SENSATIONAL BREATH-TAKING. And could not heave her head, Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry, 3 of the subject." Dr. Oliver Holmes makes a simile that is pat and pertinent, when he pictures Helen Darley sighing, and changing her place, "as persons do whose breath some cunning orator has been sucking out of them with his spongy eloquence, so that, when he stops, they must get some air, and stir about, or they feel as if they should be half smothered and palsied." There float in the memory as applicable, if only misapplied, some lines of Byron's which tell how every listener's bosom held his breath, and how, throughout, men, "from man to man, A swift electric shiver ran; . . . Of Melvill's Golden Lectures it might be said, as Macaulay says of Tillotson, that his eloquence attracted to the heart of the City crowds of the learned and polite, from the Inns of Court and from the mansions of the west end; a considerable part of his congregation generally consisting of young clergy"who came to learn the art of preaching at the feet of him who "-thus the great Whig historian appraises the great Whig prelate "was universally considered as the first of preachers." Another Thursday morning series will occur to some readers, not forgetting the sensational breath-taking after prolonged breath-holding, to which this footnote refers. Dr. Wardlaw describes as 66 peculiarly striking” the aspect of the Tron Church, in Glasgow, on a Thursday forenoon' (he italicizes the day of the week, and the time of day,) when Dr. Chalmers occupied the pulpit. To see a church of that size, "crammed above and below," during the busiest hours of the day, with fifteen or sixteen hundred hearers, and these 66 4 SUSPIRATION AND EXPECTORATION. In order to their stations leap, And Music's power obey. From harmony, from heavenly harmony, of all vocations, was indeed a novel and strange sight." A hush of dead silence attended the giving out of the text; and as the preacher grew more earnest, so did the listeners. 'Every breath is held, every cough is suppressed, every fidgety movement is settled; every one, riveted himself by the spell of the impassioned and entrancing eloquence, knows how sensitively his neighbour will resent the very slightest disturbance. Then, by-and-by, there is a pause. The speaker stops to gather breath, to wipe his forehead, to adjust his gown, and purposely too, and wisely, to give the audience, as well as himself, a moment or two of relaxation. The moment is embraced; there is free breathing, suppressed coughs get vent, postures are changed, there is a universal stir, as of persons who could not have endured this strain much longer; the preacher bends forward, his hand is raised-all is again hushed." A learned tourist in Norway not long since bore witness that the most impressive service he ever heard was in one of the Bergen churches-though he owns that an Englishman might have been a little startled by the amount of expectoration indulged in by the congregation; for between the intervals of the sermon the sound was like that of the large raindrops at the beginning of a thundershower. The expectoration is an undesirable complement or supplement to the deep-drawn breath-taking; otherwise the aspect of the Bergen auditory answers closely enough to one spell-bound by a Robert Hall or a Chalmers. Dr. Gregory tells us of the former, that from the beginning of his discourse "an almost breathless silence prevailed," deeply solemnizing from its singular intenseness. Not a sound was heard but that of the preacher's voice. As he became UNDER THE SPELL From harmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran, more animated, a few listeners here and there would be seer 66 ment. 5 to rise from their seats, and stand gazing fixedly upon himevery eye directed to the preacher, yet now and then for a moment glancing from one to the other, thus transmitting and reciprocating thought and feeling." Professor Fraser's description of Chalmers at the Tron Church is quite a parallel passage. Of the doctor's face, from which "intense emotion beamed,” he says what John Foster said of Robert Hall's, that it was "lighted up almost into a glare.” The congregation, he says, were leaning forward in the pews, like a forest bending under the power of the hurricane-looking intently at the preacher, and listening in breathless wonder"One young man, apparently a sailor, who sat in a pew before me, started to his feet, and stood till it was over. So soon as it was concluded, there was (as invariably was the case at the close of the doctor's bursts) a deep sigh, or rather gasp for breath, accompanied by a movement throughout the whole audience." Such a movement as the Chronicler of Carlingford has in mind, in the sentence,-"his audience paused with him, taking breath with the orator in a slight universal rustle, which is the most genuine applause."—Not the least graphic of the many describers of Savonarola as a preacher, speaks of his voice rising in impassioned force up to a certain point, when he became suddenly silent, let his hands fall, and clasped them quietly before him: the silence of the preacher, however, “instead of being the signal for small movements amongst his audience," seemed to be as strong a spell to them as his voice. Through the vast area of the cathedral men and women sat with faces upturned, like breathing statues, till the voice was heard again in clear low tones." Compare Madame de Sévigné's description of 66 6 MUSIC IMMORTAL. Coeval with the heavens, its destiny is not, like them, to wax old, for that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away. And of music it may be said that it abideth and is eternal in the heavens; for St. John the Divine recognized its divine destiny, when he heard a voice from heaven as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder; and heard the voice of harpers, harping with their harps, and singing a new song before the throne. Music is thus identified, or at least inseparably associated, in holy writ, with the first records of creation, and with the last apocalypse of redemption and glory. It was in the beginning, and it ever shall be. In one sense of the word time, music without time, is a thing of nought; but in another, music shall live on when time shall be no more. The music of the spheres may be a poetical licence only. But what though in solemn silence all move round (old style of cosmogony, and in Addison's verse) this dark terrestrial ball; what though no real voice or sound amid their radiant orbs be found? N'importe: Father Bourdalòue's funeral sermon (in 1687) for M. le Prince, when "l'auditoire paraissait pendu et suspendu à tout ce qu'il disait, d'une telle sorte qu'on ne respirait pas." (Au Comte Bussy, 25. avril, 1687.) MUSIC OF THE SPHERES. 7 "In reason's ear they all rejoice, And utter forth a glorious voice; 'The hand that made us is divine.'” To the ear, and in the judgment, of Sir Thomas Browne, there is music wherever there is harmony, order, or proportion; and thus far we may, he affirms, maintain the music of the spheres: "for those well-ordered motions, and regular paces, though they give no sound to the ear, yet to the understanding they strike a note most full of harmony." Wherefore the poet, of imagination all compact, will love to mark by moonlight with Lorenzo at Belmont how the floor of heaven is thick inlaid with patins of bright gold, and to persuade himself that not the smallest orb his upward gaze takes in, "But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim ; Pythagoras was enabled, on the showing of Iamblichus, ἀῤῥήτῳ τινὶ καὶ δυσεπινοήτῳ θειότητι χρώμενος, by an effort (as Daniel Dove renders it) of ineffable and hardly conceivable divinity, to retire into the depths of his own being, and there listen to that heavenly harmony of the spheres which to him alone |