could compare it to nothing better than the sound of a clarionet, winded by a person unacquainted with the instrument.” Nothing surely savors less of melody than this. So thought Buffon—“Des sons bruyans de clarion, mais dont les tons aigus et peu diversifiÉs sont nÉanmoins tres—ÉloignÉs de la tendre mÉlodie et de la variÉtÉ douce et brilliante du ramage de nos oiseaux chanteurs.” Nat. Hist. des Oisaux, ix. 25.

In his exposition of this error, imposed upon mankind, by the poets, Buffon expresses himself with singular beauty, in the concluding paragraph—“Nulle fiction en Histoire Naturelle, nulle fable chez les Anciens n’a ete plus cÉlÉbrÉe, plus rÉpÉtÉe, plus accrÉditee; elle s’Étoit emparÉe de l’imagination vive et sensible des Grecs; poËtes, orateurs, philosophes mÉme l’ont adoptÉe, comme une veritÉ trop agreable pour vouloir en douter. Il faut bien leur pardonner leurs fables; elles Étoient aimables et touchantes; elles valoient bien de tristes, d’arides veritÉs c’etoient de doux emblÉmes pour les ames sensibles. Les cygnes, sans doute, ne chantent point leur mort; mais toujours, en parlant du dernier essor et de derniers Élans d’un beau gÉnie pret Á s’Éteindre, on rappellera avec sentiment cette expression touchante—c’est le chant du cygne!” Ibid. 28.

It is not surprising, that these celebrated naturalists, Buffon and Morin, who discourse, so eloquently, of Grecian and Roman swans, should say nothing of Swedish nightingales, for, between their time and the present, numerous additions have been made to the catalogue of songsters.

The very thing, which the barber, Arkwright did, for all the spinning Jennies, in Lancashire, some seventy years ago, has been done by Jenny Lind, for all the singing Jennies upon earth, beside herself—they are cast into the shade.

She came here with an irresistible prestige. A singing woman has been a proverb, since the world began; and, of course, long before Ulysses dropped in, upon the island of Ogygia, and listened to Calypso; or fell into serious difficulty, among the Sirens. A singing woman, a Siren, has been frequently accounted, and with great propriety, a singing bird of evil omen. How grateful then must it be, to know, that, while lending their ears and their eyes to this incomparable songstress, our wives, our daughters, and our sisters have before them a pure, and virtuous, and gentle, and generous creature, as free, as poor, human nature can well be free, from life’s alloy, and very much as she was, when created—a little lower than the angels.

Among other mythological matters, Pausanias relates, that the three Sirens, instigated by Juno, challenged the Muses to a trial of skill in singing. They were beaten, of course, for the Muses, being nine in number, there were three upon one. The victors, as the story goes, proceeded very deliberately, to pluck the golden feathers, from the wings of the vanquished, and converted them into crowns, for their own brows.

Now, it cannot be denied, that Jenny has vanquished us all, and made the golden feathers fly abundantly. But this is not Jenny’s fault; for, whatever the wisdom or the folly, the affair was our own entirely. If, for the sake of distinction, any one has seen fit to pluck every golden feather from his back, and appear, like the featherless biped of Diogenes, and give the golden feathers to Jenny, to make her a crown; we have substantial facts, upon which to predict, that Jenny will make a better use of those golden feathers, than to fool them away, for a song. If Jenny plucks golden feathers, from the backs of the rich, she finds bare spots enough, for a large part of them all, upon the backs of the poor: and, as for the crown, for Jenny’s brows, if she goes onward, as she has begun, investing her treasure in Heaven, and selecting the Lord for her paymaster, there will be her coronation; and her crown a crown of Glory. And, when she comes to lie down and die, let the two last lines of Johnson’s imperishable epitaph, on Philips, be inscribed upon her tomb—

“Rest undisturb’d, beneath this marble shrine,
Till angels wake thee, with a note like thine.”

Orpheus was changed into a swan; Philomela into a nightingale; and Jenny, in due time, will be changed into an angel. Indeed, it is the opinion of some competent judges, that the metamorphosis has already commenced.

Music is such a delightful, soothing thing, that one grieves, to think its professors and amateurs are frequently so excessively irritable.

The disputes, between Handel and Senesino, and their respective partisans, disturbed all London, and finally broke up the Academy of Music, after it had been established, for nine years. The quarrels of Handel and Buononcini are said to have occasioned duels, among the amateurs; and the nation was filled, by these musical geniuses, with discord and uproar. Good humor was, in some degree, restored, by the following epigram, so often ascribed to Swift, the two last lines of which, however, are alone to be found in the editions of his works, by Nicholls, and Scott:

“Some say, that signor Buononcini,
Compar’d with Handel, is a ninny;
Others aver to him, that Handel
Does not deserve to hold a candle;
Strange, all this difference should be,
’Twixt tweedle dum and tweedle dee.”

This epigram cannot be attributed to that contempt for music, which is sometimes occasioned, by a constitutional inability to appreciate its effect, upon the great mass of mankind. It undoubtedly sprang from a desire to put an end, by the power of ridicule, to these unmusical disturbances of the public peace.

Swift’s musical pun, upon the accidental destruction of a fine Cremona fiddle, which was thrown down by a lady’s mantua, has always been highly and deservedly commended; and recently, upon the very best authority, pronounced the finest specimen extant of this species of wit—“Perhaps,” says Sir Walter Scott, in his life of Swift, speaking of his puns, i. 467, “the application of the line of Virgil to the lady, who threw down with her mantua a Cremona fiddle, is the best ever made—

“Mantua vÆ miserÆ nimium vicina CremonÆ!”

In every nation, and in every age, the power of music has been acknowledged by mankind. Now and then, the negative idiosyncracies of certain persons place this particular department of pleasure, beyond the sphere of their comprehension, as effectually as utter blindness denies the power of enjoying the finest specimens of the painter’s art. Occasionally, some pious divine, absolutely drunk with over-potent draughts of orthodoxy, like the friar, before Boccaccio, shakes his holy finger at this wicked world, and warns them to beware of the singing woman!

The vocal power of music is ascribed to the angels in Heaven; and my own personal knowledge has assured me, that it affords a melancholy solace, to the slave in bonds.

I passed the winter of 1840-41 with an invalid daughter, in the island of St. Croix. With a party of some six or eight, we devoted one delightful, moonlight evening, to a ride, on horseback, among the sugar-loaf summits of that beautiful speck amid the main. We were ascending the hills, in the neighborhood of the Annelly plantation—the moon was at full, that night; and the Caribbean Sea, far and wide, shone like a boundless prairie of burnished silver. As we were slowly winding our way, to the summit, one of our party called the attention of the rest to the sounds of music, coming from the slave cabins, at a distance. As we advanced, slowly and silently, towards the spot, the male and female voices were readily distinguished.

We drew near, unperceived, and, checking our horses, listened, for several minutes, to the wild, simple notes of these children of bondage. “There is melody in this”—said one of our party aloud, and all was hushed, in an instant. We rode down to the cabins, and begged them to continue their song—but our solicitations were in vain—even the offer of sundry five stiver pieces, which operate, like a charm, upon many occasions, with the uncles and the aunties, was ineffectual then. “No massa—b’lieve no sing any more”—were the only replies, and we went upon our way.

As we descended the Annelly hills, on the opposite side, after leaving the negroes and their cabins, at some distance, we halted and listened—they had recommenced—the same wild music was floating upon the breeze.

As we rode slowly along, my daughter asked me, if I could account for their reluctance to comply with our request. I told her, I could not. “Perhaps,” said she, “they have a reason, somewhat like the reason of those, who sat down, by the waters of Babylon, and wept, and who could not sing one of the songs of Zion, in a strange land.”

It might have been thus. “They that carried us away captive, required of us a song! They, that wasted us, required of us mirth!”