tively little here. Nor has the noble | testimony to the gift of the neglected generosity with which the composers have known how to treat each other been wanting when the conditions have been those of rivalry. What, for instance, could be more charming than the relations between Haydn and Mozart? It was Haydn's influence that made the way plain for the composer who was four-and-twenty years his junior when the latter came to Vienna. "As an honest man," he once said to Wolfgang's father, “I declare to you before God that I consider your son the greatest of all composers of whom I have any knowledge." To the manager of the opera-house at Prague, who was thinking of giving an opera of his on the evening after one of Mozart's, he wrote that it would be too much to venture, "for next to the great Mozart it would be difficult for any one to stand. Could I," he goes on, "force home to every lover of music the grandeur and inimitableness of Mozart's operas, their profundity and display of genius, . . . the nations would contend for the possession of so rare a gem." This shrinking from a comparison between his own work and Mozart's is all the more significant from the fact that, by one of those eccentricities of self-criticism with which all the arts abound, Haydn regarded his operas as forming his surest title to enduring renown. Mozart, on his side, cherished for Haydn an affection almost passing the love of son for father. "I would not have done that," said Kozeluch, referring to an innovation in a new quartette of Haydn's "Nor would I," replied Mozart. "And do you know why? Because neither you nor I would have had such an idea!" Nor was Mozart, in the days of his fame, slow to mete out to younger composers the appreciation which had been measured to him. After listening to an improvisation by Beethoven, he went up to the youth's friends and said, "Look after him; he will some day make a great name in the world." Beethoven, again, when towards the end of his life he was shown some pieces of Schubert's, bore emphatic genius, and expressed his regret that they had not been brought to his notice before. And, since there has been occasion to notice some of Berlioz's less amiable traits, let it be said that no one ever more abounded in generous enthusiasm for worthy rivals than this master of caustic criticism. If the composers have not been wanting in the amenities of character, neither have they lacked its pieties. Strange indeed would it be were it otherwise, seeing that music, above all the arts, has found in religion its loftiest inspirations. Bach dedicated all his compositions to the service of God, and, not less than Milton, worked ever as in the great taskmaster's eye. Handel, gross as were his faults, had strong religious feeling. The smaller ills of life exacerbated his temper; but when overtaken by the blindness which, by a melancholy coincidence, darkened the later years of his great contemporary Bach, he submitted himself to the dispensation with pious resignation. "If I am spared a few years longer," wrote Beethoven in a time of sore trouble, "I will thank the Almighty, accepting joy and sorrow as it shall please him to ordain it." Mozart's Requiem could have come from none but a fundamentally religious nature; and no one ever more truly acted out the wholesome maxim, "Serve God and be chearfull," than did Haydn. "I cannot help it," he said to one who pointed out that all his sacred pieces were marked by gaiety; "I give forth what is in me. When I think of the divine being my heart is so full of joy that the notes fly off as from a spindle; and as he has given me a cheerful heart he will pardon me if I serve him cheerfully." He was not ashamed to avow that while he was composing the "Creation" he daily prayed for inspiration, and believed his prayer was not in vain. The story of his last appearance in public, a few months before his death, has often been told-now he was borne by loving hands to a grand performance of the oratorio in honor of his seventy-sixth birthday-how at the burst of music which accompanies the words, "Let there be light!" there was a tempest of applause, in the midst of which the aged composer, trembling with emotion, looked upwards and exclaimed, "It came from thence!" Not less indicative of the essential spirituality of the musical temperament is the experience of Wagner, whose faith a pessimistic philosophy enthusiastically embraced could not destroy, but only diffuse into a mysticism that goes far to explain the spell his music has cast over minds strongly antagonistic to definite religious belief, but dimly conscious of spiritual cravings which negations can neither appease nor eradicate. In the case of Liszt the conflict long waged in a restless and penetrating mind between faith and doubt issued in the triumph of faith; and he ostentatiously proclaimed his adhesion to the Church with which the romantic temperament, whether expressed in music or in literature, has such obvious affinities. W. W. HUTCHINGS. From The Cornhill Magazine. ANIMAL HELPERS AND SERVERS. The modern tendency is to drop rather than to develop the special gifts of animals as servants to man. Mechanical invention has taken their place. Even their speed as messengers is at a discount, and from the carrier pigeon, superseded by the electric telegraph, to the silk-moth, whose place is already in process of being filled by the "mechanical silkworm," spinning fibres from wood-pulp for the looms of Lancashire, the race of animal "helpers and servers," except as beasts of burden, is discredited. Like the neglected "trolls" of Scandinavia, they seem likely to retire completely from active business in the service of the human commonwealth. Experience has already shown that elaborate mechanical machinery, even for locomotion and carriage, may become too costly for common use, and is liable to derangement when civilization has a temporary lapse in "times of war and tumult." The employment of dogs as watchers and auxiliary messengers by the German army, and the organization of pigeon posts for sieges, show that the animal factor may still be indispensable. The object-lesson which suggested this to the Germans was the employment of dogs as smugglers across the frontier. The experiment was made a century ago by the Greek and Turkish "klephts," and as readers of the "Roi des Montagnes" will remember, their identification with the purposes of the band is complete. According to a Turkish friend of the writer, Hermann Schultz's bitter remark, "Fourteen brigands were killed, one of them a dog," is amply justified by the behavior of these criminal animals.1 It is somewhat surprising that the Orientals, who first employed carrier pigeons, did not go further and attempt to communicate with distant lands by means of the migratory storks and cranes, the regularity of whose journeys and the accuracy of whose return to their nests, often upon or adjoining their own houses, was well known to them. Such an experiment recently succeeded in circumstances so extraordinary that it reads like a story from Herodotus. During Slatin Pasha's captivity by the Mahdi he was summoned by the khalifa, and to his dismay found him sitting in judgment with his cadis around him. Slatin was immediately aware that some charge was about to be preferred against him, and his uneasiness was not diminished by the knowledge that his secret correspondence with Egypt might well have been betrayed. The Mahdi handed him a small metal case, the size of a revolver cartridge, attached to a brass ring, saying, "Take this thing, and see what 1 The only sentries which can prevent rifle This is a loss, and not wholly from the sentimental and picturesque point of view. It is never wise wholly to dis- stealing from the frontier guards of India are card old aids to the convenience of life. dogs. The thieves always succeed sooner or later in passing the human watch. it contains." An attempt had been | Brazil, attributing quite novel uses to a Slatin duly read the message, and the khalifa said, "It is true. The bird was killed by a Shagi near Dongola." The letter was dated September, 1892, and was brought to the Mahdi in December. The khalifa's comment was characteristic of the fanatical Moslem. "This," he said, "is one of the many devilries of the unbelievers, who waste their time in such useless nonsense. A Mohammedan would never have attempted to do such a thing." The same remark does not apply to "unbelievers," and we should have been quite prepared to find such an experiment recorded in Herodotus as a message from a Scythian prince to King Cambyses. Yet the only suggestion of such an experiment which the writer remembers was that in Charles Reade's novel "Foul Play," in which the hero tries to send messages from the island on which he is wrecked by means of the wild ducks which left the rock after the breeding season. As the novelist took most of his ideas from omnivorous reading of newspapers, it is probable that he had some foundation for the story. The use of wild birds and animals employed as involuntary agents by no means marks the limit of their possible services. There are some species, which have never been domesticated in the proper sense of the word, which have natural proclivities for making themselves useful in captivity. An account recently appeared of the agami, known to naturalists as the goldenbreasted trumpeter, which is tamed by the Indians of Central America, and the crane undertook so many duties that it was busy from dawn till night. He acted as policeman among the poultry, stopping all fights and disorder. He would stand by a horse when left in a cart, and prevent it from moving by pecking its nose and screaming. A turkey and a gamecock were found fighting, whereon the crane first fought the turkey, and then sought out and thrashed the cock. Meantime it always "herded" the cattle, not always with complete success. These were collected in the morning by the sound of a horn, and some would lag behind. On one occasion the crane went back, drove up some lagging heifers through the street, and then frightened them so much that they broke away and ran two miles in the wrong direction. The bird could not bring them back, but drove them into a field, where it guarded them till they were fetched. It would drive out trespassing cattle as courageously as a dog, and, unlike most busybodies, was a universal favorite, and the pride of the village. China still uses two birds for special purposes, and shows no disposition to part with them. Duck-breeding on a large scale is one of the industries of the riverine population. The owners live in house-boats, and every night the flocks of ducks are driven home into floating pens for safety. In place of dogs the white Chinese goose, a domestic breed not unlike an English goose, is kept as a watch near the duck-pens. It is one of the most wide-awake and vociferous of birds, apparently never sleeping, and uttering its loud call when any person or animal approaches it. Mrs. Atkinson, when visiting the northern frontier of China, found the mandarin in charge of the guard-post "playing" with his watch-goose as if it were a dog. At Hampton Court, where a pair are kept, the gander mounts guard over all the ducks' nests on the side of the semicircular canal, and if any one comes near the bank sounds its alarm incessantly. Ovid, when describing the silence which surrounds the cave of Sleep, rather spoils Sollicitive canes canibusve sagacior anser. This looks as if geese were used as watchers by the old Italians, though it may be no more than a reference to the old legend of the geese which saved the Capitol. The Chinese cormorants are put to far more artistic uses. Their training for submarine fishing in the rivers and estuaries has often been described, and the method was introduced for a time by the Dutch, first into Holland and later into England, where it has recently been successfully revived by Captain Salvin. The young birds are hatched out by hens, and their domestication dates ab ovo. Useful as the cormorants are to the Chinese, it may be doubted whether any species of bird has played such a part in the capture of food for man as the various hawks do now across Central Asia from the Caucasus to eastern Tartary, and did in England till superseded by firearms. The transition period, dating from Norman times, in which the hawks were only used to show sport, and keeping them was forbidden by law unless license was obtained from the king, has caused their early use as foodproviders to be forgotten. A curious evidence of their importance in this capacity has been found in an unexpected quarter-an Anglo-Saxon "Ollendorff," published to teach Saxon boys Latin. It was written exactly as a modern text-book is written: some easy conversation on every-day life being set out in Saxon, with the Latin equivalents written above the words. One conversation deals with hawk-keeping. In it appears the following question and answer: "Do you not find it expensive to keep hawks?" Answer: "No, in the winter the hawk keeps me; in the sum mer I let him go and make his nest and | self, and therefore, as in the case of the keep himself." The most promising of all quadrupeds as yet not trained to the use of man are the various races of African baboons. The proposal does not seem at first sight attractive, for the baboons are much libelled creatures. They have a reputation for possessing an evil temper, and more than one of the speciesthe mandrils - are repulsively ugly. But the European judges of the baboon disposition from those seen in confinement, where they are seldom kept for any other object but curiosity, and are often ill-treated. This has probably a worse effect upon these very intelligent creatures than upon any of the monkey tribe. They are naturally animals living in society, unlike the great apes of the tropical forest. A solitary wild baboon is unknown. Their family and tribal instinct is strong, and increased by their habit of combination for common action in defence or for procuring food. Hence confinement in a cage or on a chain in one place produces much the same effect upon them as it would do upon man. It sours their tempers, dwarfs their intelligence, and when, as is usually the case, they are teased and tormented, the baboons become sullen and savage animals, wholly irresponsive to subsequent good treatment. It is from the physique and character of the animal when wild that its qualifications for a useful "help" when domesticated can best be judged. Compared with the dog, the baboons have certain undeniable advantages which should carry them further in the services in which dogs excel. If this can be proved satisfactorily, a clear case is made out for their domestication, for the dog is, by consent, the best "allround" servant of man except the elephant. If we take Dr. Caius's divisions of the services rendered by dogs and see how far the baboon's equipment compares with theirs, the powers of the two species may be estimated and balanced. "Defending dogges" are the subject of several of Dr. Caius's chapters. The defensive weapons of the baboon, useful in the first place for defending him dog, available for use in protecting the property of his owner, are in excess of those of a bulldog. The skulls of the baboon and the dog are so alike that the whole race are known as "dogheaded" monkeys. The teeth of a fullgrown male of the gelada, hamadryad or chacma baboon are considerably more formidable than those of the largest bulldog, and several travellers, notably Brehm, have shown that their dogs, accustomed to kill hyænas, would not face even a single baboon. In addition the monkey has its hands, which it not only uses with great adroitness to catch hold of any animal which attacks it, but also to hold weaponsstones or rocks - and throw them. Thus, compared with the dog as a "defender," it is the better creature by the addition of hands, and inferior only to such cumbrous dogs as mastiffs and the large boar-hounds in the equipment of teeth. Its size, that of a large pointer dog, is within the limits of safety which man has to consider before attempting the domestication of "armed" animals. Speed is a form of equipment in which the dog excels the baboon, and as an aid in the direct pursuit of animals it must always be inferior to what Dr. Caius calls the leporarii" - the "chasing dogges." But in the great and justly prized gift of scent the monkey has the advantage, though dogs have for centuries been bred with a view to the development of that particular gift, and have both in sport and in their use as detectives and watchers become almost indispensable aids to man. Among the very few instances in which the animal has been taken wild and used intelligently as a servant, it has been found that he can not only find edible plants by scent, which the truffle hunters' poodles are trained to do, but can be used to discover hidden water-a unique instance of animal service. Le Vaillant, the African traveller, gives an account of a tame baboon-probably a chacma from South Africa-which illustrates its fitness as a watch, a hunter, and a procurer of food and water more fully than any others |