9. European Correspondence

SHORT ARTICLES.-Peat Mosses, 491.-Valuable Hint for Farmers; The Silk Trade, 496.— Popular Recreation, 518.-Shops; The Kindly Germans; Influence of Beauty, 521. NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.-British Female Poets, 519-American Female Poets, 520; The American Almanac; Wordsworth's Poems; Hans Andersen's Story Book, 527. PROSPECTUS. This work is conducted in the spirit cf | now becomes every intelligent American to be informeu ttell's Museum of Foreign Literature, (which was favor- of the condition and changes of foreign countries. And ably received by the public for twenty years,) but as it is this not only because of their nearer connection with ourtwice as large, and appears so often, we not only give selves, but because the nations seem to be hastening, spirit and freshness to it by many things which were ex- through a rapid process of change, to some new state of cluded by a month's delay, but while thus extending our things, which the merely political prophet cannot compute scope and gathering a greater and more attractive variety, or foresee. are able so to increase the solid and substantial part of our literary, historical, and political harvest, as fully to satisfy the wants of the American reader.

The elaborate and stately Essays of the Edinburgh, Quarterly, and other Reviews; and Blackwood's noble criticisms on Poetry, his keen political Commentaries, highly wrought Tales, and vivid descriptions of rural and mountain Scenery; and the contributions to Literature, History, and Common Life, by the sagacious Spectator, the sparkling Examiner, the judicious Athenæum, the busy and industrious Literary Gazette, the sensible and comprehensive Britannia, the sober and respectable Chrislian Observer; these are intermixed with the Military and Naval reminiscences of the United Service, and with the best articles of the Dublin University, New Monthly, Fraser's, Tait's, Ainsworth's, Hood's, and Sporting Magazines, and of Chambers' admirable Journal. We do not consider it beneath our dignity to borrow wit and wisdom from Punch; and, when we think it good enough, make use of the thunder of The Times. We shall increase our variety by importations from the continent of Europe, and from the new growth of the British colonies.

The steamship has brought Europe, Asia, and Africa, into our neighborhood; and will greatly multiply our connections, as Merchants, Travellers, and Politicians, with all parts of the world; so that much more than ever it

Geographical Discoveries, the progress of Colonization, (which is extending over the whole world,) and Voyages and Travels, will be favorite matter for our selections; and, in general, we shall systematically and very ullv acquaint our readers with the great department of Foreign affairs, without entirely neglecting our own.

While we aspire to make the Living Age desirable to all who wish to keep themselves informed of the rapid progress of the movement-to Statesmen, Divines, Lawyers, and Physicians-to men of business and men of leisure-it is still a stronger object to make it attractive and useful to their Wives and Children. We believe that we can thus do some good in our day and generation; and hope to make the work indispensable in every well-informed family. We say indispensable, because in this day of cheap literature it is not possible to guard against the influx of what is bad in taste and vicious in morals, in any other way than by furnishing a sufficient supply of a healthy character. The mental and moral appetite must be gratified.

We hope that, by "winnowing the wheat from the chaff" by providing abundantly for the imagination, and by a large collection of Biography, Voyages and Travels, History, and more solid matter, we may produce a work which shall be popular, while at the same time it will aspire to raise the standard of public taste.

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ences.

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A newspaper is "any printed publication, issued in numbers, consisting of not more than two sheets, and published at short, stated intervals of not more than one month, conveying intelligence of passing events."

Monthly parts. For such as prefer it in that form, the Living Age is put up in monthly parts, containing four or five weekly numbers. In this shape it shows to great advantage in comparison with other works, containing in each part double the matter of any of the quarterlies. But we recommend the weekly numbers, as fresher and fuller of life. Postage on the monthly parts is about 14 cents. The volumes are published quarterly, each volume containing as much matter as a quarterly review gives in eighteen months.

WASHINGTON, 27 Dec., 1845.

Or all the Periodical Journals devoted to literature and science which abound in Europe and in this country, this has appeared to me to be the most useful. It contains indeed the exposition only of the current literature of the English language, but this by its immense extent and comprehension includes a portraiture of the human mind in the utmost expansion of the present age. J. Q. ADAMS.

LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 240.-23 DECEMBER, 1848.

From Fraser's Magazine.

SOME WORDS ABOUT MUSIC AND THE MOD-
ERN OPERA.

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It is with an apology equally humble and elegant that Bacon commences his thirty-seventh essay, that upon masques and triumphs," by asserting, "that since princes will have such things, it is better that they should be graced with elegancy than daubed with cost." Substituting the words "the public" for princes, the principle stated above holds now as true as any other of those matchless aphorisms, which, set in close but distinct succession, remind one of a costly rosary of priceless pearls, each unique in itself, yet harmonizing in perfection with each other on the one simple link that unites them all.

the direction into which the ton of dramatic entertainment has begun to flow, and under this modern dress appears once more the passion that led our forefathers to the rude scenic illusion of the mysteries, that in later days suggested the fantastic choral dances to which Bacon alludes, as "a thing of great state and pleasure," and that received the sanction of a crowning glory, when one-to use his own lovely words" with his garland and singing robes on him" sanctified the union of song and action in that star-lit dream, the masque of Comus.

It is perhaps with some reverential mistrust that we inscribe the name of Milton as an unconscious promoter of a taste that now fills houses nightly to see the double sentimentalism of Robert le Diable, and its highly effective valse infernale. "Masques and triumphs" in the days of Bacon In its celestial purity the character of private were undoubtedly much more intended for the sole theatricals seems lost. The personality of the edification and enjoyment of royalty than now, youthful Alice Egerton, is veiled under the vague when queen or king going in state adds but little and gracefully mysterious appellation of "the to the excitement, and incredible crowds stationed Lady," and we associate the whole more with a at the doors of her majesty's theatre on a Lind mythological vision of ancient Greece, unaccountnight. (We believe, by the bye, the young ac-ably placed amid the ferny glades and ancestral tress' name is to be in use for the future to express the latest invention in suffocation " Linding""being Linded.") The days when pageants were but vehicles of the grossest personal flattery have departed,

oaks of England, than with what the quaint playbill of the old editions set forth as "a mask presented on Michaelmas night" at Ludlow Castle. There is an indescribable glory of freshness in the conception and execution of the matchless mask of Comus; starlight shining on dew-drops; the breath of evening odoriferous with moistening flowers, where the soft, last voices of the day that is dead" are silent every one.

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Like that fair vestal throned in the west, who most delighted in the seductive extravagance; yet may we trace in the elaborate and quaint conceits of those mythological absurdities the germ But where, where shall music be found fit to of that taste which now has risen, and is continu-wed with this immortal verse, unless some angel ally rising, to a higher pitch of popular enthusiasm in the increasing love and general frequenting of the modern opera.

In spite of our chill clime, and hearts asserted to be dead to the electric power that galvanizes a whole audience of Italians at some favorite morcaur into a state of nothing short of temporary insanity-in spite of the comparative rarity of the gifts of voice and genius amongst the sons and daughters of our own land-gifts every year more lavishly acknowledged to those who will trust them for six months across the grey waters of the channel-in spite of the bitter and rancorous contempt heaped upon the first struggles of the opera in England by persons utterly incapable of foreseeing the power and perfection of its maturer age-in spite of these and numerous other disadvantages, the sway and success of the opera and its followers continue to become each year more potent and more undeniably evident. Nor is this merely the ordinary rise, progress, and crisis of a fashion; the cause lies deeper-it is VOL. XIX. 34

CCXL.

LIVING AGE.

take a lower sweep than is his wont round" the starry threshold," and so transmit an indistinct echo of the harmonies above? Still, hopeless though the model may be that is set before us, we yet may acknowledge and reverently admire the spirit that directed the weaver of the verse in the words and ideas he gave the melodist to clothe with music. Ennobling, elevating, and purifying, the alleged purposes of the dramatic entertainment are thus indeed most fully answered; but then one world has but one Milton; and with the best intentions, Dr. Watts could never have united delight and edification in the same degree, we suppose; therefore it is necessary to become reconciled to the capabilities of other artists, and submit to the inferior but still very beautiful librettos provided by Metastasio.

With an exquisite ear for the melody of words, great taste for the heroic loves and friendships of the remote days of classic story, and an imagination filled with images of tender beauty and romantic purity, Metastasio was fitted above all other

poets of the age in which he lived to raise the opera from the sad state of declension into which it had sunk.

condescend to mechanical contrivance, ere she found speech in her power; but thenceforth she held her place, and again, after the lapse of centuries, we hear her singing triumphantly after the overthrow of Egypt, "when Miriam, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances;" and Music, sending forth her voice

It appears certain that civilization and Christianity are the two great means of sending forth in ever strengthening and increasing power and It would be a task of considerable interest to sweetness the voice of music; and that has been trace up to its primeval source that river of music" a mighty voice" ever since the infinite chorus which, now swelled to a mighty tide, spreads its of the sons of God shouted for joy at the creation branching streams through every quarter of the of a world. True, its echoes have been faint and world; for have not the arias of Italy and the unfaithful, except in the grand morning psalm simple ballads of England found their way to the from Paradise Lost; and that deserves to be a remotest corners of the earth? Lord Valentia, at reality. the court of an Eastern prince in the centre of We take up no trace of the progress of music India, listened to an intolerable performance of old in Genesis till we find the name of Jubal as "the and commonplace tunes by the private band of an father of all such as handle the harp and organ." ambitious nabob. In America, in the West In-Doubtless he faltered in midsong; for the harmony dies, simple airs sung by sailors from England or of earth had lost the teaching of Heaven, and France are eagerly caught up by the negroes Music had to raise her head from the dust, and more than by the natives; and thus, on the banks of the great American rivers-on the Ohio, the Mississippi, and on the warm and glittering shores of the Carribean Isles, may be heard scraps of songs, echoes from the old world, though degraded by the ludicrous gibberish faithfully transmitted to our ears by the Ethiopian serenaders; and further north still linger in the hearts of the Canadians the simple chiming romances of France, brought through the lips of a prophetess, sung to the Lord, thither by the French settlers, sung by many a who had triumphed gloriously. Thence we trace watchfire on many a moonlight night, by stream her onward way; under the very wings of the and by river, on the pine-shadowed shores, in the Holy and Almighty she raised her most glorious camp, or in the canoe on the wide waters, strains in the words and Psalms of David; and it is here that we first see the power of music upon the heart and the senses, in the dominion exercised by the sweet singer of Israel over the dark'There still linger the melodies of the old world, ened and demon-haunted spirit of Saul. There is conveyed thither by the people who hold most of the no character in the Bible over whom so dread a spirit of the troubadour in their music-the memo- mystery hangs as that of Saul, called indeed, but ries of gay Provence-the relics of the antique not chosen, if we may look at the tragical and union of chivalry and song, most exquisitely and despairing conclusion of his reign. Yet is there affectingly set forth in the romantic legend of the sublimity of strong passion and intense misery Cœur de Lion and his minstrel page. All these shed over the gloomy picture. The deep power associations, with the grand traditions and hum-harmony held over his heart-his brief repentance bler themes of love and partings, are invested, far-his savage agonies of jealousy-his gleams of from old Europe, with a melancholy and touching returning tenderness-his wild and terrible supercharm that seems half the result of the soft mists stitions-his desperate and agonizing desire to tear which distance and regretful memory throw over asunder the veil of the unseen world-his valorthe hearts of the singers, and half the natural in- his anguish "because his life was yet whole in fluence of the place and the period-a vast wilder- him"-the stern determination of his last act-the ness lying in the grey mystery of the dawning vision of Saul calls up to the mind the setting of day of civilization. a blood-red sun shining fitfully amid heavy stormThere are yet to be heard boat-songs that carry clouds. with them a wild charm, almost descriptive of the In the earlier stages of this world, the imaginameasured splash of the oar, and the air and wood-tion is so accustomed to connect music with sacred land scent that tells of the vicinity of a great feeling, that we hardly can conceive the heathen forest. Again and again the chorus returns faith- nations having presumed to lay hands on the ful to the feeling that gave it rise

When the rapid was near,
And the daylight past.

Il y a long temps que je t'aime,
Jamais je ne t'oublierai.

Yet the very monotony is pleasing. Again and
again the refrain returns with a despairing fond-

sacred lyre and harp. It seems hardly possible that Og, king of Bashan, should have cultivated so soft and exquisite an art; yet Milton has made the vault of hell ring with the music of defiance and despair, and Satan and his peers marched to

the Dorian mood, Of flutes and soft recorders,

ness to the vow of eternal remembrance, and we 'feel as we listen that the Atlantic at least must have rolled between the original weaver of the verse and her to whom he addressed it, in some as in mockery of the minstrelsy of a lost heaven. village of his dear and distant France. How continually do we find ourselves referring to

Milton's book as a journal of established facts-between; nor do we believe that the very love great proof of the divinity of its genius! songs of the Hindoo Cupid to his ten thousand It is not until the days of Nebuchadnezzar that ladies would hold in their gigantic system of flirwe find any distinct mention of a heathen cultivat-tation any charms for the ears of Europe. The ing music. We know, however, he possessed a natives of North America howl; they do not sing; full band of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psal-only on one occasion have we heard the attempt; tery, and dulcimer; and it may have been that the and this was one summer's day, in a remote, unsongs of the captive Jews, as they wept and sung cleared part of the forest, where, at an Indian setby the waters of Babylon, shed over the barbarian tlement, we were present when a congregation of muse of Assyria the softening light and mystic Indians, under the surveillance of the Roman Cathgrandeur of the poetry of despair. Isaiah alludes olic priest who had converted them, sung a hymn to his own prophecies sounding in the ears of the with voices of such enormous power, that we half unfaithful Jews like the lovely song of one who expected to see the rude roof of the little chapel hath a pleasant voice; thus seeming to indicate the burst as at a peal of thunder. deeply-rooted love of harmony which was inherent in the nature of his countrymen. Nor, as time wore on, and the great nations of antiquity rose to the full development of intellectual power and martial vigor, do we find that in Greece or Rome music held the primary rank she had established for herself among the Hebrews. It was among that small and, politically speaking, insignificant people that lay indeed hidden the regalia of the beautiful and the divine.

"Art thou not ashamed to sing so well?" said Philip of Macedon to Alexander, having heard his son sing at a feast to the envy of the musicians present.

"Music," says Aristotle, " is seldom considered as a serious engagement, and is rarely practised but as a recreative pastime, or a natural expansion of social merriment." Little could the writer of this sentence know of the depth and the meaning of the mighty thing treated so lightly-the triumph, the rapture, the despair-that blending of the dirge-note and the song of festival" which gives ecstasy to joy, and melts our very pleasure into tears almost of pain; yet,

It is from the heart of Europe, of Christianity, that the grand, enduring tones of music arise. The rude and faltering accents of the heathen nations, though to their own ears they may have been in some cases of ill-placed genius prelusive of grander harmonies to come, soon died away before the allpowerful voice of the church in early years, when she spread once more her protecting wings over the genius of music, and caused her own service to be adorned and dignified with the rich and improving harmonies of advancing knowledge. Next came the days of chivalry; but, even before that, we see in Alfred, the great Saxon hero, disguised as a shepherd playing on the harp, and singing before the Danish prince in his own camp, the first idea of the future troubadour. Then with the crusades was accomplished the attractive union of religion and romance, of chivalry and song; devotion to God and his lady expressed by the true knight in a mixture of hymn and love-song. poet-king, Risic, of Provençe, was the last heir of the line of troubadours, which reached its most picturesque point in the person of Blondel. The Reformation sent forth some of the fine, stern hymns of Luther; and, in France, Protestantism raised her voice in softer accents, and for a while airs from Les Huguenots were quite in fashion, even before Meyerbeer dramatized the massacre of St. Bartholomew. In England the quaint madrigal was the very type of the age of peak and ruff; but further north, in one small, dim room (so it appears to the traveller now) in the old palace of Holyrood, the Queen of Scots still fed her fancy on choice court ditties, and the more im passioned music of the belle France, which she loved too dearly.

The

When Music, heavenly maid, was young, When first in early Greece she sung, much pains were bestowed on her education. We read in Aristotle of those "whose undivided application to music had given them great proficiency in the art, but which had debased their souls and narrowed their faculties;" and he speaks of "that artificial and complicated music which has little other merit than the difficulty of execution, and little other effect than to astonish the gaping multitude." Still he seems to allow the possibility of music, if properly directed, effecting an impor- The influence of the reformed religion has not tant purpose, promoting moral improvement, re- been, certainly, in many cases, favorable to the fining the sentiments, and exalting the character. improvement of musical taste. The Puritans loved Over the music united to the chorus of Greek | to sing through their noses instead of their throats; tragedy an impenetrable veil has fallen; every any attempt to soften or raise the standard of church relic of Greek and Roman music has been swept away; nor do we believe that there ever was in it much which the present age would find worth preserving. The national music of the comparatively uncivilized and unchristianized nations of the world at this present time does not present either any very beautiful or striking instances of melody. We may sometimes find a sweet and simple air of Hindoo or Persian origin, but they are few and far

music met with little approval among the Presbyterian, or Low Church party, the abominations of the mass were likely to infect, it was thought, even the music transplanted from the Romish church, nor, indeed, were many of the airs sung in the kirk in general honored with the common justice of time and tune. There are several most striking and grand chants of a simplicity that places them on the first rank of sacred harmony. There

can be few psalms finer than the air named "Mar- | for the first time in London, and the perfect suctyrdom," united to the sublime words of the 50th Paraphrase

When the last trumpet's awful voice This rending earth shall shake. Well is it named " Martyrdom," for none could be so inspiring to the enthusiasm of those who sang it while hunted, many of them to the death, among the wild glens and moorlands of Scotland.

cess of both, proves the gradual increase of the national taste for the refined enjoyments of that entertainment where so many of the arts join hands in sisterhood.

It is now two hundred and fifty-three years since the opera first rose into notice at Florence. Before that time, dramatic poetry was unconnected with music; and it was at the marriage festivities of Henry IV. of France and Marie de Medicis Music appears to have reached its very lowest that they were first united under the princely patebb in some of the remote churches of England, ronage of her father, the Grand Duke Francis. where violins (what a Scottish clergyman once It was in the most beautiful of all mythological named " a wee sinfu' fiddle") and a few discord- legends that the opera was first presented to the ant voices represent a choir. The praise of chari- public. Only one attempt had been previously ty children, also, in London churches, with their made to try its strength, in a pastoral piece entihissing tones and their thin voices, remind one tled Dafne, and the success of the example enmiserably of skimmed milk. Still, the objection couraged further proceedings. to hiring singers is so strong in some minds, that the inferior music of free-will offering must be accepted. Doubtless, also, the feeling is well-found-France, the grand measured rhymes and heroic ed, that the house of prayer be not made a house of merchandise. This, however, makes it the more necessary that all should exert themselves as much as in them lies to improve their own ears and voices, and those of their children or depend-mythology, seized on the vast field of history, and ents; for it seems hard indeed that a purer worship should entail on the worshippers a hideous sacrifice of their musical feelings during divine service.

Of late, a decided effort has been made, both in England and Scotland, by one zealous party in the church, to add beauty to holiness, and to embellish as much as possible the outward forms and ceremonies of worship. There is visible, also, here, a great love of symbols and typical turnings and bendings; there is a sentiment running through the whole system that we confess we think most attractive. The face turned to the east-the bowing of the knee at the name of Jesus-all these hold of a more demonstrative and picturesquely imaginative worship than belongs to this nineteenth century. Yet it is a strain after a shadow; the reverence of the great mass of the people can never now be heightened by such means; and if, as most will allow, they are only valuable as having been the ancient custom of the church, they hardly repay the offence they give, and, unfortunately, sometimes, the ridicule they excite.

The musical movement in England, however, is extending far beyond church music. Hullah and his allies are filling class-rooms with mechanics and shopmen, and others of the lower classes anxious to learn, and in many instances well capable of accomplishing their wish. Exeter Hall fills up its choruses with recruits from the mercantile classes, after the shops are closed; the chorus of the opera-houses, in the same way, are indebted to the same parties for support. We have seen, in one instance, an enthusiastic coachmaker singing and strutting his happy hours on the stage as an attendant in the Druidical train of Norma; and we believe he dances in the ballet besides !

The experiment of two opera-houses this spring,

In spite, however, of this satisfactory commencement, the opera again sank into disrepute.

In

eloquence of Racine and Corneille distanced the claims of operatic entertainments; and it was not until the eighteenth century that Apostolo Zeus, not lingering only among the fictions of Greek

thence chose the most striking and sublime facts and instances of grandeur, of love, of enduring constancy and firmness, to arouse and interest his audience. Dignity and regularity he possessed, with some share of invention. But the genius of Metastasio threw a shadow over the lessening fame of his rival.

It was in the Didona Abbandonata that Metastasio first showed his strength. The agonizing passion of the closing scene, where the Carthaginian queen puts an end to her life and love, is finely conceived, though the old-fashioned rage for the heathen gods still rules the author sufficiently to make him drag in Neptune to speak to an epilogue, with no especial end in view.

The music of Metastasio's rhythm is wonderful" Lusinghiera e seducente per una specie d'interno canto," as it has been well called by one of his own countrymen-natural, simple, and graceful at all times. His powers did not extend, however, to the high regions of sacred drama. His Morte d'Abel seems tame and commonplace, after reading through his other chef-d'œuvres— especially we should mention the Olimpiade and the Temistocle. The former has never in later years been performed; it was written by order of the emperor, Charles VI., in honor of the birthday of the Empress Elizabeth, and represented for the first time on the 28th of August, 1753, in the gardens of the Favorita.

Royal patronage was in those days still necessary for the arts, and poets and painters ran tame in great kings' palaces; the public now protects and encourages genius. Kings and queens have been the foster-parents of more things than the church, and thus it was that Metastasio wrote all his operas for stated occasions of festive celebration. He died in 1782, at Vienna, having enjoyed