purity, and so strikingly introduced, that it | fluence the handicraft, so musical instruments does not need an acute ear to distinguish at in their turn react on the character of music, once by its guidance an Irish melody from and impart to it a distinctive character, leadevery other. ing even to considerable modifications in its In the Scotch music we must particu- general features, and thus form an importlarize two very different kinds, the real ant agency in the whole development of the Highland tunes, and what we should call art. We have only to remind our readers the Scoto-Irish melodies on account of their of the connexion between the grand Erard close resemblance to the Irish airs, which is pianos of seven octaves and the new pianooften so great that many of them are forte schools. We need scarcely ask, could claimed by both nations. There was fre- the one exist without the other? We can quent intercourse between the Irish and thus trace the action of musical instruments Scotch bards, in which the former, as the in the national music of all countries, and in most cultivated, obtained the upper hand, most instances we can discern in the characand modified the original character of Scotch |ter of the music, the nature of the instru music. In the Highlands only, where their ment which serves to express it. In every influence never penetrated, it remained pure. Spanish air we hear the sighing of the manNotwithstanding this amount of Irish influ- dolin or the clinking of the castanet, in the ence, we can easily distinguish Scotch from Venetian we have the dreamy sound of the Irish tunes; a peculiarity in the rhythmus guitar, in the Swiss the echo of the bugle,— marks the difference. Thus in the most and who could mistake in Scotch music the pathetic of Scotch tunes the playful change drone of that old worthy the bagpipe? It and inversion of the original Celtic rhythmus, seems growling at the follies of the small an essential and exclusive Scotch conven- reeds, while it accompanies their mad leaps tionality, is occasionally introduced. This with its uniform and benignant hum, and is never to be found in Irish airs, as they largely contributes to the humorous effect preserve the pure Celtic Trochee throughout, by the contrast it presents to the quick without the slightest alteration. high notes of Scotch tunes. To the bagpipe The most striking examples of this play- we must attribute in a great measure the ful Scotch rhythmus occurs in the unques- predominancy in the Scotch music of fifths tionably Highland pibrochs and strathspeys, and thirds, besides the emphatic sixth and these are the real representatives of major. genuine Scotch music, which may be said The third and last pure branch of Celtic to ring with wild laughter, admirably em- music is the Welsh. Although of a kinbodying the merry-heartedness of the Celtic dred if not the same origin as the Irish and character. The alterations and inversions Scotch, its connexion with them must have in the rhythmus go so far as to produce a been early severed, for it has assumed a new rhythmus, a union of the Antispastus distinct character. We learn from Hanof the ancients |--| alternately mer's Chronicle, (p. 197,) that in the latter with the Choriambus :--:. This end of the eleventh century, Griffith ap rhythmus is enhanced by the abrupt close Conaw, Prince of Wales, who had resided of most Highland tunes with the fifth, de-a long time in Ireland, brought over with luding, as it were, even at the last moment, him into Wales "divers cunning musicians, the ear, which is waiting for the key-note as who devised in manner all the instrumental a rest from that shrewd playfulness that has music upon the harp and crowth that is harassed it through the whole tune. These there used, and made laws of minstrelsy tunes, full of exuberant joyous spirit and to retain the musicians in due order." Notwild enthusiasm, would almost look like a withstanding this importation the diversity satire, when charged upon our sober, cau- between the Welsh and the other branches tious, and calculating northerns, were we not of the Celtic music remained. often reminded by many a half humorous, half self-constrained look, that the spark of Celtic wit still lurks beneath the serious and shrewd faces of the Scotch people. In Scotch music we observe, perhaps more conspicuously than in any other music, the influence of the musical instrument on the music itself. Musical instruments are to music what tools are to a handicraft employment. They are invented and perfected according to the development of music; but as the tools in It is true many Welsh tunes possess to a certain degree the two characteristic marks of the pure Celtic music, the emphatic sixth major and the trochee in their rhythmus, but these particularities do not form the distinc tive feature. Another peculiarity essentially Celtic is also retained, and much more prominently than in the Irish and Scotch music, although they preserve it to a certain degree, namely, the frequent and successive repetition of the same note, and this principally at the fall of the rhythmus. This is dividual men. Christianity first taught and established the worth of man as man, making the slave equal to the king in the eye of God. This great truth failed to become a reality in the corrupted and prejudiced Roman world, and the strong individuality of the Teutonic warriors was requisite to that it might bring forth fruit and be propagated through the world by a vigorous stock. The idea of individuality thus be came the keystone of Christian civilisation, and all the institutions, languages, sciences and arts of modern European nations, have grown up and flourished upon this principle. a characteristic which Welsh music has in forests a grand and new idea, the idea of common with many French airs. Without individuality. The classic world acknowentering into dispute about the origin of old ledged only Greeks and Romans, but no inBritons and their connexion with the Gauls, we may point out this singular fact as indicating national music to be one of the keys which will help to open those long hidden but not lost records of bygone races, that lie buried as secretly if not as deeply as those fossil remains from which the genius of Cuvier and Owen have re-constructed an ex- receive the graft of this ennobling principle, tinct world of animal life. In Welsh music we perceive the character of that hard struggle which the old Britons sustained for centuries, first against the Romans, and then against the Anglo-Saxon race; and we have only to listen to one of their many spirited and warlike tunes, to understand the policy, or as some may call it, cruelty, of Edward I. Its effect is also observable in the music after the conquest of Wales, when he raged of these nations, according as they were more against the Welsh bards than against more or less influenced by the new element. the Welsh chieftains. He very well knew It imparted to their national airs some comthat those inspired martial sounds were more calculated to stir up the energy of a patriotic people than all the prosaic commands of a chieftain This military spirit has imbued Welsh music with its energetic character, and speaks, louder than a thousand tongues, of those brave deeds and that burning patriotism which awed even Cæsar's invincible legions, and which only fell after a stern death-struggle, before the expansive force of a more powerful race. mon features which, though strangely mixed up and variously developed, nevertheless connect the music of all by one common chord of relationship. To this fraternity belong not only the pure Teutonic nations, as the Scandinavians and Upper and Lower Germans, but also those nations which trace their origin to the mixture of the Teutonic with the Roman and the Celtic races, namely, the English, French, Italian, and likewise the Portuguese and Spanish. As Welsh nationality yielded to the su- The most distinctive feature in the national perior spirit of the conquering race, so too music of the Teutonic family are, what we did Welsh music, and although, as we may call the Iambic rhythmus, because its have observed, the prominent Celtic charac- prominent feature is the Iambus : -1, ter is distinctly visible, many of their tunes and the full tonic accord at the concluding now exhibit strong touches of a foreign hand cadence; the first giving to this music a bold and mind; this influence is chiefly observ- energy indicating the enterprising spirit of able in the occurrence of the seventh at the the Teutonic race, while the second imparts concluding cadence, one of the prominent to it a fulness of expression and harmony, features of Teutonic music, and which is corresponding with the comprehensive and never found in pure Irish or Scotch airs. idealistic nature of the people, making Another and very extensive family of their music adequate to their highest aspiranational music, which, with less or more tions. of purity, has spread over the whole western half of Europe, is the Teutonic. The origin of this music dates from the formation of the new languages and the introduction of rhymed verse, that is to say, about the tenth and eleventh centuries. The invasion of the Germanic tribes in the beginning of our era originated new nations and languages, and the new lan- The bold individual character of the northguages led to a new music. The northern ern warriors, with its consequence, a noble warriors, like the Celtic chieftains, had their feeling of honour, combined with their adbards, who first in the battle-field them- miration and esteem for the fair sex, and selves, immortalized their gallant country- their religious zeal, created that sublimest men in songs of praise, but where can of all mediæval institutions- chivalry, now the faintest sound of their voice be which, like a sacred talisman, guarded the traced? It was so mingled with the first world from debasement in the mighty concries of the new-born infant nations of the vulsions which followed the great emigrawest, that we can nowhere distinguish the tions, and during the lawless state of feumost distant echo of their warlike appeals. dalism. Chivalry found its interpreter in The invaders imported from their northern minstrelsy. Both became the common pro perty of all western Christian nations, and Pyrenees only re-echoed the voice of the established a kind of solidarity among them, Troubadours, obstructing its entry into the which counterbalanced in some measure the strong tendency of the Teutonic races to isolation. In the specimens of early minstrelsy we can trace, as in a common source, the national music of all nations belonging to or influenced by, the Teutonic element. heart of the people beyond them. From the earliest period in history, the Italian and Spanish Peninsulas have been the abode of a number of small fragments of different races, which Roman power and civilisation united under one rule. When this power fell, the assimilated but not amalgamated particles, split again and pursued their former separate courses, as can be still traced in the numerous provincial differences existing in both Peninsulas, which have hitherto defied all attempts to create a strong national union. The old Gallia Narbonensis, that romantic land of the laurel and the vine, which, washed on one side by the placid waves of the Mediterranean, forms almost a triangle on the lines where the three branches of the so-called Romanic races, the French, Italian, and Spanish meet, soon captivated and tamed the northern barbarians who had in- There is, however, one feature in which vaded and subdued it, so that while the war they all participate, and that is the Southern of races continued to rage in other parts of blood and nature. The infusion of the GerEurope, the mild sun of Providence had man element produced no lasting effect, it already quickened the exotic seed, which, soon yielded beneath a soft and enervating mingling with the fruitful elements of the sky, and adapting itself to the new soil, lost adopted soil, brought forth luxuriant flowers its vital energy without imparting much of -the sweet lays of the Troubadour-as its tone or temper to the national character, harbingers announcing to the world a new the language, or music of the Southern spring of civilisation. The Provençal Troubadours and their songs soon spread over the west of Europe, in the same way as, five centuries later, the French language, French manners, and French sciences and arts became the lawgivers of European society. But their reign lasted scarcely more neutralised-principally by the introduction than a century. The new nations soon be- of triplets in the air as well as in the acgan to develop themselves and their lan- companiment. Thus a sort of soft and lullguages; each followed its respective ten- ing melody and measure has been created dency, and created its own national music. more in harmony with the delightful indoThe French continued the disciples and lence and fanciful repose to which those successors of the Troubadours, and so faith-lands of the sun, of poetry, and luxuriant fully, that many of the earliest Troubadour nature irresistibly invite. races. We therefore see little evidence of the effects of the energetic Teutonic rhythmus remaining in Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish airs. Too strong and too harsh for the indolent and delicate ear of a Southern people, the Teutonic rhythmus has been strain, this music inserts before the fall of the rhythmus, a note, either the next lowest semitone, or the next highest full tone,-or in some cases repeats the note on which the rhythmus falls. Thus the want of energy in the rhythmus appears to be seeking a compensation in the greater acuteness of harmony. This is a characteristic common to the music of all the nations south of the Alps and the Pyrenees, but it is chiefly conspicuous in the Portuguese and Italian, with the exception of the Venetian. songs would serve at the present day, with As if to counteract by some stimulus very little alteration, as airs de Vaudeville, the effect on the ear of so enervating a while any of the latter, written on smoky parchment, would equally well represent the tender effusions of the enamoured Troubadours. French airs, like Troubadour songs, are a mixture of boldness, almost temerity, with tenderness and gallantry,- behind which the merry Celtic nature lurks, communicating to their most tender strains an air of delicate mockery and refined elegance, in conformity with French nature and taste. This effect is considerably heightened by the light and graceful rhythmus of the French songs, in which, as in those of the Provençal Troubadours, the Iambus has been transformed into the Anapæstus | uu-:1. Venice, the poetical city of the Lagunes, half oriental in its history, commercial greatness, customs, and architecture, has the More remotely allied to the Troubadour same Eastern influence floating on its strains songs, stand the national airs of the other of music. This is the secret of the charm Romanic nations,-the Italians, Portuguese, which Venice possesses for our imagination. and Spaniards. It would seem as if moun- We feel the two contrasting elements, East tains formed the natural boundaries of and West, blending in a harmonious and nations, which even the airy sounds of mu- beautiful union. Spain affords us a similar sic cannot overpass. Thus the Alps and instance. Vain were all the purifying Auto da-fés of the Holy Inquisition; vain the fore requires renewal by the infusion of copious blood-shedding of the zealous Her- foreign blood. The most striking result of mandad. The Moorish blood has not yet the mixtures, represented by the modern been eradicated from the Spanish nature, it Anglo-Saxon race, is, that the old Teutonic still imparts a darker hue to the purest element has absorbed and incorporated the blue-blooded Hidalgo, a sunnier glow to the others, without losing anything of its primeAndalusian beauty, and a softer monotone val vitality. Nay, on the contrary, the to her songs and the liquid tinkle of her contact and struggle with them has only de guitar. veloped in a higher degree and much more Both the Venetian and Spanish music prominently its original nature. Thus, in show traces of Arab influence, but in the the national character of the English, we first it is only like a dim dream of past see that energy and love of freedom of the events, which manifests itself by the fre- old Teutonic tribes preserved in its greatest quent repetition of single notes as well as purity; in the English language, we find of whole melodies—an essential feature in the most primitive Northern simplicity of Arab music. Whereas, Spanish airs are construction; and in the English airs we often so Moorish in rhythmus, harmony, hear the strongest accentuation of the Teuand accompaniment, that we can hear in tonic rhythmus. They contain few if any them tones almost like the melancholy call traces of the influence of foreign taste, to of the Muezzin, or the monotonous recital which they have been incessantly exposed, of the Koran. Spanish swords have indeed conquered the Moors, but Moorish blood and genius still reign over the Spaniards. and neither the wailing, grief, and boisterous merriment of the Celts, nor the monotonous tenderness of the Troubadours, have adulte The music of all Romanic nations, like rated their character. The true English their languages, exhibits the influence of the tunes-of which "The Jolly Miller " and various elements that have been at work in "Old King Cole," are among the most its production, and it would require a sepa- striking examples-are full of daring, inde rate article to trace and sift the action of pendent, and buoyant spirit, presenting the these influences, in the different branches of living expression of that hardy Anglo-Saxon the Romanic race, and in their minor pro- race, which shuns no difficulty and cares for vincial subdivisions. We have therefore no danger, while the minor key in which restricted ourselves to the delineation of the airs are invariably written, forms with some of those generic features, which give the boldness of the rhythmus a contrast so the predominant character to the music of humorous, that the truth of the epithet, this class of nations, and we hasten to speak" Merry Old England," strikes at once in of those people in whose national music the all its force. full tonic accord, and the Iambus in the The greatest part of these tunes date rhythmus, the two great characteristics of from the reign of the Tudors, when, after Western, or as we called it, Teutonic Music, not only exist as main features, but where they are found pure and unbiassed by any foreign element. We refer to the music of the English and German people. the bloody wars which had distracted the country, the nation found itself again united, and put forth all its energy in the feeling of nationality, which Henry VIII. and Eliza beth knew how to guide and satisfy, by asIt has been often observed as one of the signing to England a prominent rank among remarkable phenomena in the life of modern the powers of Europe, thus directing the nations, that the Anglo-Saxon race has at- attention of the people from their own en tained to the most prominent position croachments at home. The puritanic psalmamong the people of the earth, and that, odies put an end for a while to these humor like the Greeks of old, it is carrying its ous strains, but with the Restoration the civilisation to the remotest parts of the latter revived, and, provided with suitable world, whereas the ancient stock whence it words, formed a weapon not at all despicable, sprung still vegetates rather than lives in its when wielded, as they were, with equal skill old home, shewing no signs of a similar by Cavaliers and Whigs, during the skirenergy. Without forgetting the influence mishes of the two parties which ended in of various other circumstances, among the Revolution of 1688. They are now which climate and geographical position are again lost among the humming of the cottonnot the least, we would suggest as a chief spindles, the whirr of the woollen shuttles, cause, that mixture of different national and the noisy monster concerts of Monsieur elements, which, in fact, constitutes the Jullien. A fiddler here and there alone Anglo-Saxon character. It seems to be a dares to resist the modernizing current, and natural law, that a race of men as well as to play some of these animating and hearty animals, after a time degenerates, and there-strains at a country fair, where the songs of their forefathers are drunk in with untiring | which we can test the national life of a peodelight by the Saxon herdman and me-ple or race. If developed, we may hear in chanic. it the first inarticulate sounds of awakening The cosmopolite nature of the Germans consciousness, and trace in the monotony of speaks out loudly in the character of their its strains the depressing fetters of habit, music. In it rhythmus, the most important which still constitute the supreme law of and distinguishing feature in national music, the nation; and whatever be the stage the loses its pre-eminence, and becomes altogeth- community has attained to in material proer secondary. Only in the "Iodlers" and gress, it cannot in such circumstances be "Ländlers" of the Tyrolese, Austrian, and said to possess nationality, for consciousness Swiss mountaineers, is the original Teutonic of unity will be absent. On the other hand, iambic still maintained in its utmost purity, national airs, with a strongly marked and and by its simplicity and regularity contin- regularly introduced rhythmus, are the sign ues to impart to these melodies a lovely of fully developed national energy. They pastoral expression, in unison with the embody the special character and express primitive condition and peaceful existence the genuine tendencies of the nation to of these people. In all other German music which they belong. They bear the marks the rhythmus has been so subordinated to of all its changes for weal and wo. They harmony that every kind of rhythmus is are the faithful interpreters of the destiny met with, no kind being prominent. Ger- of a nation from its birth to its grave. They man music, therefore, cannot now be termed continue to resound even after its death, and national; as such it has ceased to exist, for are the apotheosis of a departed race. it is no longer the expression of the life of an individual people; it lost its distinctive character when it expanded itself to embrace the ideas and aspirations of the surround 2. au Baccalauréatès Lettres. Par Emile Lefranc. Vingt Sixième édition. Année Scolaire, 1852-1853. Programme des Cours de la Faculté de ing nations. But this must not be regarded as ART. IV.-1. Nouveau Manuel des Aspirants a retrograde step,-rather as one of progress; for, as we have said, the development of music advances as it emancipates itself from rhythmus, thereby increasing the freedom and force of its harmony. It is only when the national rhythmus is sacrificed to harmony that music can acquire that comprehensive freedom necessary to express the whole range of human feeling, and not the particular character and emotions of one nation only. 3. Droit de Paris. 7ième Novembre 1853. 4. Prospetto degli Studii dell' Imperiale Re- 5. 6. Lunario Pisano. 1853. Circular of the Graduates' Committee of the University of London. 6th September 1853. German and Italian music have attained this degree of development. The first, an emanation of the idealistic and transcendental North, soars eagle-like loftily to the skies, following the highest aspirations of the human breast; the second, a child of POLITICAL power may be claimed for a the sunny South, speaks the glowing lan learned class as such, apart from and in adguage of passion, and re-echoes, with har-dition to that which, on the ground of wealth monious voice, all those fervid emotions or otherwise, would accrue to it through its which form alike the delight and misery of individual members, either by that class on our existence. While other nations follow its own behalf, or by the community in their appointed course by influencing the name of the common interest. From whichmaterial welfare and the social institutions ever side the claim or the proposal may of the modern world, the Germans and come, the ground on which it rests will be Italians have revived and fructified by their the same, namely, the peculiar social posigenius the scientific and artistic sphere, and tion and functions of the class in whose have immortalized by numberless produc favour it is put forth. If it emanates from tions of the mind the civilisation of the the learned themselves, or the Universities This power of expressing the ideas as their representatives, it will be to this. and tendencies of a whole epoch in monu-effect. Citizen duties being, in every case, ments of art and philosophy is their com- not the ground only, but the measure, of pensation for what they have lost of their citizen rights, it follows that the latter national life. emerge to the class, and to the individual in National music is, then, a touchtone by direct proportion to the extent to which the |