seek the holy shrines, it is his interest to yield them every reasonable facility in crossing his dominions, that he may induce some of the many thousands who pour towards the sacred territories by the ways of Courdistan to pass through the pashalick of Bagdad. Indeed, his treasury is greatly augmented, and his capital enriched, by the vast sums of money expended annually by these wandering bands under the walls of his city.'

We regret that we cannot linger with the traveller amid the ruins of Kesra-Shirene, nor abridge his extended relation of the attack of the Arab banditti on the pilgrims whose party he had joined. The short distance which he had already travelled within the boundary of Irak Arabi, so called by the Persians to distinguish it from Irak Ajem the north-eastern district of their own country, presented a remarkable difference in the character both of the country and its inhabitants. - On The latter are of the same sect (of Omar) as the Turks. the 9th of October, the thermometer was at 95° in the shade. The Samiell, or Simoom, has been often described: but we think that the accounts of this pestilential wind, here, presented to us, are highly picturesque :

October 9th. My people were still too ill to-day to give any signs of speedy amendment; and in order to while away my anxiety in this untoward detention, I sent for the master of the khaun, to make some enquiries respecting the country and its inhabitants. He told me, that they consider October the first month of the autumn, and feel it delightfully cool in comparison with July, August, and September; for that during forty days of the two first named summer-months, the hot wind blows from the desert, and its effects are often destructive. Its title is very appropriate, being called the Samiell or Baude Semoon, the pestilential wind. It does not come in continued long currents, but in gusts at different intervals, each blast lasting several minutes, and passing along with the rapidity of lightning. None dare stir from their houses while this invisible flame is sweeping over the face of the country. Previous to its approach, the atmosphere becomes thick and suffocating, and, appearing particularly dense near the horizon, gives sufficient warning of the threatened mischief. Though hostile to human life, it is so far from being prejudicial to the vegetable creation, that a continuance of the Samiell tends to ripen the fruits. I enquired what became of the cattle during such a plague, and was told they seldom were touched by it. strange that their lungs should be so perfectly insensible to what seems instant destruction to the breath of man, but so it is, and they are regularly driven down to water at the customary times of day, even when the blasts are at the severest. The people who attend them are obliged to plaister their own faces, and other parts of the body usually exposed to the air, with a sort of muddy clay, which in general protects them from its most malignant effects. The periods of the wind's blowing are generally from noon till

It seems

sun

sunset; they cease almost entirely during the night; and the direction of the gust is always from the north-east. When it has passed over, a sulphuric and indeed loathsome smell, like putridity, remains for a long time. The poison which occasions this smell must be deadly; for if any unfortunate traveller, too far from shelter, meet the blast, he falls immediately; and in a few minutes his flesh becomes almost black, while both it and his bones at once arrive at so extreme a state of corruption that the smallest movement of the body would separate the one from the other. When we listen to these accounts, we can easily understand how the Almighty, in whose hands are all the instruments of nature, to work even the most miraculous effects, might, by this natural agent of the Samiell brought from afar, make it the brand of death by which the destroying angel wrought the destruction of the army of Sennacherib. Mine host also told me, that at the commencement of November the nights begin to be keen; and then the people remove their beds from their airy and star-lit canopies at the tops of their houses, to the chambers within; a dull but comfortable exchange when the winter advances, the cold being frequently at an excess to freeze the surface of the water in their chamber-jars; but almost as soon as the sun rises, it turns to its liquid state again. Some of this modifying coolness I should have been most glad of, at the time we were discoursing of it; to check the progress of the fever, which I now began to fear would detain us much longer under the speaker's roof than I had finances to pay for his entertainment. Sedak was ill, but my Russian so much worse, that, besides my uneasiness respecting the consumption in our purse, I felt an increasing anxiety to proceed at any risk of present annoyance, rather than remain so totally out of the reach of real medical aid for the poor souls now painfully dependent on my slender skill, and failing means; for the lack began to extend to my medicine-chest.'

[To be continued.]

ART. II. A Treatise on Thorough-Bass, for Beginners, composed and dedicated to Mr. J. B. Cramer, by J. Gourdez. Folio. 12s.* Rutter and M'Carthy, Bond-Street. 1822.

ART. III. Practical Hints for acquiring Thorough-Bass, by F. J. Klose. 4to. 7s. Boards. Ollier. 1822.

TH HE difficulty of teaching thorough-bass, which may be styled the science of practical harmony, has been felt by every sincere lover of music; and accordingly it has been too frequently considered to be a pursuit rather for those who follow the art as a profession, than for those who cultivate it as. an elegant accomplishment. This is an unfortunate error. If music be not allowed her place among the imitative arts, and be deemed merely an instrument of affecting the senses, it is obvious that, the better it is understood, the more perfect REV. JAN, 1823. will

C

will be the pleasure which it ministers. Every attempt, therefore, to facilitate the study of its principles, is intitled to attention, if not to gratitude; for, although music is at present so prevailing an accomplishment that we can scarcely enter a house in the kingdom in which we do not find either a harp or a piano-forte, we much question whether it is half so well understood now as it was fifty or even a hundred years ago.

How is this fascinating art taught at places of education? Purcel, Handel, Corelli, Geminiani, and the works of the great patriarchs of the science, are banished from the musicdesk, in order to give place to an equivocal race of modern productions; in which dexterity of hand and expertness of finger are substituted for that sweetness and harmony, which are to be found only in what are now set aside as antiquated compositions. "It is very difficult," said a lady to Dr. Johnson, anxious to shew off her daughter's musical proficiency, while she executed a long lesson. "Is it, Madam?" replied the Doctor, "I wish that it was impossible." How often have we breathed the same vow, when an accomplished Miss has been handed to the instrument, and we have had before our view the appalling prospect of a long and difficult piece of execution, which good breeding required us to hear not merely with patience but with applause! Yet the rapid and skilful performance of these lessons is far from implying the power of executing better and older music. Very few young ladies, who have been taught to this degree of instrumental execution, are able so much as to count the time, or even understand the subject of Purcel, or Handel, or Corelli, or Abel. They cannot even read the tenor-cliff; and indeed this would be exacting too much from a boarding-school girl, who delights her mamma and her aunts at the vacations with the miracles of her musical powers. For this reason, in modern compositions, ledger-lines are introduced, in order to reduce every composition to two parts only, the treble and the bass.

Nothing is more perplexing than this revolution of musical taste. It is not the advance from what was good to something better, but a deplorable transition from what was eminently beautiful to that which is mere trash and absurdity. What can be more varied, if variety alone be consulted, than the works of Handel, who has excelled in every species of composition but a catch and a canon? It is little less absurd, than in a course of classical instruction it would be to neglect Virgil and Horace for Lucan aud Statius. If a better taste should revive among us, so desirable a change will be the effect only of a more scientific system of musical education; and, to facilitate this object, parents ought in our opinion to set them

selves seriously to consider whether girls, in order to learn dexterity of finger, are not put down to the instrument at much too early an age, and before their understandings can comprehend the fundamental principles of the art; thus becoming nimble performers, with the sacrifice of every other qualification requisite for excelling in it. To the father, perhaps, one consideration arising out of the subject may be more effectually addressed; for he, poor gentleman, has to give the check on his banker when the first piano is purchased. This, however, soon becomes obsolete and useless; and a new one is deemed necessary, with additional keys for the gradually increasing scale of modern compositions: an extravagant innovation, the practice of the old masters having shewn the old scale to be sufficient. Here we see one of the consequences of teaching a brilliant and rapid execution!

The treatise which stands first at the head of the present article ranks among the most useful elementary works with which we are acquainted. It does not, indeed, profess to go farther than impart the requisite knowlege for accompanying well;' a rare accomplishment, to which a familiar acquaintance with thorough-bass is absolutely necessary, and to which those who have learned to perform very astonishing tricks of mere execution are for the most part shamefully incompetent. The author has succeeded in this object. His classification of the chords is skilful and correct; and his instructions in general are communicated in simple and intelligible language.

Elementary works, however, ought to begin with a clear definition of the art which is to be taught; and here, in our opinion, we discover a slight defect in the treatise of Mr. Gourdez. A compendious definition fixes in the mind the general and specific purposes of a science, and is easily retained in the memory. For instance, there would be nothing unintelligible to young scholars in such a description of the science as the following: Thorough-bass is the art of producing at the same time and on one instrument (for instance, the piano-forte) a complete harmony, comprizing the several parts of bass, tenor, counter-tenor, and treble. The figures which represent it are a species of short-hand designed to express all that is contained in a full score; by means of which the several parts are placed on separate staves, and room is saved

*This admirable invention was discovered in 1605, by Ludovico Vindana, organist of Fano, a small city in the Venetian states. Basses, however, had begun to be figured so early as 1597.

by making one stave serve the purposes of the four parts, without writing them separately and at full length.

tone.

The same defect of definition occurs in the author's first chapter, on the notes of the octave scales and intervals. The Greek etymology, indeed, gives but a slight idea of what is meant by the diatonic scale: but it would have been well to remind the learner that it was so called by the antients, in contradistinction to the chromatic and the enharmonic, because it proceeds by whole tones, or from whole tone to whole Mr. Gourdez dismisses the chromatic scale too hastily. Not that this intricate and perplexed scale is applicable to modern music, which retains and requires only the diatonic scale, but that the term "chromatic" is in daily use among musicians, and signifies that species of music which consists of harsh passages arising from the intervention of discordant notes, which are semi-tones to each other, and too near to fall into the distances of harmonic proportions; a signification which would not be very intelligible, unless we previously understood what the chromatic scale originally was.

We have again to point out a similar omission in the chapter on the chords, and would suggest to Mr. Gourdez some such preliminary intimation as this: Thorough-bass produces its effect by striking the bass-note with the left hand, and accompanying it with the rest of the notes, struck by the right hand. This combination of harmony is called a chord, because all notes may be produced on the same string of a violoncello, by stopping it at different places, according to their several proportions and relations; the only difference between producing them on a string, and on a keyed instrument in thoroughbass, is that in the former case they are sounded in succession, and in thorough-bass at the same time.

. We have always lamented that writers on thorough-bass compute the notes relative to the bass-note upwards. Mr. Gourdez, however, is not blameable in following the practice of his predecessors, because no character has yet been invented to distinguish the upward or downward computation, by which the connection of the two notes is ascertained. It is in truth an inconvenient method; for the just proportion of the relation is thus entirely lost, and the note that is required is designated by a numerical figure, which does not correspond to its natural relation. To explain ourselves, we will instance the chord 2, 4, 6, which is actually the inversion of 3, 5, 7, or the dissonant chord: now this method of reckoning does not convey the exact fact that this is the discordant chord reversed, computing backwards from the octave above, instead of upwards from the bass-note; and that the