Various

The heart of an Englishman must ever swell with pride as he contemplates his country's greatness. He looks around him, and his eye every where meets with the signs of increasing opulence and prosperity, while his ear is filled with the busy hum of an industrious, and, despite the idle babblings of the ignorant, and the empty declamation of interested, selfish, and disappointed men, a contented population, happy in the enjoyment of comfort, beyond that of the labouring classes of most other countries. He visits her marts, her harbours, and her ports—men of all nations are met together there—fleets of rich argosies are ever arriving and departing—and myriads of steamers flit to and fro, happily now engaged in promoting the arts of peace, but ready at a moment's notice to become the defenders of his country's shores, and, as recent events have shown the world, able also to carry war and devastation along the coasts of her enemies, even to the uttermost parts of the earth. He explores the seats of her manufactures; there he beholds vast edifices teeming with crowds of work-people, occupied in supplying the wants of mankind. In short, wherever he bends his steps, all are usefully employed—industry, enterprise, and perseverance, are found throughout the land. He also feels it no vain boast to be a denizen of that small isle, whose inhabitants, by their own proper energy, have extended their dominion over a territory on which the sun never sets—peopled by upwards of two hundred million souls—consisting of colonies, nations, and people, differing from each other in form of person, complexion, habits, manners, and in language—elements apparently the most discordant and heterogeneous, yet firmly knit and bound into one vast glorious empire, which, successfully resisting the rudest shocks, often assaulted, ever victorious, and, thanks to the bravery of her warriors, and the wisdom of those who now guide her councils, having defeated alike the open attacks and the secret machinations of her enemies, at this moment constitutes the most powerful state of ancient or modern times—abounding in wealth, and rejoicing in freedom, beyond all other nations of the earth.

He glories also in the intellectual pre-eminence of his country. Her victories by sea and land attest the genius of her captains; her institutions bear witness to the sagacity of her lawgivers and her statesmen. Her railroads, docks, canals, and other public works, bear the marks of superior intelligence acting for the general good. His countrymen were the first to press steam into the active service of mankind. By the genius of Watt and his successors, a power, before destructive and uncontrollable, has been rendered the mighty agent of man's will, the supplier of his wants, and the minister of his convenience. Through their inventions, steam has become, as it were, the breath, the life, of a noble animal of man's creation, untiring in its ceaseless labours, irresistible in its tremendous strength; and, when its maker chooses to endow it with powers of motion, fleeter also than the wind, but of imposing might and majesty as it pursues its headlong course; and yet, withal, checked by a single touch, yielding a perfect obedience to the hand of its ruler, and submissive to the slightest intimation of his will. In the walks of science, literature, and philosophy, he finds equal reason to be proud of his country. Splendid discoveries in every branch of science meet him as he enquires, and but a few years have passed away since the death of one—Sir Humphry Davy—of whom it is scarce too much to say, that he revolutionized a great science by his discoveries, or that, by the power of his single intellect, he dived deeper into the hidden mysteries of the material world than all preceding generations had been able to penetrate. In short, an Englishman finds his country possessed of warriors, statesmen, philosophers, historians, poets, and authors, in every branch of literature, who are the admiration of the whole civilized world. In all these, England stands proudly pre-eminent, the first, the very first, among the nations. It is much to be able to feel this, but an Englishman would fain feel even more than this; his noble ambition is to see his country first in every thing; he would have her pre-eminent alike in the fine arts and those pursuits which distinguish the recreations and amusements of a refined and polished people, as in the more useful arts of life.

But here the pleasing portion of the picture ceases—

"Ogni medaglia ha il suo rovescio,"

every medal has its obverse, says the Italian proverb; and the comparatively low rank which his country occupies in this new field of view, is a melancholy contemplation for an Englishman. He finds that, in general, things are judged of only by the measure of their practical utility, and that the beautiful and the useful are usually deemed to be incompatible; thereby affording, however reluctantly we may admit it, at least some justification of Napoleon's celebrated and bitter reproach, that we are a nation of shopkeepers. It would seem, in truth, that we do not possess that quick perception of the beautiful which is enjoyed by the more excitable and imaginative sons of the south. In painting, we believe we possess a school second to none of modern art. But, beautiful as their works may be, can we place our Reynolds, Lawrence, Hogarth, and Gainsborough in competition with Raphael, Correggio, Rubens, or Claude? In sculpture also, can Westmacott, or even Chantrey—we speak with reverence of the illustrious dead—be compared with Michael Angelo or Giovanni de Bologna? When pressed on these topics, the candid Englishman must, with a sigh, confess his country's inferiority. Architecture also, with few exceptions, has long been our reproach. We judge of the degree of civilization and refinement to which ancient Greece and Rome attained, by the beauty and elegance of their mutilated remains. We find their temples, even in ruins, beautiful beyond the day-dream of our modern architects; some of them, till bold and sacrilegious hands despoiled them, adorned with sculptures which, surviving the destruction of the people who raised them, the wanton rage of barbarous enemies, and the inroads of the elements for near two thousand years, sill remain, in their decay, the wonder and admiration of the world, the models of modern sculptors, and the greatest treasure of art a nation can possess.

In the lapse of ages, perhaps, England, in her turn, may be deserted, her mines exhausted, her edifies ruined, her existence as a nation terminated. The site of her vast metropolis may once more become an undulating verdant plain, intersected by a tidal river; and, perhaps, nothing may remain outwardly to show the curious traveller where the ancient city stood. The pristine abode of man upon the earth, may again be thickly peopled, and civilization may have rolled back to the south, its ancient source. Then may history or tradition vaguely tell of powerful nations who once flourished in the north; their very existence doubted, perhaps, by all, and by many disbelieved. Some day, perchance, one whom accident or curiosity may have brought to the shores of ancient Britain, may wend his weary way along the bank of the noblest river of the land. On a mound a little higher than the rest, something on which the hand of man had evidently been employed may attract his attention, and stimulate him to search among the tangled weeds and brushwood which grow around. The discovery of a marble fragment may, perhaps, eventually lead to the uncovering of one of those statues which now grace the interior of our St Paul's, on the site of which the stranger had unconsciously been exploring. Or, suppose the traveller to have bent his steps in a north-easterly direction, towards the foot of that gentle slope which terminates at the base of the heights of Highgate and of Hampstead. Suppose him, by some strange chance, to stumble upon that incomparable specimen of modern sculpture which stands on high at King's-Cross, lifted up, in order, we presume, to enable the good citizens duly to feast their eyes upon its manifold perfections, as they daily hie them to and fro between their western or suburban retreats and the purlieus of King Street or Cheapside. What estimate would the stranger form of the taste or skill of those who placed on its pedestal the statue we have first supposed him to have found? It avails not to disguise the truth. What that truth may be, we leave to the intelligence of the reader to divine. But what would be the effect of the other discovery we have imagined? The traveller would turn away, convinced that history or tradition gave false accounts of the power and genius of the ancient inhabitants of the land on which he trod, that their glory was a dream, their civilization a delusion, their proficiency in the arts a fable. For the honour of our country, let us hope that the figure of which we speak may not be suffered much longer to disgrace a leading thoroughfare of our metropolis. It has already stood some eight or ten years, a melancholy monument of English taste and English art in the nineteenth century.

For the attainment of excellence in the higher branches of art, as has been well observed by an intelligent foreigner, M. Passavant, it is requisite that a people should possess deep poetic feeling, and that art should not be considered among them as a thing of separate nature, but that it should interweave itself with the ties of social life, and be employed in adding beauty to its nearest, dearest interests. Now, the English, he continues, are more disposed to an active than to a contemplative life. They possess, it must be owned, a character of much earnestness and energy; yet, from the earliest times, their attention has been more directed to the cultivation of the mechanical arts and the sciences appertaining to them than to those nobler branches of art which flourish spontaneously in a more contemplative nation. This characteristic disposition, and the physical activity necessarily connected with it, have been by some ascribed to the influence of our climate, to our moist and heavy atmosphere, and clouded skies, to counteract the influence of which, and to preserve a counterbalancing buoyancy of mind and body, an active habit of life is requisite. But this hypothesis is untenable; for Flanders, with a similar climate, and flourishing likewise by means of its native industry, affords sufficient proof how little these circumstances are prejudicial to the cultivation of the fine arts. Perhaps a better reason may be found in the wide difference which is observable between the national habits of our countrymen and those of the people among whom the arts have been cultivated with the greatest success. In those countries where the beautiful was felt, where the arts were objects of national importance, where a people assembled to award the palm between rival sculptors; and also, in comparatively modern times, when a reigning monarch did not disdain to pick up a painter's pencil, and a whole city mourned an artist's death, and paid honours to his remains; all the rank, wealth, genius, talent, taste, and intelligence of the people were concentrated in one grand focus. Among the states of ancient Greece and modern Italy, the city was in fact the nation; and at Athens, Rome, Venice, and Florence, was collected all of genius, taste, and talent, the people as a body possessed. The mental qualities were thereby rendered more acute, and the tastes and manners of the people more refined and cultivated, by constant intercourse and communication with each other. This refinenent was shared by all classes, and the lower taking pattern from the higher, the whole mass was learned. In England, the very reverse of this takes place. Here, for the most part, those alone frequent our towns, whose doom it is to labour for their bread, they have no leisure from the engrossing pursuits of wealth; business, like a jealous mistress, leaves them no time for other objects. In spite of various disadvantages of soil and climate, the taste for rural pursuits seems part and parcel of our nature, and that species of the genus homo, the country gentleman, seems peculiar to our island. Till within a few years, the great majority of this class, whose abundant wealth and leisure might seem to constitute them the peculiar patrons of the arts, seldom or never frequented even the metropolis, but for generations remained fixed and immovable in the place of their forefathers, rooted to the soil as one of their old oaks. "His guns, dogs, and horses, were the things the squire held most dear." Hunting, shooting, and other sports, formed not only the amusements of his leisure hours, but the business of his life. His intercourse with the world confined to a narrow circle of acquaintance, all of the same tastes and pursuits with himself, he could learn or know no others. Generous pursuits, hospitable, liberal, and open hearted, hating alike poachers and dissenters, possessed of many virtues, avoiding many a crime, discharging the duties, as well as exercising the rights of property; exemplary in all the relations of life, a good father, a tender husband, a kind master, an indulgent landlord, a blessing to himself and those around him, he lived and died the Squire Western of his day, without that refinement and cultivation of the tastes and mental powers which the more polished inhabitants of the metropolis insensibly contract. Sure there were many to whom this does not apply, many who combined the "gifts" of both a town and country life. But, nevertheless such was the great bulk of that class, among whom, had London been England, as even in our own time Paris is or was France, the beautiful would not probably have been so much neglected.

So occupied have the great mass of our countrymen been in the pursuit of wealth, that all that did not directly contribute to this end has been uniformly rejected as useless. A familiar example of the truth of this observation may be seen in the numerous factories and other buildings erected for commercial purposes, in the manufacturing districts of Lancashire and Yorkshire. In buildings of this class, all embellishment and ornament, however simple, which good taste, had it been consulted, might have suggested, to relieve the wearying straightness of outline, or the plain dull flatness of these large ponderous masses of brick and mortar, have been neglected, or rejected, probably as not increasing its productive powers, and therefore unworthy of consideration. Such has been the general principle. But this neglect has at length recoiled upon the heads of its promoters. As long as the world was content to take our manufactures as we chose to make them—when, no other nation having entered the lists with us, we were without competitors, and absolute masters of the commerce of the world, this make-all save-all principle was undoubtedly the most effective. But now, when our manufacturers meet with the keenest competition in every market; when a suicidal export of machinery enables the foreigner immediately to benefit by every mechanical discovery, or improvement in machinery, that is made by our engineers, the case is wholly altered, and the English manufacturer finds out the grievous mistake that he has made. Beauty of design has at length become of paramount importance, and the beautiful, so long neglected, is now avenged. The public taste has advanced too fast. Since the introduction of foreign goods, such as silks and other ornamental fabrics, the inferiority of our native designs for these materials has become manifest to all. We are credibly informed, that there now exists a regular organized system, viz. supply of French designs to our manufacturers; that from these designs all their ideas are borrowed and all their patterns taken, and that, in fact, scarcely a single pattern of purely home invention is worked in a season. The manufacturers are, however, now roused from their lethargy, and great efforts are made to remedy the evil. Schools of design are established, and copyright of design has just been conferred by act of parliament. In some of our commercial towns, large rooms or galleries are opened to the mechanic, where he may study the beautiful and ideal from casts and models of the antique. Pictures also are occasionally exhibited for his instruction. These are indeed great and praiseworthy efforts, in which utilitarianism has assumed a new character, and found a new field of action. These novel institutions, not organized and supported from a pure abstract love of the arts ostensibly promoted by them, but from dire necessity created by successful competition in the more elegant branches of manufacture, in which the exercise of taste and fancy is required, may eventually produce great general results; years, however, must necessarily elapse before their benefits can be felt.

We have hitherto purposely abstained from any allusion to music and musical taste, for the purpose of showing, that music is not the only fruit of civilization which has not as yet arrived at maturity among us; and also for the purpose of ascertaining, whether there might not be some general causes in operation, which affect, in an equal degree, every branch of the more intellectual refinements of civilized life. In this case, the low standard of musical taste and science which will hereafter become the subject of more particular observation, cannot be attributed solely to causes which relate exclusively to music, but must be considered as one amongst other results of general principles. If there be any truth in the foregoing speculations, they apply more particularly to music, and musical taste and science, than to the fine arts, to which we have hitherto confined our observations. Music is peculiarly a social pursuit. It can be cultivated only among the haunts of men. The taste deteriorates, and the mental standard of excellence which each possesses, is lowered when really good music is seldom or never heard. By "the million," it can be heard only while mixing with the world at large; the performer can acquire his mastery over the instrument, at the cost of much time and labour, and he can maintain this mastery, and the purity of his style, only where he can compare himself with others of acknowledged excellence. This can be done only where men congregate in large and populous cities, where the want of amusement is best supplied; the recluse or the solitary man can be no musician.

It may seem anomalous at first sight, and we can well conceive it to be objected to our argument, that it is impossible, that while architecture, sculpture, painting, and music, should have been comparatively neglected, that literature, in all its branches, should be so highly esteemed among us. Milton, and more especially Shakspeare, have never lost one tittle of their value; nay, even at this moment, there are three rival editions of Shakspeare's works in the course of publication. Many volumes of poetry put in their claim to immortality every year. Novel after novel appears each to elbow its predecessor out of the public mind, and be in its turn forgotten. It is easy to imagine, that to many it may appear a paradox in the history of the human race, that a people should exist, endowed by nature with a high degree of poetic feeling, having, as Mr Hallam observes, produced more eminent original poets than any other nation can boast, and attaching a high value to literary talent of every description, but, nevertheless, whose attainments in the fine arts during a thousand years of national existence, should never have passed mediocrity. This apparent inconsistency, however, lies only on the surface. The language of true poetry is understood by all; it strikes home: however rude the thoughts, however uncultivated the understanding, the heart can feel; and it is to the heart the poet speaks; and even in the rudest ages of mankind his power was acknowledged. Voltaire has remarked, that "amusement is one of the wants of man".

Novels are taken up to amuse the vacant hour—in this consists their use. They are read without effort—the mind lies fallow as they are perused, and no study is required, no cultivation of any taste is necessary, to place this amusement within reach. With music and the fine arts, this is not so. The taste for these pursuits requires cultivation; and in order to estimate and appreciate them correctly, the judgment must be formed by a process of education, far different from that which enables all who read to value our poets and authors in the various departments of literature.

On examining the records of mankind, it will be found that this has been the ordinary succession of events in the history of civilization; and that poetry and oratory, the more independent efforts of the human mind, appear in the earlier stages of society, and that by them man is first distinguished as an intellectual and rational creature.

Of Egyptian literature, we know nothing. The destruction of the library of the Ptolemies may be the principal cause of our ignorance. The gigantic remains of this people, and the manner in which they worked in a stone which no modern tool will touch, show that among them the useful arts were considerably advanced. We have, however, abundant evidence of the small degree of proficiency in the fine arts. Their sculptors are characterized by Flaxman as "mere beginners," or "laborious mechanics;" their works as "lifeless forms, menial vehicles of an idea." When Egyptian art ended, then Grecian art began. It appears, however, to have made but little progress down to the time of Homer; and DÆdalus and his disciple EudÆus are, we believe, the only artists of that early period whose fame has survived. These sculptors worked in wood, and by their proficiency we may form a pretty accurate idea of the state of art in Greece when Homer wrote. The works of DÆdalus are described by Pausanias as rude and uncomely in aspect. In his Grecian tour, Pausanias twice makes mention of a statue of Hercules by DÆdalus, from which circumstance it would appear to have been held in high estimation. On this statue Flaxman observes—"In the British Museum, as well as in other collections in Europe, are several small bronzes of a naked Hercules, whose right arm, holding a club, is raised to strike; whilst the left is extended, bearing a lion's skin as a shield. From the style of extreme antiquity in these statues—from the rude attempt at bold action, which was the peculiarity of DÆdalus—the general adoption of this action in the early ages—the traits of savage nature in the face and figure, expressed with little knowledge, but strong feeling—by the narrow loins, turgid muscles of the breast, thighs, and calves of the legs, will all find reason to believe they are copied from the above-mentioned statue." Greece, it must be owned, possessed musicians long anterior to Homer: Chiron the Centaur, regarded by the ancients as one of the inventors of medicine, botany, and chirurgery, who, when eighty-eight years of age, formed the constellations for the use of the Argonauts; Linus, the preceptor of Hercules, who added a string to the lyre, and is said to be the inventor of rhythm and melody; Orpheus, who also extended the scale of the lyre, and was the inventor and propagator of many arts and doctrines among the Greeks; and MusÆus, the priest of Ceres, are all remembered as musicians, as well as poets, historians, and philosophers; characters which, in those days, were all combined in the same individuals. The ancients, indeed, appear to have used the term music in a much more extended sense than has been attached to it in modern times, and to have applied it to all the arts and sciences. But even if the ancient meaning of the term were identical with its modern signification, there may be good reason to suppose that their fame as musicians would principally survive. The memory of these first preceptors of mankind was long preserved as the general benefactors of their species. But while the other arts they taught advanced, it does not appear that music made any progress. Thus, they came chiefly to be remembered for that talent in which posterity had produced no equals. As poets they were once celebrated; but, eclipsed by the glory and splendour of the great historian of Troy, their poetical productions were forgotten; whilst, as musicians, unrivalled through many centuries, their skill was long remembered as the most excellent the world had ever known. The arts of sculpture and painting appear to have remained even more stationary than music. For, while about the middle or latter end of the seventh century, B.C., the names of Archilochus and Terpander adorn the page of musical history, followed by many others, including AlcÆus, Sappho, and Simonides, down to Pindar and his rival Corinna, the former of whom, according to the chronology of Dr Blair, died in 435 B.C. aged 86, it is evident, says Flaxman, "that sculpture was 800 years, from DÆdalus to the time immediately preceding Phidias, in attaining a tolerable resemblance of the human form." It appears, therefore, that the greatest epic poem ever written had been read, appreciated, and admired, for nearly five centuries before the arts arrived at perfection. Then, indeed, there burst a flood of glory over ancient Greece, and names never to be forgotten were borne upon the tide. Contemporary with Pindar and Corinna were Phidias, Alcamenes, and many other sculptors, together with poets, philosophers, warriors, and statesmen; men whose names will rise superior to the lapse of time, and whose fame, like the rocky barriers of the ocean, on which the elements in vain expend their fury, will be of equal duration with the world itself.

Ancient Rome was indebted to others for all of the liberal arts and sciences she possessed. In the earlier periods of her existence, and before Greece had become known in Rome, Etruria was the instructress of her sons. When Greece had been subdued, and rendered a tributary province of the all-conquering city, her polished people, nevertheless, exercised an intellectual sovereignty over their masters. In the streets of Athens a singular spectacle was exhibited; there might be seen the conqueror learning of the vanquished; Romans, of exalted rank and unbounded power, had become the disciples of Grecian philosophers. Nevertheless, when Rome possessed orators and poets, each of whom has raised

"Monumentum Ære perennius,"

in that the golden age of her existence, it does not appear, says Dr Burney, that "except Vitruvius, the Romans had one architect, sculptor, painter, or musician; those who have been celebrated in the arts of Rome having been Asiatics or European Greeks, who came to exercise such arts among the Latins, as the Latins had not among themselves. This custom was continued under the successors of Augustus; and those Romans who were prevented, by more important concerns, from going into Greece, combined, in a manner, to bring Greece to Rome, by receiving into their service the most able professors of Greece and Asia in all the arts." Vitruvius, in the chapter on music inserted in his treatise on architecture, complains that "the science of music, in itself obscure, is particularly so to such as understand not the Greek language." This observation shows the low state of music at Rome at that time; indeed Vitruvius is said to be the first who has treated of music in the Latin tongue.

Modern Europe also furnishes another illustration and example of the truth of our proposition. When the mists of ignorance and superstition which had for centuries enveloped the world, had begun to clear away, and when Europe first attempted to throw off the errors of the Dark Ages, the arts were dead, and the only music known was that cultivated by the monks and clergy, as necessary to their profession, and the songs of the Troubadours. "The fame of the Troubadours," remarks Mr Hallam, "depends less on their positive excellence than on the darkness of preceding ages, the temporary sensation they excited, and their permanent influence on the state of European poetry." The intrinsic merit of the music of this period may be collected from the following observation of Dr Burney:—"However barbarous and wretched the melody and harmony of the secular songs of this period may have been, they were in both respects superior to the music of the church." The Troubadours flourished from the middle of the twelfth century till the latter end of the fourteenth century, when their dissolute and licentious habits caused them to be universally banished and proscribed. During the barbarism of these times, not only had the arts themselves been lost, but even the principles on which they rest had been forgotten. Italy, indeed, possessed many ancient marbles, but they seemed to have lost their value; and it was not till the thirteenth century that any attempt to imitate these remains of antiquity was made. Nicola Pisano, about the year 1231, taking for his model an ancient sarcophagus at Pisa, which contained the remains of Beatrice, mother of the Countess Matilda, sculptured an urn—a feat in those days so extraordinary, as to have conferred upon him the title of Nicolas of the Urn. This artist, in the words of Lanzi, "was the first to see and follow light." He was, however, more ambitious than successful, and was followed by his sons and others, in whose hands the art seems to have no very rapid progress. The art of painting, in which there were no models in existence, was later in manifesting any improvement. It was not till after the year 1250 that, according to Vasari, some Greek painters were invited to Florence by the rulers of the city, for the express purpose of restoring the art to Florence, where it was rather wholly lost than degenerated. Cimabue, the reviver of painting, received instruction from the Greeks. He died in 1300. Fierce as the age in which he lived, says Lanzi, his Madonnas were without beauty, and his angels, even in the same picture, were all in the same attitude. To Cimabue succeeded his pupil, the famous Giotto, who died in 1337. With him the ruggedness of his master's manner was softened down, and considerable advances made towards a better style. He was honourably received at many of the principal towns and cities of Italy, and may, perhaps, be considered as the real founder of their several schools; at all events, painters every where were long the imitators of Giotto. His faults partook also of the character of the age, and among other defects, the dry hardness of his works has given rise to an opinion, that he partly formed his style upon the works of the Pisani. Giotto and his school, indeed, conducted the art through infancy, but it still exhibited many signs of childhood, especially in chiara-oscuro, and even more so in perspective. Figures sometimes appeared as if sliding from the canvass—buildings had not the true point of view, and foreshortening was only rudely attempted. Stefano Fiorentino, a grandson of Giotto, was the first and only one of the school who endeavoured to grapple with this last difficulty, which he may be said to have perceived rather than overcome; his contemporaries, for the most part, evaded it, and concealed their deficiency as they could. Such is the summary of the merits of this school of art given by Lanzi, who dates the commencement of the first epoch of modern painting from the death of Giotto. In further illustration of the low state of art in the early part of the fourteenth century, it may be observed, that Lanzi also describes a great work of Masaccio, who flourished in the succeeding century, as "beautiful for those times;" and that it was not till the year 1410 that oil-painting was invented or improved by Van-Eyck.

From this sketch of the history of the arts of music, sculpture, and painting during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, will be seen their state and condition, when the great work of the immortal Dante took his country by surprise. The Divina Comedia was written about the year 1300. Its illustrious author, the creator of the national poetry of his country, died in 1321, leaving behind him Petrarch, who was crowned in the Capitol in 1341, and Boccaccio, who—though, as Byron said of Scott, he spoiled his poetry by writing better prose—was nevertheless a poet of no mean merit, and the probable inventor of the ottava rima. Two centuries after the last of these parents of modern literature had nearly elapsed, ere he who has been styled the Dante of the arts, Michael Angelo, and his contemporaries, among whom were Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael, appeared upon the stage. Thus language, the first great want of man, the necessary instrument of reason, by which its possessor is distinguished from the rest of creation, the vehicle of human thoughts, the means by which man's wants, desires, griefs, and joys, are communicated and made known, would seem to form the earliest object of his attention. He enriches and improves it, till it is rendered capable of expressing all the workings of his reason. This done, genius and invention are applied to other pursuits; and in many instances it may be, that the poet and the artist were but the creatures of the age which produced them. Had he lived at a later period, Homer, the great sire of song, might perhaps have shone the Phidias or the Zeuxis of his day; or, had his birth been anticipated two hundred years, the genius of "the Dante of the arts" might possibly have been displayed in works like those which have immortalized Dante Alighieri. It is, therefore, no inconsistency in the character of a people amongst whom poetry is passionately admired, and books of all kinds eagerly devoured, that the arts should be generally uncared-for and unknown. When another century has passed away, their history may tell another tale, and the powers of mind hitherto employed principally upon the physical sciences, may have achieved like triumphs in the liberal arts. That this may be the case, the past history of other nations affords every reason to hope. What man has done, man may, and doubtless will, do again.

In the earlier ages of the world, music, in its rudest, simplest form, is said to have stopped the flow of rivers, to have tamed wild beasts, and to have raised the walls of cities; allegories which at least show the prodigious influence the art possessed over the inhabitants of infant Greece. In the course of time, love of the art was a national characteristic of this people; and music became a specific in the hand of the physician, a fundamental principle of public education, and the medium of instruction in religion, morals, and the laws. The lyre may be said to have ruled Greece, the glorious and the free, with the same despotic sway with which the iron hand of tyranny has in our own day governed her. Discord, and civil commotions arose among the LacedÆmonians; Terpander came, and with his lyre at once appeased the angry multitude. Among the Athenians it was forbidden, under pain of death, to propose the conquest of the isle of Salamis; but the songs of Solon raised a tumult amongst the people; they rose, compelled the repeal of the obnoxious decree, and Salamis straightway fell. Was it found necessary to civilize a wild and extensive province? Music was employed for this desirable object; and Arcadia, before the habitation of a fierce and savage people, became famed as the abode of happiness and peace. Plutarch places the masters of tragedy—to which the modern opera bears a great resemblance—on a level with the greatest captains: nor did the people fail in gratitude to their benefactors; they held their memory in veneration. The lyre of Orpheus was transplanted to the skies, there to shine for countless ages; and divine honours were paid to the name of Sappho.

The Greeks, although perhaps excelling all other nations in this, as in the other arts, are not the only people among whom music was cultivated and esteemed. Both China and Arabia are said to have felt its influence upon their customs, manners, and institutions. The musical traditions of China might seem to be but repetitions of the marvels of the Greeks. King-lun, Kovei, and Pinmonkia, are said to have arrested the flow of rivers, and to have caused the woods and forests, attracted by the melody of their performance, to crowd around. The Chinese are said to believe, that the ancient music of their country has drawn angels down from heaven, and conjured up from hell departed souls: they also believe that music can inspire men with the love of virtue, and cause them faithfully to fulfil their several duties. Confucius says "to know if a kingdom be well governed, and if the customs of its inhabitants be bad or good, examine the musical taste which there prevails." There is still extant a curious document, which shows the importance which a ruler of this people attached to music, as a moral and political agent. We allude to a proclamation of the Emperor Ngaiti, who ascended the throne of the Celestial Empire in the year of the tenth Æra 364. After complaining, that tender, artificial, and effeminate strains inspire libertinism, he proceeds, in severe terms, to order a reformation in these matters; the first step to which, is a prohibition of every sort of music but that which serves for war, and for the ceremony Tido. The Arabs also appear to have held similar opinions as to the power of music. They boast of Ishac, Kathab Al Moussouly, Alfarabi, and other musicians, whom they relate to have worked miracles by their vocal and instrumental performances. With the Arabs, music was interwoven with philosophy; and their wise men imagined a marvellous relation to exist between harmonious sounds and the operations of nature. Harmony was esteemed the panacea, or universal remedy, in mental and even bodily affections; in the tones of the lute were found medical recipes in almost all diseases. Upon one occasion, in the presence of the grand vizier, Alfarabi, accompanying his voice with an instrument, is related to have roused a large assembly to an extreme pitch of joyful excitement, from which he moved them to grief and tears, and then plunged all present into a deep sleep, none having the power to resist the enchantment of his performance.

The children of Israel cultivated music in the earliest periods of their existence as a people. After the passage of the Red Sea, Moses, and his sister Miriam, the prophetess, assembled two choruses, one of men, and the other of women, with timbrels, who sang and danced. The facility with which the instruments were collected on the spot, and with which the choruses and dances were arranged and executed, necessarily implies a skill in these exercises, which must have been acquired long before, probably from the Egyptians. We have abundant evidence in Holy Writ, of the high estimation in which music was held among the Hebrews at a later period of their history. They also appear to have successfully applied it to the cure of diseases. The whole of David's power over the disorder of Saul may, without any miraculous intervention, be attributed to his skilful performance upon the harp. In 1st Samuel, c. xvi., we read that Saul's servants said unto him, "Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubleth thee: Let our lord now command thy servants, which are before thee, to seek out a man who is a cunning player on an harp: and it shall come to pass, when the evil spirit from God is upon thee, that he shall play with his hand, and thou shalt be well." Saul having assented to this proposal, the son of Jesse the Bethlemite was sent for, and stood before him. "And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him." So great were the esteem and love for music among this people when David ascended the throne, that we find that he appointed 4000 Levites to praise the Lord with instruments, (1. Chron. c. xxiii.;) and that the number of those that were cunning in song, was two hundred four score and eight, (c. xxv.) Solomon is related by Josephus to have made 200,000 trumpets, and 40,000 instruments of music, to praise God with. In the 2d chapter of Ecclesiastes, music is mentioned by Solomon among the vanities and follies in which he found no profit, in terms which show how generally a cultivated taste was diffused among his subjects. "I gat me men-singers and women-singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts." Many other passages of similar import might be quoted from the sacred writings, and among others, some from which it would appear that musicians marched in the van of the Jewish armies, and not unfrequently contributed to the victory by the animation of their strains; and that music was the universal language of joy and lamentation. There is, however, one portion of Holy Writ, which, from the highly interesting testimony it incidentally bears to the love of music which prevailed in Jerusalem, and the skill of her inhabitants, we cannot forbear to notice. We allude to the 137th Psalm, "By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, when we remembered thee, O Sion. As for our harps, we hanged them up upon the trees that are therein. For they that led us away captive required of us there a song and melody in our heaviness: Sing us one of the songs of Sion." From the facts here narrated, we may judge how great was the attachment of the Jewish people for the musical art; their beloved city sacked, their temple plundered and destroyed, their homes desolate, in the midst of danger and despair, deserted by their God, surrounded by infuriated enemies, (Isaiah, xiii. 16.,) nevertheless their harps were not forgotten. From this beautiful and pathetic lamentation, it would also appear that the repute of Hebrew musicians was far extended. No sooner had they arrived in the land of their captivity, than the Chaldean conqueror required of them a song and melody in their heaviness, demanding one of the songs of Sion. The fame of the captives must have long preceded them, for, according to Dr Burney, the art was then declining in Judea.

In the physical sciences, we have surpassed the nations who excelled in music; in war we have equalled their most glorious feats; in poetry and oratory we are not inferior. Shall not our future history also tell of triumphs in the tuneful art? We believe that sooner or later, the time will surely come when our country in her turn will boast of masters in the art, whose memories will ever be preserved and hallowed. But whatever the future may bring forth, the marvellous accounts of the powers of ancient music will meet with little indulgence from modern scepticism. At present such effects are unknown among us, and therefore unintelligible. Among the early Greeks, for many centuries, the several characters of poet, musician, lawgiver, and philosopher, were combined in the same individual; and it is probable that the music of that period consisted principally of recitative or musical declamation. This species of composition, so utterly neglected and unknown to the English school, possesses great powers of expression, both when in its simple form and when accompanied. A modern example of the effects it is capable of is recorded by Tartini. He relates, in the following terms, as one of many similar instances which had come under his observation:—"In the 14th year of the present century, (the 18th,) in the opera they were performing at Ancona, there was at the beginning of the 3d act a line of recitative, unaccompanied by any instruments but the bass, by which, equally among the professors and the audience, was raised such and so great a commotion of mind, that all looked in one another's faces, on account of the evident change of colour which took place in each. The effect was not that of grief, (I very well remember that the words expressed indignation,) but that of a certain congealing and coldness of the blood, which completely disturbed the mind. Thirteen times was the drama repeated, and the same effect always followed universally; a palpable sign of which was the deep previous silence with which the audience prepared themselves to enjoy its effects."¹⁴

The line of recitative has unfortunately not been preserved; nor is it known what the opera, or whose the music, which produced an effect which may not be inaptly described in the words of Byron:—

The music of Allessandro Scarlatti was then current and universally popular in Italy. This composer was particularly famous for the excellence of his recitative; and his general merit may be judged of by the fact, that he is placed by Arteaga, in his work on the revolutions of the musical drama in Italy, among the early authors belonging to the period which he terms the golden age of Italian music. On these grounds, we may reasonably conclude, that he was the composer of that terrible line of recitative.

We have ourselves also witnessed a somewhat similar example of the powers of Italian recitative. Many of our readers, doubtless, have witnessed Pasta's wonderful performance in Anna Bolena, who also may remember Anna's exclamation, "Giudici ad Anna! ad Anna giudici!" when Henry's intention of bringing her to trial is first made known to her. Such was the fearful tone, of mingled horror, amaze, and wrathful indignation, with which that greatest queen of tragic song gave out these words, that, in a foreign land, we have on more than one occasion observed some of the audience, as these fiery accents burst forth upon them, to start, change colour, and almost shudder at the intensity of the conflicting passions she exhibited. Much, nay most, of this was undoubtedly owing to the genius of the songstress. We do but mention these examples, to show how perfect a medium of musical expression and dramatic effect, good recitative becomes, when adequately performed. Still, the wonders related of ancient music—wonders not confined to one age, one people, or to one quarter of the globe, but, on the contrary, commencing at a remote period of man's history, including Jews, Chinese, Arabs, and Greeks, amongst whose records their memory is preserved—will meet with a cold assent from most; and perhaps few among us would be found bold enough to avow a belief in their reality. We have certainly no warrant for their truth in the powers or effects of our national music, and thus experience directly contradicts the testimony of antiquity.

On the same grounds, however, had no specimens of ancient handiwork been preserved, we might also have doubted the excellence and beauty of any of those works of art which, nevertheless, immortalized those by whose hands they were fashioned. Were not the Dying Gladiator now before us, it might, at this day, be deemed a monstrous supposition, that a statue of a dying man should have existed, in which there might be seen how much of life was left. Inferiority is ever sceptical and self-satisfied; it is only given to the really wise to know how much lies hidden from their view. Though the scope and object of all the imitative arts is the same, to dignify, elevate, and embellish nature—though the beauty of the ideal is the aim of the musician, equally as it is the aspiration of the poet, painter, and the sculptor, the character of these pursuits is in some respects essentially different. In the latter, material objects are imitated and embellished, the things themselves are bodily before the eyes, and the beauty and excellence of the work will appear by comparison with nature herself. These arts also possess great landmarks of taste and skill, which speak the same language to all ages. Of the symmetry of the sculptor's chiselled forms, of the beauty of the poet's or the painter's pictures, we have a standard in nature's own originals, seldom, probably never, exhibiting the same concentration of refined and elevated beauty in one individual object, but, nevertheless, furnishing an accurate and never varying standard, for the exercise of the judgement; while the heart, that inner world, ever uniform and unchanging amid the manifold vicissitudes of human life, supplies a test by which the poet's thoughts and sentiments may be correctly tried. Thus, in the lapse of ages, the public taste has known no change; and though more than 2000 years have passed away, the works of ancient Greece are worshipped still.

It cannot, however, be imagined, that the music of those times could have among us the same influence it possessed of old. It is no new remark, that in no other branch of the imitative arts have the same rapid and successive changes occurred, as are observed to have taken place in music. From this fact, the following question naturally arises, whether there are any fixed first principles of art, by adhering to which, music might be produced which would please equally all ages and amongst all people; or, in other words, whether the pleasure which music brings, is the result of education, habit, or association, or an inherent and necessary effect of any particular succession or combination of sounds. We have thrown together the following observations of Rousseau, which occur in several different portions of his essay on the origin of languages, and which, though not made with reference to this question, nevertheless appear to us conclusive upon it. "As the feelings which a beautiful picture excites are not caused by mere colour, so the empire which music possesses over our souls is not the work of sound alone. All men love to listen to sweet sounds; but if this love be not quickened by such melodious inflexions as are familiar to the hearer, it cannot be converted into pleasure. Melody, such as, to our taste, may be most beautiful, will have little effect upon the ear which is unaccustomed to it; it is a language of which we must possess a dictionary. Sounds in a melody do not operate as mere sounds, but as signs of our affections and our feelings; it is thus they excite the emotions they express, and whose image we there recognize. If this influence of our sensations is not owing to moral causes, how is it that we are so sensitive where a barbarian would feel nothing? How is it that our most touching airs would be but so much empty noise to the ear of a Carribee? All require the kind of melody whose phrases they can understand; to an Italian, his country's airs are necessary; to a Turk, a Turkish melody; each is affected only by those accents with which he is familiar. In short, he must understand the language that is spoken to him." This reasoning seems to show that there are no principles or rules of art, by following which music would be produced of that inherent beauty which would intrinsically command universal admiration.

This being so, music is at the mercy of many circumstances, the influence of which is felt, in some degree, even in those arts whose principles have long been fixed and ascertained, and whose rules are not merely conventional. The love of novelty, which the weariness caused by a constant repetition of the same musical phrase or idea renders more exigeant in this than in other arts, the want or impossibility of having any classic examples which might fix the taste or guide the studies of the novice, are doubtless among the causes of these frequent changes. The style of the leading singer of the day often forms and rules the passing taste, and even characterizes the works of contemporary composers. Music is often composed purposely for the singer; his intonation, his peculiarities, his very mannerisms, are borne in mind. Not merely sounds, but his sounds, are the vehicles of the composer's thoughts, the medium through which alone the composer's ideas can be adequately expressed. In the next generation, when performer and composer are dead and gone, all that is left of this their mutual work, once the object of universal admiration becomes comparatively unintelligible. The melody, the harmony, indeed, remain, but they are a body without a soul; the fire and genius of him who lighted up the whole, who realized and brought home to the hearer the whole creation of the composer's imagination, are no more. The manner of the performance, therefore, being, as it were, part and parcel of the very music, and a necessary ingredient of the excellence of the composition, to judge of the merit of the whole from the qualities of the portion which is left, would be to judge of the beauty of the Grecian Helen by the aspect or appearance of her lifeless remains. On looking at the greater portion of the music by the execution of which Catalani raised herself to the highest pinnacle of fame, we are compelled to the conclusion, that in the singer lay the charm. The effects said to have been produced by Handel's operas are now inconceivable and unintelligible, so "mechanical and dull" do these works appear, "beyond mere simplicity and traits of melody." Handel, in one species of composition, wrote down to the singers of his time. Whoever examines the bass songs of that period, will perceive that they were composed for inflexible and unwieldy voices, possessing a large and heavy volume of tone, but incapable of executing any but simple passages, constructed according to an ascertained routine of intervals. Lord Mount-Edgcumbe truly conjectured, that Mozart was led to make the bass so prominent a part in the Don Giovanni and Le Nozze di Figaro, by writing for a particular singer. The part of Figaro was, in fact, composed for Benucci. The sparkling brilliancy of Rossini would perhaps never have been so fully developed, had not the skill and flexibility of voice possessed by the singer David, for whom he wrote, enabled him to indulge it to the uttermost. The characters thus imparted to the music of the day are necessarily perishable and evanescent, to be again superseded by later artists, whose excellences or peculiarities will again lead to like results. Thus change succeeds change; the judgment of the public is led by the composer and the performer, who, mutually deferring to each other, often mould at will the taste of their countrymen. We, of course, speak only of those whose talent, science, and ability, have constituted them the masters of their art.

In England we have but few of those giants; they appear among us only at long intervals; for which reason, perhaps, musical taste has undergone fewer mutations in England than in most other countries. Handel has now reigned supreme among us for near a century, and his bass songs still influence the style of this branch of our native music. Though bass singing has advanced elsewhere, it has stood comparatively still with us; the same rude intervals, the same ponderous passages, through which the voice moves heavily, as if a mountain heaved, are still retained in the few bass songs of our school; in fact, without them, many think a bass song cannot exist. This mannerism received a blow from Weber, whom, as in the case of Handel, we have grown to consider national property. His early death, however, prevented his acquiring that permanent influence on the musical mind, which he might have acquired had he lived, and continued to be successful.

From the glance we have taken of the rate at which poetry, literature, and the fine arts, respectively advance as civilization holds her onward course; from the wide diffusion and cultivation of musical taste and musical science, ere barbarism and ignorance resumed their sway over mankind; we cannot entertain a doubt that, ultimately, we also as a people may emulate the glory other nations have acquired in each of those pursuits. We are, perhaps, less excitable and less easily moved than they; but the English character contains within it the elements of greatness in every thing to which its energies are directed. Circumstances may erelong rouse long-dormant tastes. Riches bring with them new wants, they create new passions, new desires. Much wealth was amassed by the preceding generation; their sons, now affluent and educated, already form a vast addition to that class which we have designated as the peculiar patron of the arts, and which, as commercial prosperity continues to advance, will, in each succeeding generation, receive another incalculable accession to its numbers.

The philosophical observer may even now discover the evidences of these new wants of increasing opulence; and should providence, in its mercy, deign still to bless the world with peace, the Augustan age of England may be nearer than we think. However, it is most certain that this age, as yet, has not arrived. An accurate knowledge of our defects will soonest lead to their cure. By a searching, rigorous, and impartial self-examination can these deficiencies only become known. It may be necessary to apply the cautery; but the hand that wounds would also heal; and if, in the course of the preceding observations, or in any subsequent remarks, as we enquire into the present state of musical taste and science in England, we may be deemed severe, let it be borne in mind, that ours is a "tender fierceness," and that self-knowledge, the first grand step to all improvement, is alone our object and our aim.