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our young men even of rank and fashion, we are still compelled to acknowledge that they have not advanced beyond their Saxon ancestors, who ❝ hunted all day and drank all night, and knew no pleasure save fighting and carousing and the chace."

None indeed would lament more than ourselves if the manly amusements of our gentlemen were to be exchanged for the trifling manner and idle habits and effeminate ideas of the Neapolitan and Venetian noblesse. But the example of the nobility of England is sufficient to convince us, that it is possible to retain the intrepid and characteristic manners of this island, without becoming, as is too much the case with the Scottish youth, perfect slaves to them; and that a taste for the fine arts, and a love of the elegant amusements of life, may be found in the same individuals who are inferior to none in personal courage and manly energy. It is easy to see that it is to the recent and rapid advance which this northern part of the island has made in knowledge, wealth, and power, that the deficiency and barbarism of our national manners are owing, since the progress of manners is slow, compared with the rapid strides which thearts and sciences are capable of making. But it is to be remembered, that a knowledge of error is the first step towards its amendment; and if any thing could make us despair of a more elegant and polished style of manners being introduced amongst us, it would be the presumption with which we are accustomed to speak of our superiority to other nations, merely because we are entirely ignorant of the matters in which they excel us.

In an inferior class of society preeminently distinguished in this country by the intelligence and ability which they possess, we do not perceive indeed a propensity to debaucheries of so costly a description, but their amusements are marked by the same rudeness and sensuality, without the polished manners which alone render it tolerable in their superiors. No one can be acquainted with the professional men either in Edinburgh or Glasgow without having observed the coarseness, we had almost said brutality, of the manners and amusements of the great majority of them; a circumstance the more remarkable, from the contrast which it offers to

the natural sagacity with which they are gifted, and the extraordinary ability which they display in the business of life. Every one who goes from this country is struck with the superior elegance and refinement of the middling orders in France and Italy; it is painful to think what the inhabitants of these countries must feel when they come to ours.

It is to the establishment of the EDINBURGH MUSICAL FESTIVAL, as a permanent institution, and the consequent dissemination of a taste for this delightful art, through all classes of the people, that we look for one principal means of correcting these half civilized manners, and of introducing a percep→ tion of the advantages of the more ele gant accomplishments among our higher and middling classes. Of all the fine arts, there is none which so universally move the heart-none which is so delightful a relaxation-none so easily within the reach of every individual-none so intimately blended with the finest feelings and most amia→ ble sympathies of our nature. In the other arts the emotion which we expe rience is the feeling produced by the art alone; and is renewed, as if for the first time, whenever it is presented to the mind. But the beauty of music is felt with increased force as we advance in years, and while every other enjoyment palls by repetition, it alone comes with renewed delight, fraught with the remembrance and the endearments of past existence.

"Time but the impression deeper makes, As streams their channels deeper wear.'

"

As if, too, this enchanting art was purposely designed as a consolation to the suffering of our nature, it awakens recollections always of a tender and delightful kind, or so softens the remembrance of past misfortune, as to render it pleasing rather than painful to the melancholy mind. The airs which we have heard in infancy, or which are associated with the happiness of our youth, recall, in after years, of all the long period which has since intervened, the moments only of tenderness or joy, as the wind which refreshes the eastern traveller sweeps uncontaminated over the sandy desart, and bears only in its gales the fragrance of those green spots which are scattered over the face of the happy Arabia.

Unlike the other arts too, the influ

ence of music is uniformly and necessarily favourable to the cause of virtue; and it can awaken no other emotions but those which tend to withdraw us from the grossness or the seductions of the world. The powers of painting may and often have been employed to inflame the passions; the magic of poetry has too often been used as the instrument of corrupted genius or of guilty pleasure; but the voice of music addresses itself at once to the soul, and all the ingenuity of man can add no dross to the purity of the flame which it produces. The accompaniments of music, indeed the poetry with which it is blended, or the amusements of which it forms a part, may be of a guilty or voluptuous kind; but the music itself is incapable of injuring; and all the efforts of wickedness could not taint the most spotless heart by the emotions which it excites. Even when it is associated with such accompaniments, and purposely designed to aid their influence, its celestial nature defeats the intention of the artist, and refines the passion, to the inflaming of which it was meant to be subservient. The exquisite music of the Irish melodies so forcibly withdraws the mind from the voluptuousness of the language, as to render them the favourite theme of the most delicate women; and the enchanting airs of Don Giovanni, or Nozze de Figaro, is able to refine the feelings, which otherwise would be excited by the warmth of the language and the seductive grace of the dancing.

From what has been said, it will readily occur, that it is in refining the ideas and extending the taste and the capacity for enjoyment in our own sex, that we anticipate the most beneficial effects from the permanent institution of the Musical Festival. In truth, it is in them that the want of such an elegant and innocent amusement is most seriously felt, not only because they are from their education incomparably more ignorant of the subject than the female part of society, but because, from being more engrossed in the cares, and more brought in contact with the grosser enjoyments of life, they stand more in need of its purifying influence. There is, we know, a common and very natural

prejudice against men becoming musicians, and ardently as we are attached to the art, and impressed with its importance, we confess that we cannot see a man sit down to the piano, or take a guitar in his hand, without an involuntary feeling of degradation.— And truly, circumstanced as we have hitherto been, when the education of an ordinary gentleman gave no opportunity for acquiring a taste for this art, and when a knowledge of its beauties could be acquired only by living with fiddlers, and associating with a class beneath himself, it is no wonder that such a feeling should have arisen.That it is founded in this circumstance, however, only, and that it would be an unworthy prejudice if a taste for music could be acquired through the medium of more unexceptionable means, such as the repetition of Musical Festivals promises to afford, seems too obvious to require illustration.Our Saxon ancestors were certainly not inferior to us either in manliness or courage, yet a knowledge of music was universal among their iron warriors; and the ancient Britons, descendants of the great Arthur, deemed a harp the only becoming accomplishment of a gentleman, and placed the king's harper third in the rank of his royal household. No one will accuse Homer of giving too much effeminacy to his favourite hero; yet he represents Achilles subduing his resentment by the melody of his harp, in lines which Pope has rendered with more than their original pomp and beauty.

"Amused at ease, the godlike man they found,

Pleased with the solemn harp's harmonious sound,

With this he soothes his angry soul, and sings

The immortal deeds of Heroes and of Kings."

"It was impossible for the poet," says a late elegant writer," to have imagined any other occupation so well fitted to the mighty mind of Achilles, or so effectual in interesting the reader in the fate of him whom Dr Beattie calls, with truth, the most terrific personage that poetical imagination has feigned."* There seems no inconsistency, therefore, in supposing, that a taste for music, and a know

* Alison on Taste, 35.

ledge of its art, may be combined with all the qualities which become an intrepid man and a free citizen; and from a diffusion of a taste for this, as well as other fine arts among our higher classes, we anticipate the growth of a body of men, who may combine the cultivated taste and polished manners which distinguish the nobility in the south of Europe, with the energy, the manliness, and the learning, which have always been the honourable characteristics of the inhabitants of the north.

It is foreign to our purpose, and beyond our abilities, to give a detailed account of the different performances which composed this delightful Festival, or of the splendid ability with which it was conducted. To those who had the good fortune to hear them, such commendations would be superfluous; to those who were absent, they would be uninteresting. Yet cursory as the account which we can afford to give necessarily must be, we cannot refrain from adding our testimony to the united suffrages of all those best qualified to judge, in favour of the admirable arrangement which was pursued by the Directors, and the unrivalled excellencies which were displayed by the performers.

First in the scale of excellence, as greatest in the emotion which they produced, we must place the sublime choruses from Handel and Hayden, which occurred in the Messiah and the Creation. All Europe has felt the sublimity of these astonishing productions; but never, perhaps, were they heard to greater advantage, never certainly were they given with finer effect than in the Morning Concerts in the Parliament House. The imposing appearance of that venerable room, the order and propriety of the immense multitude assembled under its roof, the admirable composition and united power of the Orchestra, combined to produce an effect greater, perhaps, than was ever felt by any who were then present. There are none, we are sure, who heard, for the first time, the Hallelujah Chorus at the conclusion of the first part of the Messiah, without being both happier and better; happier, because they were admitted, as it were, into a new world of enjoyment, of which they could not before have formed a conception; and better, because they were filled for the moment,

at least, with feelings of devotion, to which, in their former lives, they must have been strangers.

Nor were the powers of this magnificent orchestra less adapted to the production of those more cheerful and animating emotions which the Evening Concerts were intended to awaken. We have never in any country, not even in the far-famed and musical city of Naples, heard a combination of musical talents more splendid or more successful than in the grand sympho nies which commenced the Evening Concerts on Tuesday and Friday.— Little, indeed, as we are accustomed in this country to such great and complicated efforts of art, we are confident that these performances must have done much to awaken a taste for these excellencies; and that many who went there, without the least conception of their beauties, returned with their minds opened to a new source of enjoyment in life.

Of the delicate voice and cultiva ted taste of Miss Stephens, it would be presumptuous for us to speak, and superfluous to express our admiration. There is no one who heard her sing the beautiful air in the Creation, "With verdure clad the fields appear," or the more pathetic strain in the Messiah, "I know that my Redeemer liveth," without rejoicing in the powers which our native talent has developed, and feeling the justice of the celebrity which it has acquired. Yet with all our admiration for the versatility and perfection of her talents, we cannot help observing, that she does not appear to be peculiarly qualified for sacred music. We have heard that this is contrary to her own opinion, and to that of many of the best judges of the art. Perhaps, therefore, it is the influence of association, and the habit of hearing her sing tender and joyous airs, which makes us think that there is too great lightness and vivacity in her voice-perhaps too great blythness in the expression of her countenance, to suit the melancholy and spiritual expression which religious service requires. It is in the expression of love of tenderness, or of the pathetic of domestic life, that her delightful powers seem to be in their proper sphere; and those who heard her sing the simple and touching air of Auld Robin Gray, will not easily forget the genius with

which she adapted her powers to the expression of these varied emotions, and by the delicacy of the transitions, gave to that musical narrative, the unity of effect which springs from the perception of a single emotion.

Mr Braham displayed the same strength and versatility of voice, the same power and sublimity of thought, which have already made his name so distinguished among the European performers. If we could presume, however, to criticise the works of this great artist, we should say, that the consciousness of his almost unrivalled powers, sometimes leads him to aim at the exhibition of art, in a manner inconsistent with the end to which it is destined, and subversive of that train of delightful feelings in which so much of the charms of music consist. Whenever the spectator forgets the music in the artist, and is awakened out of the reverie of delight into which he had been thrown by astonishment at the powers which he exhibits, the spell is broken, and the enchanted land in which he had found himself is dissolved. There was much of this unfortunate display in many of Mr Braham's greatest exertions in the solos, towards the close of the Messiah; and highly as those acquainted with the art may appreciate such exhibitions of vocal skill, we are persuaded, that over the audience in general they excited no other feeling but regret and disappointment. And herein do we anticipate one most important and salutary effect of the dissemination of a taste for the higher branches of music amongst us; that our people, trained to a knowledge of the real object of the art, and accustomed to feel its genuine beauties, will banish from our performances, as the people of Italy have done from theirs, those forced exhibitions of skill which the vanity of performers, seeking to excel each other, is perpetually endeavouring to intro duce, but which are not less injurious to their real celebrity than subversive of the emotion which it should be their object to excite in the audience.

We know not in what terms to express our admiration at the enchanting performances of Mr Yaniewicz and Lindley, on the violin and violoncello; performances beyond any other almost which we have ever heard in that department, and which we might be inclined to believe, arose from instru

ments different from those which are used by any other men. The perfect silence which permitted the lightest touch of those inimitable performers to be heard in the farthest extremities of the theatre, more even than the rapturous applause which followed, demonstrated the intense and breathless interest which their performances excited in the audience. When we heard the wild and ravishing airs which in their hands the violoncello was capable of producing, we almost forgot that we were dwelling amongst mortal men; and seemed rather to be listening to sounds produced by the light and aerial touch of fairy hands, or to those heavenly strains which steal upon the mind, when the soft zephyrs of the west sweep over the chords of the Eolian harp.

In the performances of Dragonetti, the audience had equal reason to admire that matchless skill, which has almost changed the instrument on which he exerts his powers, and rendered it capable of producing sounds which no other hand was ever able to bring forth. We believe there never was an artist, (certainly it has never been our good fortune to hear one) who could approach even to the admirable talent which he displays in the management of the bassoon; and yet we are conscious that we are but ill qualified to judge either of the extent of the difficulties with which he had to contend, or of the ability with which he has overcome them, since many pieces, which to us appeared rather singular than beautiful, excited the most enthusiastic admiration among the surrounding artists. It is when we hear the touch of any other hand on the same instrument, that the extraordinary ability of that great performer fully appears; as the eye which has followed the dancing of Madamoiselle Bigotini becomes insensible to the taste with which her motions are guided, and requires to look at the other performers to appreciate that inimitable grace with which she dignifies the voluptuous scene of the Parisian opera.

Of the merits of Ambrogetti we feel ourselves little qualified to speak, as the style of singing in which he principally was brought forward is one for which we do not profess sufficient local knowledge to judge. The opera Buffa, of the Italian stage, is little un

derstood by foreigners, even at Milan and Naples, where the manners which it caricatures are to be seen in every street that surround them. In this country, at a distance from such manners, the merits of the imitation cannot of course be felt, how much soever we may admire the powers of the artist. Yet we may be permitted to observe, that the rapid gesticulation, the versatile talents, and the personifying power of this celebrated artist, were eminently conspicuous during the evening-concerts of this Festival; and that they left us only cause to regret that we were not sufficiently acquainted with the lower orders in Italy to perceive the fidelity of the portraits, and understand the whole of the humours which it contained.

Of the abilities of Miss Goodall, who, though brought down in a secondary capacity, vindicated her claim to first-rate merit; of Mr Begrez, who to a melodious voice unites the finest and most delicate taste; of Miss Corri, whose rising powers promise to do honour to our metropolis which gave her birth, and of the other performers who assisted at this delightful Festival, our limits will not permit us to speak.-Suffice it to say, that their united exertions formed a great and splendid display of musical talent; such as is rarely witnessed in this or any other country, and to a repetition of which we believe all who heard them look forward with anxious hope. The Musical Festival is now over, but the delight which it communicated is not gone past: and it has left the seeds of enjoyment in many minds who, but for it, would have remained ignorant of the highest pleasures of which their nature is susceptible.The room, indeed, which heard these glorious strains is silent, and the multitudes who filled it are separated from each other but the delightful recollection lives in their minds, and, unknown to each other, unites many hearts, who are unconscious of the secret bond by which they are linked together. Often during the stillness of the night, or in moments of temporary forgetfulness, they steal like a delightful vision over our minds, and throw a momentary charm over existence, before we are conscious of the source from which our delight has sprung, like the celestial music, which, according to the amiable belief of CaVOL. VI.

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tholic countries, steals upon the enraptured soul of the Christian penitent, and gives to the bed of death a foretaste of the joys of eternal life..

It would be ungrateful were we not to express our public thanks to the directors for the ability and taste which they displayed in the conduct of the whole, and the uniform urbanity with which they discharged the laborious duty which they had gratuitously and benevolently undertaken. The united voice of their fellow citizens acknowledges the merit of these distinguished men who sacrificed so much of their valuable time to the prosecution of a duty of public charity, and to the improvement of the national taste in an art, where their own stood so little in need of cultivation. If we were to make any criticism on the selection of music which they made, we would observe, that the performance of Wednesday morning was too long; and that, notwithstanding the sublimity of the Mount of Olives, on Saturday, there is something abhorrent to our feelings in the personification of the sacred characters which are there brought on the stage. Such personifications may do very well in Catholic countries, where the people are accustomed to religious allegories, and to representations of the Deity himself in mortal colours; but they are revolting to our habits, and unsuitable to the indistinct feeling of veneration with which we are accustomed to regard the earthly character of our Saviour.

There was, indeed, enough to reward the public spirit of the directors in the brilliant spectacle which the Festival which they had created produced in this city. Never, certainly, since this kingdom began, was so magnificent an assemblage of rank and beauty and opulence brought together, as in Edinburgh during the week that this Festival lasted. Nor were the recollections of the past less interesting than the splendour of the present. When we cast our eyes over the superb Hall of the Parliament House, filled with every thing most distinguished which the country could exhibit, we involuntarily went back in imagination to those distant periods when the representatives of a poor and barbarous nation assembled under its roof; and recollected how much their wise and upright conduct had contributed to the prosperity which was there 2 B

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