or tender devotion. The brilliant notes of the clear scale of D major are more eligible for a military piece, and E flat major is expressive of tranquil solemnity. What can be the reason of this curious and singular acoustic phenomenon? How comes it that G major and A flat major, such near neighbours, should be of such a different character?-This difference is so striking and decisive, that a good ear, listening to an air in G played upon a pianoforte, which is precisely half a tone higher than the usual pitch, and on which, therefore, G must exactly be what A flat is on the generality of instruments, would, nevertheless, instantly recognize the scale to be that of G, and not A flat. The cause of this difference of character probably lies in the "temperament" of keyed instruments, according to which the degrees of the scales of different tonics are not exactly in the same ratio with their fundamental key. Even in violins there prevails, to a certain degree, the influence of temperament; for, to adduce but one instance, the E upon the open first string is perfect as fifth to A, but too acute as third to C. Thus, then, the character of a melody will, in a great measure, depend on even the key in which the melody is set. But our readers must really read Schubart on this matter. His observations are extremely curious, and so ample that they supersede the necessity of our pursuing the subject in this place. A farther means of characterizing a melody is offered by setting it in a minor or major mood. Generally speaking, the minor mood is acknowledged to convey a plaintive impression, although this must be admitted with some exceptions. The reason why that mood should have a plaintive tendency is less obvious than the fact itself; and we do not recollect to have ever heard or read a satisfactory explanation of the cause. If we might venture an opinion, we should say, that the circumstance alone of the minor scale being less founded in nature than the major (in as much as it is not derived from the harmonics co-vibrating with the parent sound) tends to adapt it to melancholy. The natural and legitimate province of Music is the expression of pleasing sensations ; for these, therefore, the natural (major) scale is most fitting; and hence, the less natural (minor) scale seems to adapt itself better to plaintive expression. The accents of sorrow and grief, moreover, seem generally to be much more irregular in tone and pitch, than those of joy; and if we watch them more attentively, we shall find, that the degrees of tone employed in the utterance of sad and dejected feelings, so far as they can be distinguished and appreciated, lie closer to each other, are much more chromatic, than the sounds of gaiety. What a chromatic ascent and descent does not the crying of a child exhibit! Now the three characteristic degrees of the minor scale, forming one tone and one semitone (C, D, E flat) are more contiguous, than the three corresponding notes of the major scale (C, D, E,) which form two whole tones. This greater contiguity unquestionably produces a plaintive effect, and the greater the contiguity, the more melancholy the strain, such as the chromatic ascent, C, C sharp, D, E flat, &c. The acute Greeks, perfectly aware of this, had a third scale or genus, the Enharmonic, in which there were intervening degrees between even semitones, and which was still more expressive of deep emotion, and, on that account, no doubt, proscribed in the hardy and warlike country of Lacedæmon. This enharmonic scale is also entirely excluded from our own musical system. Our modern ear has no relish for it; and, although we know its intervals with the utmost precision we cannot intonate them correctly. If our musical readers wish to make an attempt, let them try to sing these four notes, (substituting in the place of a sound higher than E, but lower than F,) E, E, F, A. If they succeed, they will find the effect to be of the most sour lugubrious kind. Allusion has been made above to some exceptions to the exclusive applicability of the minor mood for plaintive expression. As we are not aware of having read any remarks on these exceptions, we feel induced to state our ideas on the subject. We have observed, 1st, That in the south of Europe, and in France, a number of national songs are in the minor mood. In our walks through the fields of the Campagna Felice, as well as in the environs of Rome, and in Tuscany, we often heard the peasants sing tunes of the most affecting simplicity in that mood, the text of which, although not one of hilarity, certainly did not breathe melancholy. The subject generally was love. 2dly. A great number of the earlier lyric compositions of almost every nation, including our own, and particularly the Welsh, are in the minor mood, although the words are not of a plaintive nature. This fact may perhaps explain the preceding, or vice versa. 3d. Even in the productions of comparatively modern composers we occasionally meet with songs in the minor mood, in which there is not the slightest tinge of sadness, and in which nevertheless that mood appears perfectly appropriate for instance, "Que le Sultan Saladin" in Richard Cœur de Lion. In this air, however, as in others so circumstanced, the tempo is generally brisk. From these observations we should be inclined to infer, 1st, That the minor mood may be employed for texts, which, although not absolutely plaintive, are of a serious nature, in which a vein of pensive sensibility predominates. In such cases, however, as well as in all plaintive melodies, the minor mood must be exhibited under a slow tempo. 2dly. If the minor mood be occasionally employed for texts which are not of a serious cast, it will be proper to adopt a quick time. Such songs will generally be found to possess a decided peculiarity of character, a certain rustic wildness, or bluntness. Thus much of the phonetic* means of imparting general character. The chronic means are of equal if not more effect and importance. A previous glance at the latter which we permitted ourselves in passing, will already have afforded to our readers some idea of the effect of musical time on the character of a song. They will already comprehend why a serious grave text requires a slow tempo, why a gay sprightly stanza should be set in quicker time. Nature is here our direct guide. Cheerful people, or persons in a cheerful mood, talk with greater celerity than gloomy subjects, or persons under a depression of mind. Men in years talk slower than youth, or even than Derived from Sound. + Derived from Time. The faculty will pardon our encroachment upon medi- · cal nomenclature. ladies of the same age. All things alike, females talk about half as quick again as men, or in the ratio of about 18 to 12. The proverbial "nineteen to the dozen" is therefore a pretty correct approximation. Persons, under the influence of passion, invariably speak quick. Hence a decisive rule for the composition of passionate texts, such as the conclusion of the quarrelling duet, "Madama brillante," in Figaro, Cimarosa's "Orà vedete che bricconata," in the Matrimonio segreto, and hundreds of other instances. Comic songs are, for evident reasons, generally composed in quick, or at least brisk time: e. g: "Papa taci"-"Capellini, Capelloni" "Non più andrai farfallone amoroso," &c. In this department we must admit the defective state of English music. Not that we are destitute of what are called comic songs: rattlers there are without number, the vulgarity and coarseness of the melody of which, quite corresponding with the low trash of the words, are a disgrace to the national taste. But of comic songs of any musical value we possess few, if any, good specimens. A text in which the predominant character is fear, or other mental agitation (Angl. flutter), requires naturally an accelerated tempo; and the frequent intervention of isochronons (equally-timed) rests of momentary duration tends greatly to pourtray the quick pulsations of the heart which commonly attend such a state of our frame. An appropriate illustration of this remark will be found in the beautiful introduction to the Magic Flute: "Zu hülfe, zu hülfe, sonst bin ich verlohren" (Ah help me, oh save me, I'm doom'd to destruction); better known under the name of "Ajuto, ajuto," &c. It is impossible to depict the sobbing ejaculations of extreme fear in a more forcible and natural manner. Another fine specimen of mental agitation, not of fright, but of amorous distress, occurs in Cherubino's air in Figaro, "Non sò più cosa son', cosa faccio." The whole of the music is a continuity of breathless flutter, as it were, until towards the conclusion the lovesick boy, the emblen of androgynism, sinks, from exhaustion, into languor and défaillance. For poetry of a pompous character, of affected grandezza, ludicrous gravity, although generally comic, a quick tempo would scarcely be suitable. People of that complacent stamp are wont to measure their words; they speak a sort of leisurely full-mouthed German text. A corresponding gravity, with great precision of measure, should therefore be adopted in the musical colouring of their sesquipedalia verba. It is thus that Winter makes Don Alonzo, the luminary of the law, speak in Gli Fratelli rivali, especially in the air "In Palermo voi vedrete ampia turba di clienti." Cimarosa's aria, too, in the Matrimonio segreto," Údite, Udite, Udite, le orecchie spalanchate," is composed precisely upon the same principle. Of the solemn, the sublime, the heroic, the martial, the prayer (preghiera), and innumerable other kinds of characteristic expression in music, it would scarcely be necessary to treat in this cursory sketch, even were our purpose and limits more extended; nor do we think it requisite to quote any examples by way of illustration. Nature and an attentive observation of mankind furnish, in every possible case of musical character, the best models for imitation. DAINTIE PASTORALS. Thaddy Mahone and Silvia Pratt. Of late a fond couple alone In the bar of a coffee-room sat, The widow received with a smile; your I'm a lovesick and thirsty young man ; "No trouble at all, Sir, indeed," Said the lady, and gave him a leer, "Do you wish to-day's paper to read? Will you please, Sir, to take your tea here?" It has scalded the top of my tooth. My whiskers are singed by the steam. "Do you think now my lies are untrue? You may shut those sweet eyes of your own, And never see one that loves you, Like myself Mr. Thaddy Mahone. "Come join your estate to my own, And then what a change we shall see! When you are the flesh of my bone, "I have fields in my farm at Kilmore,”- But scarce did the widow begin To answer her lover so gay; When, alas! a bum bailiff came in, And took Mr. Thaddy away. VOL. VII. NO. XXX. 2 P EDUCATION. "L'envie de placer la morale partout nuit à nos recherches. On veut prêcher, endoctriner, commander, sans connoître les principes de sa doctrine." Bonstetten, Etudes de l'Homme, Tom. 1. AMONG the many unintelligible cants of this hypocritical age (for hypocritical it is par excellence) there is none to me more incomprehensible than that, which is in every mouth, concerning the happiness of childhood. Without dwelling upon the peculiar liability to disease of this period of our existence, and insisting on the long gauntlet of maladies, measles, hooping-cough, small-pox, et id genus omne, through which the youthful sufferer has to pass, it is sufficient to notice the perpetual restraint to which children are subjected, the hourly contradictions they encounter, and their total incapacity for comprehending the reason and the necessity of submission. The clumsiest and the coarsest tyranny in social life is that which is imposed on the infant, not only through the superior intellect of the parent, and his solicitude for the welfare of his offspring, but from his wilfulness, his caprice, his love of domination, his obstinacy, and his mistakes concerning human nature. Accordingly, if there be an uncle, an aunt, or a grandmother in the family, he, she, or they almost always run away with the affections of the children, from the parents, who are compelled to exert an habitual superintendence and control over the actions of the rising generation. For my own part, I can safely say, that the bitter sense of indignation which in my earliest childhood I conceived at certain overt acts of real or of fancied injustice in my elders, was among the most painful feelings of my existence; and I have, consequently, never been hasty and unreasonable in my conduct towards children, without the severest self-reproach. It is on this account, perhaps, that my attention has been so much turned to the mode in which a brother I have, and his wife, manage, or rather mismanage, a somewhat numerous family; and that my cynicism has been roused at the multifarious whimsies with which, under the notion of education, they torture their unfortunate offspring. Bred to trade, my brother received himself an education neither extensive nor well-grounded, and the lady he married had, unfortunately, just enough of boarding-school "accomplishments" to call forth a great deal of vanity, without rendering her accomplished in any particular. Although she is sensible that her own stock of French is insufficient for even a short conversation, and that she can neither sing nor play so as to be tolerated in society, although she is absolutely without information on every point of literature and science, and never read three books through in her life, yet she conceives herself to possess a great natural turn for educating others, and believes herself a competent judge on every disputed point in the theory and practice of communicating instruction. It was a wise precaution in Doctor Cornelius, the worthy and learned parent of Martinus Scriblerus, to prepare beforehand his "daughter's mirror" and his "son's monitor ;" and so "in utrumque paratus,”* to be Dialogue. My wife is brought to bed.-What has she got?-Guess,--A son?— Guess again. A daughter?-By Jove you've hit it. |