which, after a fortunate escape from the dangers of so alarming a scene are always poured forth in gratitude to Providence; since, in the exquisite prayer which follows, he represents the country-people as thanking God for his gracious protection, his heavenly blessing.

That high faculty of music, the faculty of representing by tones the various events of life more distinctly and impressively than can be done by any other art, and of exciting and expressing the different feelings of the human heart, cannot possibly be contested, after a minute and thorough examination of a composition so perfect and so grand in its design as the above.

I cannot refrain from adverting to some passages of the orchestracomposition in the great Haydn's noble masterpiece, "The Creation," in support of the above position.

How expressively, how truly, is the "Retreat of the host of infernal spirits into the depths of the abyss, to everlasting night," rendered in the music! How characteristically the words, “ Despair, rage, and horror, accompany their fall!" Above all, how strikingly has the composer represented, with all the powers of music, the moment called forth by the creative words "Let there be light!" and there was light! At these words the orchestra discharges itself in a truly electric manner, so as absolutely to dazzle you. The hearer feels perfectly the impression which the real occurrence of this adorable miracle of Almighty power would make upon him; and in this delineation by tones is exhibited to the sense of mortal man the only possible representation of that sublime wonder, in the most striking and convincing manner.

It is impossible to analyze here all the surpassing beauties of that admirable masterpiece. Every connoisseur will agree with me when I say that Haydn needed but to have written this one work to establish his fame for ever as a composer.

Another masterpiece, Glück's "Iphigenia at Aules," portrays to the auditor the pride of a sovereign, the arrogance of a priest, paternal, maternal, and filial affection; a tender attachment, the courage of a hero, the cry of a people for revenge, the pains of parting, the feelings of death, the transports of joy, on account of unexpected deliverance -and all with such inimitable art, in a manner so incomparably perfect, that the hearer is almost overcome by the vehemence of the tempest of emotions raised within him.

In E. Wenzel's composition for the pianoforte on Medora's song in Lord Byron's "Corsair," which pictures her heart, filled with enthusiastic passion, with profound grief at parting from her lover, and with gloomy forebodings, this purport of the poem is represented with striking truth, without the aid of words.

As a musical portraiture of an incident in social life, C. M. Von Weber's composition, "The Asking to Dance," is distinguished by the fidelity and truth with which all the peculiarities and little circumstances of a ball are represented: the application of the dancer, the compliance of the lady, the dance itself, the conversation while resting, the renewal of the dance, and the leading back of the lady to her seat with thanks by her partner, are all presented by the music with the accuracy of life to the ear of the auditor.

In the "Freischütz," by the same composer, the part of Caspar is

so correctly imagined, so thoroughly studied, and so admirably rendered, that its prominent propensities, passions, and emotions-coarseness, incredulity, superstition, suspicion, spite, rage, malice, are in the music presented to the hearer in the most striking manner. It may admit of a question whether the extraordinary composition of the scene in the wolf's ravine, if performed in any other place than the theatre, and without words and decorations-without the flapping owls and bats-the troop of wild huntsmen in the air, the spectral Samiel, &c., would not produce the same feeling of awe, and give intimation of some infernal workshop, with all its horrors and fearful shapes. In the same masterly manner is composed the overture of this opera, which gives the hearer a sort of summary of the contents of the whole piece. At the same time, this composition is a speaking evidence in behalf of the assertion already made, that the composer who is able to seize the precise spirit and meaning of a poem, can also express that meaning correctly and eloquently without words; and that, carried away by the intensity of his feelings, he then frequently imparts to his music a fervour, a sublimity, a fidelity of expression, which leave the text and its author far behind. What, for example, has Weber made of the scoffing chorus of Kilian the peasant, and his companions? And would one imagine that it was possible to invent characteristic music to such poetry.

In the introduction to Bellini's "Norma" there is a most ingenious representation of a country. Commencing with low tones, it unfolds itself in sombre harmony, and faithfully reproduces the same impression that the darkness of a thick wood makes upon the wanderer. Single, sliding, and abrupt notes, seem to denote lighter spots in the dark wood, and thus the first decoration of the opera, the grave of sacrifice, is appropriately represented.

The reader will certainly be still more struck by the appositeness of this musical picture, when I assure him that I know a blind person who, when he first heard this introduction, immediately guessed that it was intended to represent a scene in a wood.

These few examples from the great profusion of the most exquisite productions of music will be sufficient to convince the reader-if he will listen attentively when he is present at the performance of those operas-that instrumental music is capable of correctly expressing, and clearly representing to our minds, every feeling of the human heart, the incidents of social life, joy and sorrow, labour and repose, nay even countries and landscapes.

But instrumental music further possesses the peculiar property of producing simultaneously in different persons such an effect that each finds his own individual feeling excited and expressed an assertion which is not far-fetched, but taken from life, and on which I will try to be more explicit.

Figure to yourself a social party, near which a plaintive and pathetic piece of music is performed; this piece of music will certainly excite corresponding feelings in all the hearers. But how does it excite them in each in particular. To express, for instance, the sorrow of each individual in words, each would require a poem consonant with and describing his particular sorrow. Now Music possesses the extraordi

nary property of exciting and expressing the individual feelings of all with the same tones. Attentive observers will confirm this; nay, there are certainly but few persons who have not experienced it at some time or other, since there are, alas! but few who have not been oppressed by some kind of sorrow or affliction.

VOCAL MUSIC.

Vocal Music differs essentially from that of instruments in this respect, that it produces its proper effect only in connexion with words, and thereby acquires an individual and more precise character, since, setting aside the superior charm of the human voice, it will address itself most powerfully to those who understand the text to it, and in whose language that text is written. Its character, however, is more universal, because, according to the nature and perfection of the composition, it may be intelligible to those who do not understand the text. For when a vocal composition is strictly appropriate to the text-which every such composition ought to be, or it is a failure-the tones must express the meaning of the words.

By the combination of these two qualities alone vocal music attains a much more extensive application and higher perfection than instrumental music.

In creating man, the Almighty gave him not only speech but also a distinct organ, the voice, that, by its union with the former, he might be able to express his feelings of every kind. The human voice, therefore, is not an instrument made by man, but an organ bestowed on us immediately by God, and therefore it possesses greater perfection, a greater charm, than any instrument. All the musical instruments successively invented are but faint imitations of this first instrument of God's own creation, and they are considered the more perfect the nearer they approach to human song, and the more like it their tones appear to be.

Owing to the wonderful property of human song, the capability of uttering the synonymous word at the same time with the tone, to the perfect and most ingenious construction given by the Creator, from whose almighty hand this exquisite masterpiece immediately proceeded to the organ of voice and speech, as well as to the position or seat of the voice in the central point of human feeling, in the breast, from whose profoundest recess it issues, and in which the wonderful calculation of the heavenly Father in his creations and for his ends, is so manifest; the song of man is the most inimitable, the grandest expression-an expression which art can never attain-of our feelings, sensations, and ideas, as also the most worthy and best adapted for the praise and adoration of the Supreme Being, to which end more especially this noble gift was no doubt bestowed by God.

The most ancient history, in treating of the earliest ages of mankind to which it extends, has recorded a great number of instances in which the human voice, agreeably to the divine decrees, sang lofty hymns, particularly in the person of David, Paul, and others, in glorification of the greatness of God, and in praise and thanksgiving for his blessings.

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Seventeen hundred years before Christ, Jacob, the son of Isaac, sang in the spirit of prophecy, the future fortunes of the tribes of Israel. Fifteen hundred years before Christ, Moses, and his sister Miriam, the prophetess, sang the praises of the Lord, on account of the fortunate passage through the Red Sea, effected by means of a divine miracle. Deborah, the prophetess, and Barak, the son of Abinoam, sang 1200 years before Christ a noble and sublime song, after the destruction of the army of the Canaanites. One thousand years before Christ, David composed and sang his exquisite Psalms, in which he exhorts in the most forcible and inspired manner to the singing of the glory of God. Thus :

Ps. xxxiii. 2.-"Praise the Lord with harp; sing unto him with the psaltery, and an instrument of ten strings. v. 3. Sing unto him a new song, play skilfully with a loud noise."

Ps. lxxxi. 2-5.-"Take a psalm, and bring hither the timbrel, the pleasant harp with the psaltery. Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, in the time appointed on our solemn feast-day. For this was a statute for Israel, and a law of the God of Jacob. This he ordained in Joseph for a testimony, when he went out through the land of Egypt, where I heard a language that I understood not."

Ps. cxlix. ." Praise ye the Lord, sing unto the Lord a new song, and his praise in the congregation of saints. v. 3. Let them praise his name in the dance; let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp."

Paul also exhorts to the same effect in

Ephes. v. 19. Speaking to yourselves in psalms, and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord."

That nothing is better adapted than singing to praise and to glorify in the worthiest manner our Father in heaven, is clearly intimated in the preceding passages. Nay, we learn from holy writ that the noblest employment of purified beings in a higher state of existence is to praise and to extol in inspired hymns the omnipotence of the Most High.

How sacred then does song appear-what a blessing to man is

• Revelation of St. John, 'v. 8.-" And when he had taken the book, the four beasts, and four-and-twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints. v. 9. And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof, &c."

Thus also in

Rev. xiv. 1.-" And I looked, and lo, a Lamb stood on Mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his father's name written in their foreheads. v. 2. And I beard a voice from heaven as the voice of many waters and as the voice of a great thunder, and I beard the voice of harpers harping with their harps. v. 3. And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders, and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.”

And,

Rev. xv. 2.-" And I saw, as it were, a sea of glass mingled with fire; and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. v. 3. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty, just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints."

its possession, as it gives us already here upon earth a foretaste of heaven!

If, by means of this faculty, we are enabled to express our feelings towards the Creator in the noblest and sublimest manner, so also we must be enabled by it to communicate them most completely to our fellow-creatures. This is proved by the fact that the poets of the ancient classics ages, the heroic, as Homer and others, likewise the pastoral, and those of the middle ages, always recited their compositions in song. And what is poetry? Imaginative conceptions and feelings expressed in metrical form.

Thus the language of feeling in words was combined by them with that in tones, in order to strengthen it by a more true and profound expression. Now, the metrical form is of itself perfectly musical, in consequence of its affinity with musical rhythm; and this accounts for the endeavour to present to the senses the purport of a poem, and to increase its effect by means of Music.

We have seen in the article on instrumental Music, that it possesses the power of expressing poems or imaginative conceptions and feelings without the aid of words. If then these can be expressed by instrumental Music alone, as well as by words, how much more perfectly may we not render them by uniting the two, words and Music, in song. Hence the close relationship between poetry and Music is clearly apparent.

How thoroughly the poets of the ancient classic ages were imbued with the idea that it was requisite for their poems to be invariably accompanied with Music and recited in song, will be still more evident to us when we consider that they themselves presented their dramatic compositions to the public in this manner. For in the Greek drama the iambics of conversation were accompanied by a corresponding recitative, and long choruses sung by numerous singers were likewise introduced with their pieces.

Let it not be supposed that I have the remotest idea of asserting that a poem without musical composition is not capable of interesting and exciting the feelings: such an assertion daily experience flatly contradicts. The grand and magnificent poems in our beloved mother-tongue, as well as those of other nations, furnish too strong evidence of the contrary. The poem, moreover, must first have inspired the composer before he can render the feelings expressed in it by words, in all their force and profundity, by corresponding tones.

The most accomplished reader, the most eminent declaimer, is nevertheless not capable, in the recitation of a poetic composition, to take such strong hold of our feelings as it is possible to do with the accompaniment of Music, because Music not only strengthens the images and the action of the poem, but places them more vividly before the hearer, and causes them to operate much more powerfully upon the feelings.

Language is capable only of giving to an object a name which is understood by him who is acquainted with that language, because it is only by means of our organ of hearing, or by the help of our memory, that we have learned to know that such or such a word has the universally accepted signification. But it might just as well have been agreed, that to smile, should signify to weep, and that we should say