hood round of pale cogitation and her pensive train. Signor l'Allegro's life is nothing but a round of visits from the member of the great family of noise. It would be impossible, and even if otherwise it would be useless, to number up the proofs of the force of this passion over the human heart. Even when "the senses are steeped in forgetfulness" we do involuntary homage to the goddess of noise; and like the Wogultzoi, that worship their idols by howling, acknowledge her supremacy in the most sonorous accents. The whole business of life is to make a noise in the world. The statesman sacrifices to it his health, and, not seldom, something that ought to be dearer. The professional man builds all his hopes on making a noise. It is the only point, I believe, in which the Whig and Tory agree and the British public" may thank the force of this passion over mankind, or they might go whistle for a parliament. It is not to be doubted that routs, rackets, and concerts, with all the other awful amusements of fashionable life, had their origin in the universal passion for noise. But, alas! Lady Mary is no longer contented with the "sweet thunder" of the night---" still would her touch the strain prolong"---still must the compliant morning journal give back the dreadful din--

And in a low expiring strain

Play all the concert o'er again.

But, haply, should this creature of noise come forth from her Pandæmonium, what a stir it makes! I speak not of the "dreadful note of preparation" throughout the forenoon, nor of the civil war of carriage-wheels raging through the streets--these are pastimes to the awful rap of her bullying footman, which, like a" rattling peal of thunder," rouses the echoes in the mansion of some congenial clamourers. Well might the poet that delighted in fire-side enjoyments, set his ban upon all such doings, and fix his choice of a winter's evening in some retired social circle sacred from their intrusion.

No rattling wheels stop short before these gates,
No powder'd, pert proficient in the art

Of sounding an alarm, assaults these doors.
Till the street rings—

This, however, is the abuse of the passion. In the country the indulgence of it is carried to a very reasonable extent. The rustic squire, condemned to a low diet on sound, far from the luxurious clamour of the metropolis, gives up his days to "fetching shrill echoes from the hollow earth." And when evening has called the child of Nimrod and his fellows to " halls of grey renown," the still unsated appetite for noise, victorious over all restraint, is heard in full-mouthed mimicry of "the

music of the day." In short, the passion is known to survive almost every other inhabitant of the human heart. It stuck to the Greeks after their liberty and their love of liberty were gone. The war of the Romans, as every body knows, with the people of Achaia, ended in their subjugation, and of course the tender of their liberties by the victorious consul. A fine opportunity it was, no doubt, for the noise-loving cities. They managed to have their fill of noise out of the thing, and left it there-nec aliter illâ consulari sententia, quâ libertas Achaia pronunciabatur, quam modulutissimo aliquo tibiarum, aut fidium cantu, fruebantur. We are naturally much affected by noise. The power of music (which is essentially but noise‡) over the passions, cannot be exaggerated by poetry. There may be those who are dead to the concord of sweet sounds, but no heart can be indifferent to a loud shock of noise. The most awful sensations are created by the noise of thunder, of cataracts, &c. § and a man's mind may be so confounded by the shouting of multitudes, as that he will involuntarily join in the swell. Philosophers have endeavoured even to trace the universal acknowledgment of a presiding spirit, found in every state of man, to the impression of terror produced on him by the noise of the great convulsions of nature. | Cœlo tonantem credidimus Jovem regnare, is the opinion of Pagan philosophy. Some savage nations propitiate their gods by the noise of drums and trumpets.

But noise is the poet's world, and he has celebrated its versatile influence. The effect of the sound of bells over the human heart appears to have been understood in the remotest antiquity. The High Priest among the Jews wore a little bell attached to his uppermost garment, and the sound was supposed to enliven the devotion of the people. The noise of bells was even thought to nourish the most amiable sentiments. Orlando introduces his appeal to the pity of the Duke by the following tender adjuration:

If ever you have look'd on better days;

If ever been where bells have knoll'd to church;

And know what 'tis to pity and be pitied.—

* The words of Florus are—quæ gaudia—quæ vociferationes fuerunt-quo plausu certavere !

+ Florus, lib. 2. cap. 7.

Waller thus addresses a lady singing:

While I listen to thy voice

Chloris! I feel my life decay;

That powerful noise

Calls my flitting soul away.

§ Burke on the Sublime.

Lucretius, lib. 5.

Mæcenas, it is said, was cured of perpetual watchfulness by the falling of water; and Pliny relates the story of a Roman nobleman who used to be lulled to sleep by the noise of rain. Without rural sounds, the Muses would scarcely patronize a country-life; and whatever the poets may say in praise of solitude, they always betray in their retreats a lurking partiality to the neighbourhood of some choice cascade or vocal grove. The poet who celebrated the glories of Grongar Hill, opens by an invitation to the "silent nymph" who lay

On the mountain's lonely van,

Beyond the noise of busy man.

3.

The charms of the nymph do not appear to be of the lasting kind; and thus the poet, in the conclusion, acknowledges the superior influence of nature and noise :

Now, e'en now, my joys run high,

As on the mountain turf I lie,
While the wanton zephyr sings,

And in the vale perfumes his wings;
While the waters murmur deep,

While the shepherd charms his sheep,
While the birds unbounded fly,
And with music fill the sky;

Now, e'en now, my joys run high.

Cowper, however, carries the matter further than this. In his fine description of the effects of natural sounds, he says, that the "cawing rooks," the kites, the jay, the pie, and even the boding owl, have charms for him.

Every strong excitement impels us to make noise. Savages go to battle with loud shouts and outcries. The armies of civilized nations do the same, partly with the view of striking terror in their enemies; and artificial noise is employed to keep up the courage of the soldiers. The Bohemian warrior (Zisca) who left his skin for a drum, saying that the enemy would fly at the sound of it, is a good authority in favour of the virtues of noise. Cato the Elder boasted that he had gained more victories by the throats of his army than by their swords; and Cæsar mentions the shouts of his regiments as one of the things. that rendered them superior to the troops of Pompey. Military men admit that the noise of the artillery does as much towards the victory as the shots themselves; and a certain captain was wont to call the mouth of a great gun hell-mouth, and said that he who trembled not when one of them thundered, feared neither God nor the devil. But so naturally agreeable is the sound of noise to the ear, that even its most terrific notes have a proportion of the pleasing in them. Every variety of noise has its votary, either from taste or from habit. Dr. John

son could not survive a year's exile from the noises of the metropolis: all his bliss was centered in the tempestuous confluence of Temple-bar, and he has been known to "expire" at the rattling of a coach in which he was driven furiously along. The Doctor's humour in this respect is quite irreconcilable with his indifference to the conjugal state.* Montaigne tells the story of a learned man who could not study conveniently except in the neighbourhood of noise. He never could be solitary by himself, and found it necessary to fix his retreat amidst the uproar of the servants'-hall. But it has been found that noise of whatever kind (the rudest has been generally preferred) is a specific against the approach of evil spirits. The waggoners of Spain look entirely to the grating of their axle-trees for protection against their airy opponents. A greased axle-tree, therefore, or one likely to work in peace and ease, might rot in neglect. The virtues of Adam's voice have been celebrated by a virgin saint of the 12th century (St. Hildegardis) in a Latin sermon preached at Mentz. She says that if it had remained the same, after his fall, that it was on his creation, the infirmity of human nature could not withstand it; and we are indebted to her for an account of the reasons that led the tempter to make his fatal experiment on our "general mother." "Cum autem," she says, " deceptor audîsset quod homo tam sonore cantare cœpisset, exterritus est." No doubt, a noisy, storming manner carries vast authority with it. Lord Pembroke whispered it of Johnson, that his sayings would not appear half so extraordinary but for his bow-wow way. Fame herself, indeed, is represented by the poets to be a "noisy monster." Tragedywriters are very particularly beholden to noise. I have heard a stout stage-trumpeter put five or six of the Muses to the blush of a night; and the reign of many a worthy emperor has been prolonged for a week by a timely storm; but thunder is, perhaps, the safest antiseptic yet discovered.

Upon all other occasions dulness and noise maintain a strict enmity. "Giant Handel" introduced drums and cannons into his chorusses for the greater effect,—

To stir, to rouse, to shake the soul he comes,
And Jove's own thunders follow Mars's drums.

Dunciad.

And for his attachment to the cause of noise he was banished by the leaden queen to the Hibernian shore. Guilt has a similar antipathy to noise. Confessions of crimes have been ex

The reader is requested to bear in mind the answer which Socrates gave to one of his friends, when asked how he could endure the perpetual noise of his wife.

torted ere now by a sudden shock of noise.

When Macbeth

has effected the bloody deed, the least sound fills him with alarms. The knocking from without petrifies him with fear. "How is't with me," he says, "when every noise appals me?" When Lear hears the tempest rattling over his head, he in the most natural manner exclaims,

Tremble, thou wretch,

That hast within thee undivulged crimes,

Unwhipp'd of justice.

I cannot better conclude than by correcting a popular error respecting the comparative ages of Noise and Silence. This notion has been insidiously countenanced by Pope, in his Address to Silence, in imitation of Rochester. The following lines make out Silence to be senior to the creation:

Thine was the sway ere heaven was form'd, or carth,

Ere fruitful thought conceived creation's birth,

Or midwife word gave aid, and spoke the infant forth.

Milton, however, settles the matter otherwise, in his description of the appearance before creation :

It is not wonderful that men should be enthusiastic, for who can propose to himself an object worthy of his eager pursuit without ambition to attain it? The matter of surprise is, when a man of sound intellect and good principle can move through life without the apparent predominance of any one interest. There is such a wearisome dulness about ourselves when we cannot find any particular object upon which to exercise our various faculties-there is such a revolting from the idea of being nothing in the world-the burthen of thought on our minds, unrelieved by the active exertions of our bodies, does so heavily press