whatever was most excellent in art as well as artificial, that can only redound to their disgrace. Ere that furor had fully expended itself (which it cannot be said to have done till after the restoration of Charles the Second), our sublime cathedrals, with many scarcely inferior ecclesiastical edifices, had been turned into store-houses and stables; their tombs despoiled of their brasses and other ornaments; their stained windows dashed into fragments, and their harmonious praises of GOD silenced. In the particular of devotional music, the reforming rage took two special directions; first, against the employment of any kind of instrument; secondly, against the use of the voice in any artistic manner. In both respects it is easy to exhibit the inconsistency of Puritanism with its professed principles. It professed to take the Bible for a universal standard and guide; and in all that it altered, abolished, broke, or destroyed, to be actuated by hostility alone to what was Romish. Did it then overlook the numerous examples of instrumental worship furnished by the Scriptures?.. Did not David direct the use of musical instruments in great number and variety in the temple worship? And the chants, the choruses, the solos, the part-singing, condemned by our Reformers for their supposed derivation from Rome-they were all of Hebrew, or early Christian origin. There are those among the modern Jews even who assert that the chant, or recitative, now used in their synagogues, is of equal antiquity with their law; no trifling exaggeration we may grant; but it strongly supports the idea that the chants of the Christian Church of antiquity had been originally Jewish. That solos, not less than grand choruses, entered into the temple ritual is plain from the fact, that several of the psalms bave an address to some particular singer, with instructions both as to the melody to be chosen by him, and the instrument by which it was to be accompanied. Socrates, the ecclesiastical historian, derives the custom of singing from side to side, as yet practised in our [?] cathedrals, from [St.] Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, in the apostolic times. Philo Judæus, describing the nightly meetings for worship of the sect of the Essenes (who, there can be little doubt, were Christians), interestingly depicts their selection for musical purposes, of a choir of men, and another of women, with a skilled conductor, of majestic air, to preside over each; adding, that they chanted GOD's praises in a variety of measures, now singing altogether, and then alternately answering each other. Eusebius confirms the account that the first Christian choir was established at Antioch. We have already perceived the more than probability that the music of all the early Christian churches had a Hebrew original. And as the Ambrosian melodies, so named from [St.] Ambrose, who introduced them at Milan, in the fourth century, were by him obtained from Antioch; as the performance of these, after the Ambrosian model (that is by canons and chanters) is, on good grounds, believed to have prevailed for at least two centuries from the death of [St.] Ambrose ; as, moreover, the Gregorian music of the seventh century, which still keeps its high reputation retained, we can hardly question, the major part of these melodies, and was professedly founded upon such as had received the sanction of the earliest

Christian fathers; we have a chain of reasonable evidence that the very music and the very modes of its performance which the Reformers banished from their religious assemblies, from the presumption that they were mere [Roman] Catholic inventions, had, in reality, been handed down to the reforming age from that of the primitive Christians; and had been, in a measure, adopted by the primitive Christians from the services of that Temple, with whose erection and whose worship all ages will veneratingly connect the names of David and Solomon."-p. 14-17.

We have been copious in our extracts, not because they contain anything new or original, but because they embody information not generally known, and are given in a spirit in great measure free from sectarian bias.

LEGAL SKETCHES. No. I.

JOINING CIRCUIT.

UNWONTED stir and bustle appear to have invaded the usually dull and dingy chambers of Octavius Harvey Tresham, Esq. Barrister-atLaw, situate on the third floor of No. 5, Elm-court, Temple. The barber's boy is, with singular ingenuity, compressing the cork-screw curls of a forensic wig into a highly-varnished tin circular box, resplendent with its owner's name, style, and dignity, graven upon it in small golden capitals. A law bookseller's juvenile shopman is just bringing in the very latest edition of "Archbold's Queen's Bench Practice," done up for the occasion in limp wrappers of red leather, technically denominated "circuit covers." A laundress is busily arranging in rows, ready for packing, a goodly store of clean shirts and well-starched white cravats, the exceeding whiteness and cleanness of the linen presenting a most remarkable contrast with the amazing blackness of finger, and filth of habiliment that distinguish that eminent female functionary. A duodecimo edition of human nature, in the shape of a very active, meagre boy, with a sallow face and cunning eye, dressed in an ink-stained pair of corduroy trousers, and blue swallow-tailed jacket, is flitting about from room to room, looking as

if busily engaged upon matters of high import, in reality doing nothing whatever, but ready, in his honourable capacity of clerk to a gentleman lately dubbed "learned in the law," to start off at any moment, and in any direction, upon the multiform errands to which the dignity of his position still leaves him liable.

Mr. Tresham himself is employed in selecting from the yet partially filled shelves of his law library such manuals of useful reference as a fond credulity assures him may become needful in the course of his approaching travels; and having crammed into a blue stuff bag, greatly to the detriment of the "robe," which reposes at the bottom of it, such lively and portable tomes as Selwyn's Law of Nisi Prius," "Russell on Crimes and Misdemeanors," and a volume or two of digested common law reports, gravely deliberates with himself whether those books form stock-in-trade sufficient to start with upon the grand professional venture of a first circuit. The question is not of a nature to be decided in a moment: a thoughtful and provident young man is that Mr. Octavius Harvey Tresham,-a great legal authority already in the estimation of his own most immediate relatives,—and the bare notion of being overtaken by a brief at a disadvantage, and without all the implements of erudition at hand, suggests to his mind a situation of painful perplexity better far load an additional portmanteau exclusively with "law calf," than run the obvious risk of being so surprised.

In the midst of his grave cogitations on the subject, enters the friend with whom an agreement has been made to share the expense of lodgings at the Assize town, and whose previous experience of three or four circuits renders him, in Mr. Tresham's eyes, a person upon whose judgment and sagacity, much reliance may justly be placed. The friend eyes the travelling store of law books with a very peculiar expression of countenance, that would puzzle Lavater himself, so made up is it of slyness, and irony, and mirthfulness, and a sort of contemptuous commiseration: but he contents himself with asking, in an offhand manner, whether Tresham thinks he will have occasion for all those volumes? Our hero, not perhaps perfectly satisfied with the tone of the enquirer, and nature of the enquiry, and yet not precisely aware why they should annoy him, makes some ambiguous answer, and changes the subject, internally resolving, at the same time, to make no further additions to the stock of learning already stowed away for the journey.

The preliminaries of departure are arranged: the Gravesend steamer starts at two o'clock. Steam, by land or water, is consistent with the

etiquette of the bar-stage carriages, drawn by horses, and not by locomotives, being the machines especially proscribed in the code of circuit ceremonial. It is yet only twelve, and there is just time for a stroll westward; so the rest of the packing is hastily concluded, and minute instructions having been given to the sallow little clerk to transport himself and the luggage, in a cab, to London Bridge wharf, there to await the coming of his master.

Mr. Tresham and his friend saunter forth, arm-in-arm, and are soon confounded in the busy tide of man that unceasingly flows along the Strand. A quarter-of-an-hour at the club (should they be members of one), and a leisurely exhibition of themselves in Regent-street, beguile the intervening two hours. Meanwhile, the youthful factotum left in charge of Mr. Tresham's chambers, relaxes from the air of forced gravity, which he habitually assumes in the presence of that gentleman, and enters into a jocular conversation with the laundress; between whom and himself an amicable understanding of some sort very plainly exists. Considering the tender years of the juvenile, it is really astonishing to mark how familiarly he interlards his mode of address with the oaths and slang of older men, and how intimate a knowledge of human nature he seems to have already acquired,—so far, at least, as regards its grosser vices. After a lengthened and lively dialogue, the old crone and her youthful pupil proceed to institute a pretty searching investigation of every drawer left open, of every stray paper, and every cupboard suspected of harbouring perishable and yet unconsumed eatables. By way of experimental pleasantry, the wig, so carefully deposited in its tin case but half-an-hour before, by the experienced hands of the hairdresser's foreman, is now taken out of the box to be tried on by Mr. Tresham's precocious urchin page, and subsequently huddled back into its repository with no great regard paid this time to the preservation of its horse-hair curls in their normal state of stiffened symmetry. The hour of rendezvous being nearly at hand, and Mr. Tresham's luggage fairly deposited into a "patent safety," the last official act of the clerk, so called, is to slam to the ponderous outside door of his master's chambers, affixing, close to the post-office-like looking fissure, that gapes from its black oaken frontal, the following notice: "MR. TRESHAM on Circuit.

Clerk attends from 10 A.M. till 4 P.M."

With respect to the latter part of the notification, it is perhaps fortu

nate that not many persons, saving a few stray duns and mendicants, are likely to verify its accuracy.

The scene changes to that busy spot where porters' and cabmen's vociferations unceasingly blend with the hissings and puffings of steam, where one set of passengers are eternally landing, and another embarking, and both sets everlastingly jostling each other, yclept London Bridge Wharf. Mr. Tresham and his friend have just walked into the yard, and their inquiring glances speedily detect the brace of urchins to whom the charge of their baggage has been entrusted. Brought together by community of purpose and occupation, those two young gentlemen are respectively seated on a couple of carpet bags in a state of patient expectancy, and appear much absorbed, the one in listening to, the other in reading aloud, extracts from an old "Satirist newspaper." the sound of their masters' voice, both instinctively and simultaneously start up, and with some assistance from the numerous hangers-on of such resorts, ever ready to earn or claim a sixpence, portmanteaus, bags, hat boxes, wig boxes, dressing cases, and great coats, are speedily shipped on board the Topaz Gravesend steam packet, the packages of Octavius Harvey Tresham, Esq., being exactly double in number and bulk with those of his friend and travelling companion.

At

The clerks have taken a parting look at their masters, and exulting in the notion of the latter being now fairly afloat, are scampering off together to attend the rehearsal of a pathetic melodrama which is to come out that very night at an unlicensed theatre in the Waterloo Road, and in which they are to appear themselves in the part of wood demons.

The bell has ceased ringing, the Topaz is edging away from the wharf into the middle of the "pool;" a stagnant name to confer upon a great river, of which the alternate tide and stream run at the rate of five or six knots an hour: such however is the Cockney nomenclature of mighty Thames in his progress through Rotherhithe and Wapping; and Mr. Tresham is elbowing his way among the motley herd that occupy the long deck of a Gravesend steamer.

Among the passengers a number of barristers are observable, bent upon a destination and purpose similar to his own. It is easy to distinguish them from the rest of the company, by a certain self-assurance in their deportment as they pace up and down, or collect in groups of three or four, canvassing the occurrences of the day, or prospects of the circuit. Two or three seniors are on board, not so much in age, as in standing and reputation at the bar, and all that falls from them is, of