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slow, has been much encouraged by theatrical performances. Be this as it may, it would be an easy matter to point out a score or two of scientific adagios and largos which a person, unable to read music, and not having the real notes as written, and the divisions of the bars in his mind's eye, would never discover to be in essentially slow time. The only effect of such composition upon unlearned hearers, is to surprise and confound them. As to touching the finer feelings, the thing is out of the question; indeed, the evident intention of the composer is to take advantage of the slowness of the time, in order to exhibit his own skill and that of the performer, in running through divisions and subdivisions. In the management of piano and forte the same principle of imitation may be traced, however faintly. All natural "discourses" of passion are alternations of softness swelling into loudness, and loudness dying into softness, as the gusts of feeling rise and fall. In expressive pathetic airs the imitation is accordingly true to nature. But in modern compositions, especially of the "lengthy sort," though the practice remain, and in full force-the reason for it is gone. Ask a musician why such a forte and such a piano are marked, and he only answers you with some vague and indefinite appeal to taste or to precedent. He calls it "light and shade;" but what rule is there for the distribution of light and shade over a surface where no intelligible form, no natural picture is delineated. We may indeed "marble" such a surface; but if the lights were shadowed and the shadows lightened-if the ffs were turned into pps, and the pps into ffs, what difference could it make? It is easy to give emphasis to that which is destitute of meaning, just as a boy reading Latin "nonsenseverses" at school, applies to them the same intonations that he is taught to give to a line of Virgil. This is only a trick, however, to make that look something like sense, which in reality is devoid of it, and if the emphasis were reversed, it would do just as well. The most glaring instance, perhaps, of the united use and abuse of imitation in modern scientific musical expression, is the "shake." The shake is in reality the poetical heightening of that tremulous effect of the voice which is always produced, especially at the close of a sentence where the tongue begins to drop, by intense feeling. In accordance with this law, in all music the shake is introduced towards the close of a passage, which usually descends. The natural shake is any thing but that which musicians call a perfect shake. It is a tremulous imperfect vibration, and not a violent and distinct oscillation between two tones, which is a matter of most difficult vocal acquirement. In nature it rarely occupies more time than would be required for a crotchet in a common time Andante movement. In modern compositions, however, it is no unusual thing for it to occupy a whole bar of four crotchets-nay, two such bars-and upon exaggerations like these composers pride themselves.

So thoroughly forgotten are the natural reasons upon which these monstrosities have been originally built, that in treatises on musical composition they are not even attempted to be accounted for. The reader may look in vain for any intellectual explanation of the origin of piano and of forte, or of shakes or trills, or retardations, or pauses. He is taught by experience to expect the occurrence of such things in certain places, and after passages of a certain description-but why, he is not told and he need not inquire. In the well known book of

Avison, the foundation of musical expression is hardly once attempted to be evolved, and for the detection of the very principle on which the treatise professes to hinge, we are referred to nature? no-but to the scores of Geminiani, Crescembini and Corelli! Mr. Ralph in his pamphlet does nearly the same thing. Dr. Burney at times seems to recognise the origin of expression in melody in the imitation of nature, but generally contradicts himself in the next page, floundering between the effects of melody and harmony; sometimes speaking of them as distinct things, and sometimes confounding them together.* Both in the practice and theory of vocal and instrumental performers, the same ignorance, or neglect, of any resort to nature for the explanation of melodious meaning, is exhibited. Scientific singing and playing constantly degenerate into a display of trickery. We are called to attend to exhibitions of the voice and hand, which have as little reference to natural intonation as the twirls of a high French ballet have to graceful motion. Of the indifference of most professional singers to the meaning of the airs they sing, their indifference to the quality of the words is a stubborn evidence. They will as soon attach doggrel trash to a favourite tune as the effusions of our best poets. A glaring instance of this is the stuff which Mr. Braham and others are content to tack to the melody of Robin Adair, although the best songwriters which this country or perhaps any other ever producedBurns and Moore-have written beautiful and appropriate songs to this very air. Foote, in his Commissary, has admirably ridiculed this piece of ill taste. Hear Dr. Catgut's account of the approved mode of writing a comic opera: "Last week, in a ramble to Dulwich, I made these rhymes into a duet for a new comic opera I have upon the stocks. Mind-for I look upon the words as a model for that kind of writing."

First she.-"There to see the sluggish ass,

Thro' the meadows as we pass,

Eating up the farmer's grass,

Blythe and merry, by the mass,

As a little country lass."

Then he replies,-"Hear the farmer cry out zounds!

As he trudges thro' the grounds,

Yonder beast has broke my mounds;

If the parish has no pounds,

Kill, and give him to the hounds."

Then Da Capo, both join in repeating the last stanza; and this tacked to a tolerable tune will serve you for a couple of months-you observe." In the same spirit of ridicule Sir Richard Steele makes Trim, in his comedy of the Funeral, sing Campley's Cheque for three hundred pounds; repeating, "hundred-hundred-hundred-because there are three hundred;" a better reason than can be given for most repetitions in music. With indifference to expression bad taste necessarily comes in. If we criticise the practice of musical people, we

In his account of the performances at Westminster Abbey, in commemoration of Handel, he talks of the sublimity of effect produced by the multitude of voices and instruments, as if it were something peculiar to the music; forgetting that this kind of sublimity is common to all foud sounds, whether arising from shouting, from thunder, from the firing of cannon, the waves of the sea, or ——— Don Quixote's fulling mills.

shall every where find that vagueness and inconsistency which always are the result of a want of reference to first principles. Thus a celebrated vocalist of the day, in that marvellously mawkish ballad, "the Bewildered Maid," gives the word, "battle," with a furious accent"in King Cambyses" vein," although the passage in which it occurs is one of melancholy and quiet narrative. I have heard a person of reputed musical refinement laud the setting of the words, "follow, follow," in the well-known Mermaid's song, "because the notes seemed to follow each other"-a brilliant musical illustration of oratorical action, so ingeniously applied to that famous line,

"The long-long-round-of ten revolving-years.”

Nay, I have been told, on inquiring why a forte was to be followed by a piano in the repetition of the two dotted crotchets in "Fly not yet, that it was an echo! In Bombet's Lives of Haydn and Mozart, some notable specimens of musical criticism occur. The best, perhaps, is the chuckling self-satisfied way in which he favours us with the edifying anecdote of Mozart's composing the admired overture to Don Juan whilst drunk and sleepy. He absolutely hugs himself on the idea of having discovered, in the leading passage, a striking resemblance to the half-yawn half-snore which the nodding composer might be supposed to emit at intervals. Now, what, in the name of common sense, has this to do with Don Juan? or in what way could it be a suitable overture to the exploits of that fiery hero, or, indeed, to those of any body else, unless the celebrated journal of Drunken Barnaby be dramatized and brought upon the stage.

If we inquire into the particulars of the admiration expressed for airs and songs in general, we continually discover either that the difficulty and trick of the execution, or the general smoothness and harmony of the accompaniments, are the sole grounds. They are taken for the excitement rather than for the meaning-pretty much as the Indian convert is said to have taken the sacrament, wishing "it had been brandy." Songs are often said to be good, when well sung; a qualification of praise which seems to mean, that the difficulty of getting through them is the real inducement for hearing any one make the attempt. With an expressive air, if the singer can give the meaning, it is nearly sufficient. In music, as in every thing else, even an involuntary exhibition of skill which draws attention from the subject to the performer, is disadvantageous. In modern singing, however, this rule is reversed. Every convenient pause is occupied by a cadence, which is neither more nor less than a barefaced display of the talents of the performer. In the midst of the most pathetic appeal we are to break off and listen to the melodious vaulting of Madame or Signor. It is just as if Mr. Kean were to fill up the intervals of his byeplay in tragedy by leaping through the back-scene, because he can play Harlequin as well as Othello. Now all this goes to prove, that the gratification of what is often called musical taste, is, at bottom, that of mere curiosity; but it remains to be shown why curiosity is to be confounded with a feeling of the effects of music. Would they who flocked to hear Catalani sing Rode's violin variations, have felt the same pleasure in hearing them played upon a barrel-organ, or upon the violin even of Rode himself? Certainly not. It was the difficulty of the attempt, then, that was the motive for listening; and curiosity

was the passion to be gratified. We go to hear the human voice do what it never did before, for the same reason that we go to see human legs and arms do what they never did before. We admire him who runs highest upon the musical scale, upon precisely the same principle that we applaud the Indian jugglers twirling their balls, or Mr. Ireland leaping over a pole thirty feet high.

FROM THE EDINBURGH PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL.

Observations on Sir Robert Sepping's Plan for the Circular Sterns of

Ships of War. By George HARVEY, Esq. Member of the London Astronomical Society.

Few naval architects, of any age or country, have been more singularly fortunate in the original conception of important and useful designs, than Sir Robert SEPPINGS; and the great success which has attended the practical application of his plans, has commanded a respect for his name, which, there can be but little doubt, will increase in proportion as their excellence and utility shall be better comprehended and known.

But there is one of the designs lately brought forward by this distinguished individual, which has been questioned with a keenness and severity of a very uncommon kind; and, it may not be unfairly added, has been opposed by prejudices of no ordinary stamp. From the infancy of naval architecture, up to the present moment, no branch of it has undergone such varied discussion,-been canvassed and examined with so much interest and zeal,- and produced so many singular, and, in many instances, unmeaning comments, and contrary opinions, as the change which this eminent surveyor is desirous of introducing into our ships of war, by converting the square into a circular stern.

It is one of the rare merits of Sir Robert Seppings, that all his plans are of a useful and practical kind; that being founded originally on the best experience, and undergoing, in every instance of their application, a strict and rigorous inquiry, they have in most cases been productive of great immediate benefit to the public, and consequently entitle their author to the highest honours which a great and powerful nation can bestow.

It is, however, sometimes the fate of the most important and beneficial improvements, on their first introduction, to be questioned with unusual harshness and severity; and the spirit of this opposition is, in general, in proportion to the degree in which the proposed innovation happens to depart from long established usage.' The whole history of science is filled with lainentable proofs of this frailty of our nature; and we need not even go beyond the borders of the present century, to meet with many, very many, proofs of the baneful influence of those active and unfortunate prejudices. The Safety-Lamp, the most inestimable of the discoveries of the illustrious Davy, was destined, on its first introduction, to meet with an opposition of this kind; but time, which always renders more conspicuous the triumphs of genius, has placed it on the firmest and best foundation, and shown that it is a rich in blessings to mankind." That consequences equally satisfactory must ultimately result from the plan of the Circular Sterns, there can be but little doubt. The opposition which it has met with, has only served to quicken inquiry; and now that its ingenious inventor has brought the subject before the public,* in a shape which will enable every one interested in the inquiry to examine it for himself, the merits of the question must be fairly and impartially considered ; and those objections which imperfect practical information may have urged, or that opposition which seems to have owed its origin to certain preconceived notions of beauty of external form, will unquestionably vanish before the conclusions drawn from a sound and enlarged experience.

Circular sterns, when contrasted with those of a square form, may be contemplated under two points of view. In the first place, We may inquire into the strength peculiar to each form, considered as a system of mechanical forces; and, secondly, The means which each affords for carrying into effect those objects for which a ship of war was primarily constructed, namely, attack and defence.

In the mechanical construction of a ship, every part of its structure ought to possess a proper degree of strength, no one part possessing, if such an expression may be made use of, more strength than is absolutely necessary, nor any part less strength than the nature and office of that particular part is destined to maintain. And it is in the due adjustment of the several parts which constitute the frame of a ship, considered as a system of mechanical forces, that the science and judgment of the naval architect find so wide a field for the exercise of

Where a general similarity of construction prevails, it is impossible to derive any information from comparison. No advantage, for example, could be derived from comparing the square stern of one vessel with the square stern of another, supposing equal skill to have been employed in their construction. But we may arrive at some satisfactory information, by contrasting the strength and firmness of structures of different forms,—the strength of the stern of a ship, for example, with that of the stem. It may indeed be urged, in opposition to such a comparison, that, independent of the dissimilarity of form which at present actually exists between the stem and the stern, the duties which they are destined respectively to perform are so very opposite to each other, that nothing satisfactory could be hoped for from the

mparison. The dissimilarity of form, and the difference in the respective offices of the parts just alluded to, will be immediately admitted. But if it should appear on examination, and by an appeal to authentic documents, that a weakness in the stern is much more common than in the bow, then will both these objections be fairly disposed of, and a superiority in the formation of the bow over that of the stern will be the necessary consequence.

To enable us to institute this comparison in the most satisfactory and perfect manner, Sir Robert Seppings, in the first Appendix to his able Letter, has furnished above 120 examples of ships of different classes, the sterns of which have been made the subject of frequent and strong complaint by their respective commanders. To increase the

his powers:

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Sir Robert Seppings has lately published a Letter on the subject of Circular Sterns, addressed to Lord Melville.

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