now once more sunk, and merged into the general hum of the convivial table, and the poet Halcro again resumed his usurped possession of the ear of Mordaunt Mertoun.

"Whereabouts was I ?" he said, with a tone which expressed to his weary listener more plainly than words could, how much of his desultory tale yet remained to be told. "O, I remember-we were just at the door of the Wits' Coffee-house-it was set up by one

Never did sport come, when sport was sighed for by an assemblage of idlers, more stirring, more to the taste of all present, than the arrival of the whale.

—“Then you might have seen such a joyous, boisterous, and universal bustle, as only the love of sport, so deeply implanted in our natures, can possibly inspire. A set of country squires, about to beat for the first woodcocks of the season, were a comparison as petty in respect to the glee, as in regard to the importance of the object; the battue, upon a strong cover in Ettrick Forest, for the destruction of the foxes; the insurrection of the sportsmen of the Lennox, when one of the duke's deer gets out from InchMirran; nay, the joyous rally of the fox-chase itself, with all its blithe accompaniments of hound and horn, fall infinitely short of the animation with which the gallant sons of Thule set off to encounter the monster whom the sea had sent for their amusement at so opportune a conjuncture."

The description of the attack and final escape, could only have been written by that master describer of sports, the unknown novelist.

In the wavering of our choice among the riches proffered to us, we should indeed be insensible to one of the finest pictures of nature perhaps ever attempted, if we passed over that chef-d'œuvre of the assemblage, the mutual delicate struggle of Minna and Brenda against a feeling something unsisterly, which the secrecy necessarily attendant on their respective attachments, in spite of themselves, occasioned in their gentle, guileless bosoms.

"Yet such was their natural openness and gentleness of disposition, that each sister imputed to herself the fault that there was aught like estrangement existing between them, and when, having finished their devotions, and betaken themselves to their common couch, they folded each other in their arms, and exchanged a sisterly kiss, and a sisterly good night, they seemed mutually to ask pardon, and to exchange forgiveness, although neither said a word of offence, either offered or received; and both were soon plunged in that light and yet profound repose, which is only enjoyed when sleep sinks down on the eyes of youth and innocence."

This sleep is interrupted by the intrusion of Norna. The scene of the enchanted lamp is truly terrific; and that at the toilette of the sisters in the morning, quite affecting.The romance of the beautiful enthusiast, Minna, is finely pictured in her interview with Cleveland on the sea-shore, when, with fire in her eye, she proposes that Zetland should take advantage of the dissensions in Scotland, and throw off the hated yoke! It is, however, too long for extracting. The incident of the fatal serenade, (ii. 235.) is not often exceeded in fictitious composition, uor the exquisite verses, in song. The visit of Magnus with his daughters to consult Norna in her own strong-hold, is likewise

the perfection of description. We had extracted the scene at the fair, when Cleveland claimed his property from the pedlar, and accused him and Swertha at Jarlshoff of having made free with it, but found that to this, too, we must refer.

We have already recommended the scene in vol. iii. page 162, between Cleveland and the magistrates, as inimitable. Whereever, too, the pirates appear, the life and spirit of the picture and dialogue of these nautical characters add another proof to a thousand, of the versatility of this wonderful genius.

"Thus said the Rover,
To his gallant crew,
Up with the black flag,
Down with the blue!-

Fire on the main-top,

Fire on the bow,
Fire on the gun-deck,

Fire down below.'

This stanza of buccaneer defiance, sung and heard in its circumstances, is stage effect, if so we may call it, of the highest order,the very inspiration of the subject.

The scene between Minna and Cleveland in the cathedral of Kirkwall, and the interruption by Norna, we should quote if we durst, for in beauty it yields not to any thing in the work; but we must content ourselves with noting its place, at p. 232. of vol. iii.

With a general reference-we can afford no more—to the exquisite verses, passim, as a specimen of what the Muse of Scandinavia can yet do, we conclude our notice of this, the twelfth work, and fourteenth tale *, in seven years, from the same prolific pen! It is, nevertheless, equal to any of the collection in the varied talent and power which distinguish them all; and —if it shall not be marked by the same general popularity with some of its predecessors on subjects less strange and more engrossing,-it will be found, as much as any of them, a study for the lovers of humour, of feeling, of pathos, of descriptive painting-in brief, of genuine nature.

ART. XVI.—Hints to Teach Children the First Principles of Music. 12mo. Pp. 75. London, 1821.

F

Of late years, music, as a branch of education, has spread so much more widely than ever among the people of Scotland, that we consider this circumstance as a sufficient warrant for our entering upon a course of musical remarks and criticisms, to be continued from time to time in our Review. Our object will be to present to our readers such observations as we conceive fitted * Making in all thirty-nine volumes!

to promote the formation of just ideas respecting music in general, and also respecting such musical compositions, or such works on the theory and practice of music, as may be the subjects of our particular criticisms. There is much to be done in this way; for if we look back to the period at which Dr. Burney finished his History of Music, we shall perceive a wide blank in the musical literature of Great Britain; and we flatter ourselves, that, by means of assistance at home as well as abroad, we shall be enabled to supply part at least of the desideratum, as well as to furnish much original matter directed to the accomplishment of our wishes the improvement of music in Britain.

In the present Number of our Review, we content ourselves with this indication of our purpose to pass through a series of musical articles, and with the addition of a few remarks by way of introduction to the whole. In our next Number, we shall enter a little more into particulars, assuring our readers that we will, at all times, endeavour to make matters as intelligible to them as we can supposing them not all familiar with music and its technicalities-and that we will not crowd our pages with those formidable phalanxes of nameless origin and incomprehensible nature, which most writers on music delight to draw up in dread array against the profanum vulgus. In short, when we can express a thing clearly in a few words of plain English, we shall not attempt to convert it into matter of wonder, and a mystery, by a huge apparatus of scientific difficulties, strange-looking diagrams, interminable demonstrations, and all the "learned lumber of the schools." Still, however, as every art has its own technical words, we must sometimes be obliged to employ terms that are familiar to musicians only; and we must do this to avoid unwieldy circumlocutions. We know very well that we shall get no thanks for perspicuity from a certain class of musicians-certain benedetti maestri, who are much more desirous to make their readers or pupils gape and stare, than to enlighten them. Trick, mystery, and pretended secrets, are mightily useful to charlatans whose trade it is to keep the public in a state of wondering ignorance; for they well know, that when this mirage of the mind is destroyed, their reign must cease. Indeed we have seen, that against any attempt to expose the absurdity of such persons, their common war-cry of illiberal persecution has been yelled forth in outrageous despair. They always find a party to echo the cry; as, in a flock of geese, one bird has only to set up its foolish throat at the appearance of any threatening object, and the gabble spreads and reverberates from mouth to nouth, with hideous clamour. Despite of all this, however, we hall continue our course in a plain path, choosing to carry with

us as much light as we can to guide ourselves and our readers, and not ambitious of striking them with awe and terror, by appearing to them like the giant-ghost of the Hartz mountain, or any other hobgoblin magnified through mist.

We are quite aware that, even in some parts of Great Britain, there exist persons who consider the only true and rational objects of human pursuit, are the comforts of eating, drinking, and sleeping; and who hold in utter contempt, if not in great aversion, the arts of poetry, painting, sculpture, and music, as things that are beneath the dignity of true wisdom-inasmuch as they are neither eatable nor drinkable, and cannot, like woollen cloth and coal-fires, protect one against the chill of November winds. For our parts, we have no quarrel with these excellent persons, but are most willing to leave them in the full and peaceable enjoyment of their roast beef and plum-pudding, undisturbed by the senseless productions of a Shakspeare, a Raphael, or a Mozart. We would only beg of them, in return, to permit others, who can relish the fine arts, as well as they do their substantials, to enjoy them without annoyance. Moreover, we would entreat them to believe, that all human beings are not, and ought not to be alike in their tastes and inclinations, and that intellectual faculties of various kinds were bestowed on mankind in general for the purposes of being used and improved, and of rendering human existence something higher and better than that of oysters or polypi. If, with certain persons of great prudence and worldly wisdom, whose stock-lines of poetry are,

“For what's the worth of any thing,

But so much money as 'twill bring *?"

One should condemn the fine arts in toto, as useless superfluities of civilization; one might as well go a little farther, and declare one's self a devoted admirer of the comforts and elegancies of Robinson Crusoe, in his rough-skin coat, cap, and inexpressibles -living to eat, and eating to live; or rather, perhaps, (to come nearer the comforts of our true substantialists,) a worshipper of easy-chairs, turtle soup, venison, and brandy. All this is very good in its own way, and desirable enough, no doubt, to gratify merely animal propensities; but still we confess ourselves to like a little of the beau idéal, and we think there is reason for it. The plain prose of life, in reality, is written in a very rough

During the memorable reign of liberty and equality, one of the chefs d'assassins, learning that a fellow-citizen had been overheard to repeat some lines that savoured too much of humanity of feeling, exclaimed, "Ah! le coquin! il cite les poêtes? Bien, il va les debiter dans l'enfer." Next day, liberty and equality and fraternal love led the poor wretch to the guillotine. We hope that no one will seek our lives for a simi lar offence.

style: it is full of very useful homilies of the most humiliating kind. The poetry of life, on the other hand, is rather better adapted to encourage and elevate the mind-to give it a foretaste of what it may enjoy in a nobler state of existence-to enable us to think and feel with the poet, that

"La morte è fin d'una prigion oscura

A gli animi gentili; a gli altri è noja,

Ch' hanno posto nel fango ogni lor cura."

And what, in truth, are all our best and highest emotions and aspirations but poetry? Hope, love, adoration, and all the thousand modes in which human intellect developes itself in beauty and sublimity, what are they but the poetry of the mind? Strike out from the book of human life every passage that may be referable to deep and generous emotion, to those gentler and nobler feelings that distinguish man from a merely selfish animal; strike out all that the cold of head and the cold of heart sneer at as human weakness and delusion, and what remains? Surely nothing but what might force the hardest Stoic to shut the book in disgust and horror.

The higher influences of the arts of music, poetry, painting, and sculpture, depending essentially on the excitability of the imaginative powers, one must not lose sight of that connection, so far as to confound it with the relations which subsist between human feelings or emotions, and those arts that are merely useful-arts that tend directly to increase only the animal comforts of mankind. The fine arts, properly so called, do not tend to the supplying of mere necessaries. They gratify the intellectual powers of imagination; and by how much the greater these powers are in the individual, by so much will be his capacity of enjoying them in general; or, more particularly, that one of them to which his organization and habits adapt themselves most naturally. We have known many who had no relish whatever for the finest productions of the best poets; nay, some who absolutely disliked them as being fit for none but children, or romantic ladies or gentlemen; and we have known others who would look with more pleasure upon the sprawling lions and tygers that are painted on a showman's canvas, than upon Raphael's St. Cecilia, or School of Athens.

The peculiarities of human character, natural and acquired, must always regulate and modify the impressions which are received from works belonging to the fine arts. "Grant but as 66 many kinds of mind as moss"-there are not two human beings who feel exactly alike. Therefore, to seek any thing like a standard of taste, applicable to all persons and circumstances, seems to be a vain pursuit. This same standard of taste, so much