126 AIRS FOR CHURCH MUSIC. Prince of Peace!' could hardly be done justice to till the lips of angels and archangels had shouted them through the vast Profound in his tremendous salvos of sound: and yet that, though the power of such passages might be magnified by heaven's millions, their beauty could hardly be exalted.” The poetry of prose like this is of a higher strain, and pays Handel deeper homage than does the prosiness of poetry like Shenstone's "When Handel's solemn accents roll, Each breast is fixed, each raptured soul But the oratorio has led us too far away from church music, more properly so-called. What sort of airs should be sung in church, is a very practical question; yet too often an impracticable one. It was among the cherished tenets of Kavanagh that sacred melodies were becoming to sacred themes; he did not wish that in his church, as in some of the French Canadian churches, the holy profession of religion should be sung to the air of "When one is dead, 'tis for a long time," the commandments, aspirations heavenward, and the necessity of thinking of one's salvation, to "The Frolics of Spain," "Louisa was sleeping in a grove," or a grand "March of the French Cavalry." Well known as any jest perhaps in the copious collection PUTATIVE FATHERHOOD OF JESTS. 127 ascribed to Joseph Miller, is the mot fathered on Rowland Hill, by way of plea for the appropriation to hymnal purposes of secular airs, that 'twas a shame the devil should have all the pretty tunes. The venerable sometime pastor of Surrey Chapel might be another Joseph Miller, to judge by the paternity recklessly imputed to him of jests of all sorts and sizes, with quite unlimited liability. Facetia that were already withered, stale, flat, and unprofitable before he was born, have been freely fathered upon him now he is dead. As though upon the good man's tombstone the permit, or special licence, had been engraved, Rubbish may be shot here. Talleyrand and Sheridan divide honours with him in this respect, there being between all three a pretty equal division made of these jocular assets. George Selwyn, in his time, was recognized by the voice of his contemporaries as ReceiverGeneral of Waif and Stray Jokes-a sufficient proof, remarks a later wit, that he had plenty of his own; for as D'Alembert sarcastically observed to the Abbé Voisenon, who complained that he was unduly charged with the absurd sayings of others" Monsieur l'Abbé, on riches." Johnson, in his Life of Waller, after repeating a mot ascribed to him, speaks to having once heard it of some other man, and adds: "Pointed axioms and acute replies fly loose about ne prête qu'aux 128 UNLIMITED LIABILITY. the world, and are assigned successively to those whom it may be the fashion to celebrate." SainteBeuve writes of the bishop-count of Noyon, Clermont-Tonnerre, that "selon l'usage du monde envers ces réputations riches, une fois faites et adoptées, on lui prêtait quantité de mots." Judge Haliburton's Senator professes to be not very fond of telling stories himself, for though one may know them to be original, still they may not be new; so certain is he that the same thing has often been said in different ages, and by people in different countries, who were not aware that a similar idea had occurred to and been expressed by others.* * “I have heard repartees and smart sayings related here [in England], as having been uttered by well-known wits, that I have myself heard in America, and often long before they were perpetrated here. If you relate a story of that kind, you are met by the observation, 'Oh, that was said by Sydney Smith, or Theodore Hook, or some other wit of the day." -The Season Ticket, chap. ii. A reviewer of Mr. Timbs' Lives of Wits and Humorists pointed out at the time that the very same story was told by him, almost in the same words, of Foote and Sheridan : the adjuncts were certainly different, and were very circumstantial, as in most of these verbal facetiæ; but the joke was precisely the same. George Peele's memory is truly said to have suffered considerably by the Merry Conceited Fests that go under his name; his innocence of many of the scurrilous jests imputed to him being probable enough. "It was an easy step,” says VIII. Trumpet Tones. Exod. xix. 16, sq.; Judges vii. 18, sq.; 1 Cor. xv. 52. HE trumpet is second to no other musical THE instrument as regards prominent mention in holy writ. The voice of the trumpet exceeding loud, was among the causes that made all the people in the camp tremble, when the mount burned with fire. And it was after the voice of the trumpet one of his critics, to saddle “George,” on the credit of some real peccadilloes, as well as witticisms, of the Sheridan sort, with many imaginary ones. Many of the apophthegms ascribed to Publius Syrus are thought to be probably due to others; yet, as Lord Lytton observes, the very imputation to him of sayings so exquisite, attests his rank as the sayer of exquisite things. Mr. Theodore Martin tells us that the reputation of Professor Aytoun, as a motive power in Blackwood, absorbed by its powerful attraction all fragments of matter similar to his own which entered the common system. We find Lord Chesterfield writing to Sir Thomas Robinson, in 1757, that "people have long thrown out their wit and 130 TRUMPET TONES. had sounded long, waxing louder and louder, that Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice. Gideon's stratagem against the host of Midian comprised a special use of the trumpet by each man of his three hundred; all, in unison, were to blow their trumpets, at the appointed signal, and to cry, "The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon!" And the expedient was a triumph. The prophet is bidden cry aloud, spare not, "lift up thy voice like a trumpet." Homer can offer no simile so effective as that of the trumpet to indicate the vibrant, ringing, clangorous, resonant accents of the voice of Achilles : humour under my name, by way of trial: if it takes, the true father owns his child; if it does not, the foundling is mine." So Butler words it, in one of his metrical satires : 'The world is full of curious wit Which those, that father, never writ," etc. So again Hudibras in his epistle to Sidrophel, remarking, " 'That all those stories that are laid Too truly to you, and those made, Are now still charged upon your score, And lesser authors named no more." Fra Rupert, in Landor's dramatic trilogy, exclaims, "And this too will be laid upon my shoulders. If men are witty, all the wit of others Bespangles them.” To apply the reflection of Shakspeare's cloistered, philosophic duke : thousand 'scapes of wit Make thee the father of their idle dream." |