new musical characters; and rests its only claims to novelty upon a careful analysis of the theory and practice of vocal music, from which the arrangement of the lessons results, and which ascend from lessons of the simplest character, on matters adapted to the comprehension of a child, through a series of steps, until those subjects, which it might otherwise be difficult to understand, are introduced in a natural and logical order, so as to appear as simple and easy as the earliest steps of the method." We cannot help expressing our dissent from the following theory of musical universalism, although it is broached by authority of the committee "Persons must be informed that every individual, in a state of average bodily health, is capable of producing musical sounds unless the vocal organ has been the subject of some specific disease. Every ear,' says an ingenious writer on this subject, 6 in a healthy state, is a musical ear; no voice means a voice never exercised; no ear means an ear whose power of attention has never been trained.' Frequent and well-directed practice will mend the least tuneful voice; and attention to the correct intonation of others will improve the most obstinate ear." This breathes strongly the spirit of wholesale theorizing so prevalent in our day. We believe a bad ear to be an "immedicabile vulnus." It is as much a natural defect as purblind vision, or want of a good palate. How many professional musicians have we known who, with all their "frequent practice," and "attention to the correct intonation of others," could, after all, scarce execute five bars consecutively without grating on any tolerable ear. The whole apparatus necessary for communicating instruction, according to the system, to a class of forty persons, may be had for about two pounds. All that is required for the purpose is Mr. Hullah's Manual of Instruction for Teachers, a set of exercise books for the pupils, a large black board, ruled with large staves, and supported by an easel, a second large black board and easel, for the reception of such figures as may be required to illustrate the lesson, a sponge, some chalk, a small wand with which to point and beat time, and a tuning-fork, sounding the note Do (C). The cost of all these articles, chalk, sponge, and all, will be somewhat under two pounds sterling. The great difficulty, of course, will be to find persons qualified to teach our parochial schools. Every schoolmaster ought to be able, but hardly any are able. To supply this great want a singing school for schoolmasters has been opened in Exeter Hall, and already the masters, under tuition of Mr. Hullah, have made a rapid progress. "Every schoolmaster of a rural parish," again to cite the language of the committee of council, ought to instruct the children in vocal music, and to be capable of conducting a singing class among the young men and women. 66 The instruc tion thus communicated would enable him, with such assistance as he might receive from the clergyman, to form a respectable vocal choir for the village church. This, in itself, would tend to increase the attendance on divine worship among the uneducated, and would spread an interest in the services of religion, which might prove the first to more important benefits." We earnestly trust that the committee of our own excellent Church-Education Society will do something to bring about a consummation so devoutly to be wished for. Surely it would not be very difficult to establish a singing school for schoolmasters in connection with the metropolitan model and training schools. We are convinced that the zeal and energy which are lavished by our clergy upon such a multiplicity of objects, many of them foreign, many of them at least not necessary, could not be turned into any channel more useful and more legitimate than the improvement of the music of their parish churches. We cannot draw to a conclusion without expressing how much we have been gratified by the tone and spirit of the songs arranged or composed by Mr. Hullah for the use of schools. They are all of a directly good tendency, while they are totally free from that revolting phraseology which deforms so many of our popular hymns, and which exercises so deleterious an effect upon the simple minds of children. We cannot refrain from afford space; Sing-ing as ho higher soars, T'wards the throne of heav'nly grace.. cord! Help to tune this tremb-ling lyre, That would glad -ly praise the Lord!! to spare of all this hard bright barrenness-this meridian glow and glare. Behold him, worn and woe-begone as he is,-looking like the Anatomie Vivante à l'Arabe, "like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring," or like Peter Schlemihl's shadow in search of Peter, compelled, from sheer exhaustion, like the refugee Brown in the woods of Canada, to use one foot in order to push on the other -and inhaling at every breath somewhat less than an avoirdupoise ounce of that sand which sweeps fifty ways at once, as though Young's hypothesis were about to be realized, and each atom, Asserting its indisputable right To dance, would form an universe of dust!" Blind, brokenwinded, bewildered,blinking like an owl-broiling like a herring- almost ready, like Mungo Park in the wilderness of Queira, to lay himself nez à terre, and gasp his last without inconveniencing the apothecary, how faint, according to your notions, are his prospects of ever again replenishing a hookah within the precincts of the Golden Horn! See, the sun is going down-you would stake the queen's crown to a huckaback turban that Ferdinand goes down along with him! Bah! you know nothing about the matter-or the man. Ferdinand drops not, droops not, yet! There be many lives in the bosom of that spectral pedestrian wayfarer! Heard you not the tramp of hoofs ? Look ! "What steed to the Desert flies frantic and far?" It is his own-his Alexandrina-who goes upon six feet instead of four-and Poems, by Ferdinand Gedichte von F. F.-Dritte, vermehrte Auflage. Freiligrath. Third edition, enlarged. Stutgard and Tübingen, 1840. "Has matter innate motion? Then, each atom Asserting its indisputable right To dance, would form an universe of dust!" YOUNG'S Night-Thoughts. concerning whom you may, or rather a tomaun he is on the back of the "As tall a man as any in Illyria," gallops off, and in a comparatively short period from that fortunate moment (thirty minutes, by one of Tommy Moore's time-dials, the Balbec pillars) is discovered smoking, (en attendant the coffee-pot) in dignified silence, an absurdly tortuous tcheebook, on a gold-fringed ottoman, by the side of His Ever-Serene and nowand-then Tempestuous Highness, Muhummud-Ibn-Alee-Sooleemaun - Baba, the six-tailed Pasha of Shem, alias Damascus. Let him alone then,-leave him to cry," Sand, ho!" to the end of the chapter. He is after all a man of distinguished genius, and a genuine poet, in the true sense of that often-profaned word. We are but little disposed to prepossessions in favour of new acquaintances, whether in literature or life-yet we confess we have been much struck by the extraordinary vigour and originality exhibited in many of his productions. Take, for example, the following poem, with which the volume before us opens. It bears the date of 1826; and its author was then but sixteen years of age-yet what wonderfully graphic power it manifests! We recommend it as a study to Herr Kopisch-the Salvator Rosa redivivus of Berlin. Eceland-Moss Tea. Old even in boyhood, faint and ill, In fields where ice lies layer on layer, And lava hardens o'er the whole And the Circle of the Arctic Polę Where fierce volcanic fires burn blue Through many a meteor-lighted night, Where, from the mountain's furnace-lair, (Like blood-red Saga-birds of yore) Where from the Jokulst to the strand The dimmed eye turns from smoke and steam "Joyless, she sees the sun look down Had raised to count his ages by !"-Lalla Rookh. Where clouds lie black on cinder-piles, Where, in a word, hills vomit flame, Yes! and my heart beats lightlier now, I now feel strong-O, more than strong! 1 The Meteor-lights are in my brain I see through smoke the Desolate Shore- Deep in my breast the Boiling Springs Oh, be it thus! Oh, let me feel Oh, let the flames that burn unfed And, as the stones that Hecla sees So let the rude but burning rhymes There was but little fear that he who at sixteen could thus revel in the sublime desolation of icy wastes and burning mountains, would at any fu ture period subside into the drawingroom song-singer. We find no loveditties among Freiligrath's poems-no light lays meet for ladies' ears. only album he was ambitious of in The scribing his name in was the Album at Chamouni on the High Alps—the only Jungfrau to whose "brow" he felt disposed to dedicate a sonnet was the Jungfrau Mountain in Switzerland. Yet he did not travel. As far as his materials for bookmaking were concerned there was no necessity. The fine, far-penetrating clairvoyance pe A cluster of islands in the Northern Ocean, to the N.E. of Shetland. D |