REMARKS ON

Music, Painting, and the Acted Drama.

BY THE REV. W. HORNER.

THERE is nothing less consistent with the plain good sense of our nation, than the almost uniform custom of making young women of the higher and middle classes of society, proficients in music. Drawing is nearly as general; and it is more difficult to attain a moderate degree of excellence in it than in the former art. It has however this advantage: it may be submitted without offence to the judgment of others. The drawings hang harmlessly on the walls, and we may look at them or not; and if the portfolio be produced, we may turn it over in silence, or gratify the utmost claim of vanity by Sir Joshua Reynolds' ambiguous "Oho!”

We cannot so easily escape the tyranny of music. Conversation is interrupted by an unmeaning air of Rossini, or, what is worse, a show lesson of Moschelles ; played often in a style which adds nausea to insipid elegance and tasteless execution. But it is most intolerable when Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, or some one of our old English composers, whose music, from the hand of taste and feeling, enters into our very soul, is made familiar by the mechanical execution of a young lady, who has been drilled, sorely against her nature, into this painful accomplishment. We cannot help musing on the years of mechanical drudgery which have enabled her to "tear a passion to tatters," and overturn the natural taste of families, and indeed of

whole communities. This mechanical performance is continually varied, and at the same time made more hateful by inappropriate embellishments. A Miss of seventeen will often venture to improve upon Handel, unhappily sheltered under the precedent of some of our first performers, who find it more profitable to follow and indulge, than to correct the depraved taste of the public.

If it were not for this gradual introduction to a corrupted ear, how could any one be brought to endure the pathetic movements of Mozart, or the magic combinations of Weber, in the form of a quadrille or a waltz? Strains which lead us to forget our mortal nature, and raise our souls far above this perishable world, become, by this profane appropriation, only excitements to merriment and romping. It is impossible to speak with patience of such an impudent and barefaced mockery; through which the chain, that led the imagination captive, is broken for ever. Satin shoes, fans, feathers, and flirtation, are united, never to part, with that harmony, which before was redolent of every thing elevated, grand, and solitary.

Many readers may probably feel how the finest of Shakspeare's works are, in the same manner, degraded

"Common listeners frequently imagine, that provided the mere notes are played, the end of music is accomplished, forgetting that the mind of the performer should shew itself in the light in which he understands a passage; and then instead of being a mere automaton, with a number of ready-made graces bestowed upon his mechanism, we should have the emanation of his feeling and sensibility struck out in a momentary impulse."

Ramble among the Musicians of Germany.

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by artificial and familiar associations. They who have read his tragedies before seeing them represented on the stage, if they possess any imagination, are the greatest losers by this debasement. The characters and local scenes, which they had pictured to themselves, in those forms which corresponded with their idea of perfection, are decked out with tinsel and besmeared with distemper and it is surprising that any but the lowest, both in information and idea, should derive pleasure from such an exhibition. Sometimes indeed an actor or actress gratifies our utmost expectations, in the person of one of his fiercer or more ludicrous characters; but how few are they who have not altogether failed in the more amiable and engaging! Here, as in music, the tender, the plaintive, require a feeling and imagination, bestowed only on very few. In the drama, these qualities, to produce their full effect, must be united to an elegant person, and interesting countenance; a combination so rare, that it is no wonder that examples of such union are "few and far between."

To speak generally; the freshness, the vigour, and the nature of Shakspeare are withered by representation.

It is not the intention of the writer to assert that the acted drama should be a deception, any more than a statue should be. But the drama of Shakspeare, when read in the seclusion of a study, is really delusive. His persons and his scenery are embodied, and so deeply fixed in the mind, that memory lays them up as realities, almost as much as persons and places that are well known to us.

The painters, who have attempted to represent them,

have succeeded just in the same degree as the actors. Whilst the more coarse and bolder characters have been painted so as to harmonize with our ideas; where have we seen the more delicate and retiring, without some degree of disappointment ?-not indeed so great as when acted, for the difficulty is not so great; the painter, being limited to one moment, has not, like the actor, to support a consistency of representation. The universal preference given in painting, to the portrait of an actor in a favourite character, before its ideal representation, is a proof of the difficulty of embodying the creations of Shakspeare, except through the medium of known forms.

The reader may now inquire, what is the object of this discussion; is it to encourage or condemn the practice of music, and the art of painting? Is it to shew that dramatic representation is unworthy of an enlightened age? In answer-it is intended to shew how each may be abused, and which is least liable to abuse, and least disagreeable when imperfect. The question is considered merely as regards taste, without reference to morality as it refers to the enlargement of the mind, and the duration of the pleasure. Indeed, on beginning these remarks, it was never contemplated to touch upon the acted drama, but it occnrred as an illustration, and we will dismiss it without bearing on those doubts, upon which we refer the reader to Dr. Jeremy Collier's well-known essay.

With regard to music, it might appear useless to point out an evil, except we also could propose a remedy. No one should proceed far in its practice who has not a real

talent for it. A child may have a good ear for tune and time, but without taste and feeling can never rise above the cold mediocrity of correct execution: patient industry, which overcomes so many difficulties, cannot supply their want. If the young performer is indifferent to slow and plaintive airs, whilst all alive to the noisy and merry, she wants the soul that alone can make music an accomplishment of the mind, as well as of the fingers. If parents would attend to this simple test, nine young people out of ten would be struck off the music stool; and employ their vacant hours more agreeably to others, and usefully to themselves, with their pencil and needle.

Painting, though not above mediocrity, is capable of giving delight, even to a person of correct taste. A faithful sketch from nature however slight or tame, is always interesting, and is a most delicious remembrancer of past times. It is

"The memory of what has been,

And never more will be !"

WORDSWORTH.

It leads the mind to an admiration of nature; and thence to a reverence of the Great Cause. It depends little on the applause of others; and its pursuit in solitude, or by our own fireside, is the most gratifying, as well as the purest of its delights. It may be said of painting, (which cannot be said of music) that no moment so employed can be considered as lost; for the pleasure of each hour remains for the gratification of another age.