Chapter V (5)

Lie not, but let thy heart be true to God,
Thy mouth to it, thy actions to them both.
Cowards tell lies, and those that fear the rod.
The stormy working soul spits lies and froth;
Dare to be true—nothing can need a lie;
A fault which needs it most, grows two thereby.

Extravagance, which is the grateful mother of debt, penury, and want; which has desolated as many homes, withered as many hearts, and destroyed as many lives as the sword, he thus rebukes:

Never exceed thy income, youth may make
Even with the year; but age, if it will hit,
Shoots a bow short, and lessens still his stake
As the day lessens, and his life with it.
Thy children, kindred, friends upon thee call,
Before thy journey, fairly past with all.

The dangers that wait on suretyship, and the madness of yielding to its pressing importunities, are thus set forth:

Yet be not surety, if thou be a father;
Love is a personal debt. I cannot give
My children’s right, nor ought he take it, rather
Both friends should die, than hinder them to live.
Fathers first enter bonds to nature’s ends,
And are her sureties, ere they are friends.

The spirit in which we should enter the hallowed courts of the sanctuary, is set forth thus:

When once thy foot enters the church, believe
God is more there than thou, for thou art there
Only by his permission. Then beware,
And make thyself all reverence and fear.
Kneeling ne’er spoiled silk stockings; quit thy state,
All equal are within the church’s gate.

Space will not permit us to make further extracts from “The Porch.” Enough has been given to show its tone and character. The poems called “The Temple,” thus introduced, are a series of devotional songs upon sacred subjects, overflowing with ardent feeling, and manifesting the existence of a piety as fervent as it is rare.

In his verses on Prayer, we have an apt illustration of our author’s style and devotional ardor.

Prayer, the Church’s banquet, angels age,
God’s breath in man returning to his birth.
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian’s plummet sounding heaven and earth.

The quiet stillness of the Sabbath morn, and the blessings that accompany it, call forth such verses as the following:

Oh, day most calm, most bright,
The fruit of this, the next world’s bud,
Th’ indorsement of supreme delight,
Writ by a friend, and with his blood;
The couch of time, care’s balm, and bay;
The week were dark, but for thy light,
Thy torch doth show the way.

Sundays the pillars are
On which Heaven’s palace arched lies;
The other days fill up the spare
And hollow room with vanities;
They are the fruitful beds and borders
In God’s rich garden; that is base
Which parts their ranks and orders.

The Sundays of man’s life,
Threaded together on time’s string,
Make bracelets to adorn the wife
Of the eternal glorious king;
On Sundays Heaven’s door stands ope,
Blessings are plentiful and rife—
More plentiful than hope.

In his verses styled “The Odour,” we have an exemplification of the Poet’s love for his Divine Master, expressed with that fervency which betokens the sincerity of his adoration.

How sweetly doth my master sound! my master!
As ambergris leaves a rich scent
Unto the taster.
So do these words a sweet content,
An oriental fragrance—my master!

The poem entitled “Christmas,” has considerable merit, the versification is smoother, and the measure not so irregular as most of his poems, while at the same time it is characterized by the same warmth of devotional feeling, that is manifested in all.

The shepherds sing, and shall I silent be?
My God, no hymn for thee?
My soul’s a shepherd, too; a flock it feeds
Of thoughts, and words, and deeds.
The pasture is thy word, the streams thy grace,
Enriching all the place.
Shepherd and flock shall sing, and all my powers
Outsing the daylight hours.

The little poem entitled “Jesu,” although it has neither the merit of smoothness, or any poetical beauty, is strongly illustrative of the purely saint-like piety of its author. Dr. Sanderson was enraptured with this little production, and used to style it, “a gem of rare conceit.” We see nothing in it, however, to warrant such praise; it certainly has no poetic merit, and the conceit embodied in it, appears to be rude and far-fetched.

JESU.

Jesu is in my heart, his sacred name
Is deeply carved there, but th’ other week,
A great affliction broke the little frame,
Ev’n all to pieces; which I went to seek;
And first I found the corner where was I,
After where es, and next where u was graved.
When I had got these parcels, instantly
I sat me down to spell them, and perceived
That to my broken heart, he was I ease you,
And to my whole is Jesu.

Space will not permit us to make further extracts from these poems of Herbert’s. Those that we have given, illustrate the pious ardor of the subject of our sketch, while at the same time they give evidence of some claim to take position with the minor poets of his day. His prose compositions undoubtedly possess more merit than his poetical, and clearly entitle him to rank with the best of his contemporaries. The beautiful simplicity of the character of our poet, has never been surpassed in any age. His disposition was of the most sweet and engaging nature, adorned with all the graces of a most saint-like piety. “He lived like a saint,” says his enthusiastic biographer, old Walton, “and like a saint did he die.” The Sunday before his death, raising himself from his bed, he called for his instrument, and having tuned it, played and sung that verse from his poems, commencing,

The Sundays of man’s life
Threaded together on time’s string,
Make bracelets to adorn the wife
Of the eternal, glorious king.

Like the dying swan,

As death darkened his eye and unplumed his wings,
His sweetest song was the last he sings.

* * * * *

THE GIFT OF A ROSE.

BY GEORGE D. PRENTICE.

I send thee, Mary, a sweet young rose,
That bright with the hues of the sunset glows;
Its beauty, alas! is frail and brief,
It will come to thee with a withered leaf,
But the fervent kiss that my earnest lips
Have left for thee on its crimson tips,
Will not from the fading flower depart,
But come all fresh to thy lip and heart;
For oh, ’tis a breath of the love and trust
That will live when our lips and our hearts are dust.

Mary, dear Mary, pray love this flower,
Let it have for thy heart a spell of power;
For I plucked it fresh from its lovely stalk,
On the blooming edge of that garden walk,
Where we strayed together so deeply blest,
When the sun was low in the golden west,
And murmured our loves in burning words,
With none to hear but the flowers and birds,
And lingered long on the dear, sweet spot,
While our warm hearts kissed, though our lips did not.

Mary, dear Mary, my thoughts still cleave
To each memory sweet of that blessed eve,
To each tone more dear than the sweetest lute,
To each vow we breathed when our lips were mute,
To the wild, deep thrill through each trembling frame,
From fingers warmed with a pulse of flame,
To each gentle tear, to each gentle sob,
To each sigh that told of the heart’s deep throb,
Aye, these memories dwell in this soul of mine—
Oh, Mary dear, do they live in thine?

Mary, dear Mary, I pray thee say,
Do the roses bloom where thy steps now stray?
Do they look at morn on the sky’s soft blue
Through the trembling tears of the early dew?
When I come to thee will they smile to greet
Thy lover’s steps with their perfume sweet?
Will they list at eve to our tender vows?
Will they weave their wreaths for our gentle brows?
And when at last we are doomed to part,
Will they breathe a sigh for each breaking heart?

Mary, dear Mary, I fain would know,
Do thy heart’s sweet flowers keep their fresh young glow?
Are their eyes yet turned on the skies above?
Do they glitter still with the dews of love?
Has no blighting frost, has no bitter blast
Cold, cold o’er their buds and their blossoms past?
If my name is said, are their leaves yet stirred
To the olden thrill at the cherished word?
And say, oh say, will those dear, heart flowers,
Still bloom for me in the Eden bowers?

* * * * *

AH, DO NOT SPEAK SO COLDLY.

Ballad.

WORDS BY

FITZGERALD.

MUSIC BY

BENKERT.

Published by permission of Edward L. Walker, 160 Chestnut Street.

_Publisher and Importer of Music and Musical Instruments._

Ah! do not speak so coldly,
Cold words my heart will chill;
If I have lov’d too boldly,
Oh! let me worship still?
If

I have lov’d too boldly,
Oh! let me worship still?
The pure heart loves forever,
To its own likeness true;
And though fate bids us sever
I’ll love I’ll love but you,
And though fate bids us sever
I’ll love I’ll love but you.

SECOND VERSE.

The heart will throb in sorrow
If from its idol torn.
Nor elsewhere joy will borrow,
If love’s return be scorn.
Then do not speak so coldly,
Cold words my heart will chill;
E’en if I’ve lov’d too boldly,
Oh! let me worship still, &c.

* * * * *

TEAL AND TEAL SHOOTING.

BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, AUTHOR OF FRANK FORESTER’S “FIELD SPORTS,” “FISH
AND FISHING,” ETC.

THE BLUE-WINGED TEAL. (_Anas Discors._)]

In this present month, the sport of duck-shooting on the inland streams, rivers, and lakelets, may be held to commence in earnest, as contrasted to the pursuit of the same tribes on the outer bays, estuaries, and surf-banks. About the end of September, and thenceforth through this and the next ensuing month, according to the variations of the seasons, and the longer or shorter endurance of that delicious time, the most delicious and most gorgeous of the whole American year, known throughout this continent as Indian Summer, the Mallard, and the two beautiful species which we have placed at the head of this article, begin to make their appearance on the little lakes of the interior, and in the various streams and rivers which fall into them, and thence downward to the Atlantic seaboard.

In the vast northern solitudes of the great lakes of the northwest, in all the streams of Upper Canada, even to the feeders of Lake Superior, and throughout the western country so far south as Texas, and northward to the Columbia and the fur countries, the Blue-Winged Teal breeds, literally by myriads. Throughout the great lakes, it is abundant in the early autumn, becoming excessively fat on the seed of the wild rice, with which the shallows of all those waters are overgrown, and being deservedly esteemed as one of the best, if not the very best, of the duck tribe. But it is the first of its race to remove from the wild, limpid waters, and wood-embosomed rivers of the great west, to the seaboard tide-waters, taking the inland water-courses on their route, rarely visiting the actual sea-shores, and proceeding on the occurrence of the first frosts, for they are singularly susceptible of cold, to the Southern States, where they swarm, especially in the inundated rice-fields of Georgia and South Carolina, during the winter months.

The Green-Winged Teal, which is the nearest congener, and frequently the associate of the Blue-Wing, has a far less extensive range, so far as regards its breeding-grounds, in as much as it never, so far as has been satisfactorily shown, has nidificated or produced its young south of the Great Lakes, nor even there in great numbers, its favorite haunts, for the purposes of reproduction, being the extreme northern swamps and wooded morasses almost up to the verge of the arctic circles. It does not come down on its southward migration, at nearly so early a period of the autumn as its congener, being less susceptible of cold, and tarrying on the Great Lakes till the frosts set in with sufficient severity to prevent its frequenting its favorite haunts with pleasure, or obtaining its food with facility. It is rarely or never seen in the Middle States during the summer, but is tolerably abundant during the autumn on all the marshy lakes and pools, and along the shores of all the reedy rivers from the great lakes downward to the sea-board, though, like the last named species, it is purely a fresh-water duck, never frequenting the sea-shores or salt bays, finding no food thereon with which to gratify its delicate and fastidious palate, which, eschewing fish, the larvæ of insects, and the lesser _crustaceæ_, relishes only the seeds of the various water plants and grasses, the tender leaves of some vegetables, and more especially the grain of the wild rice, _Zizania panicula effusa_, which is its favorite article of subsistence, and one to which may be ascribed the excellence of every bird of air or water which feeds on it, from the Rice-Bird and the Rail, to the Teal, the Canvas-Back, and even the large Thick-Billed _Fuligula_, closely allied to the Scoter, the Velvet Duck, and other uneatable sea-fowl of Lake Huron, which are scarcely, if at all, inferior to the Red Heads of Chesapeake Bay, the Gunpowder, or the Potomac. On the Susquehanna and the Delaware, both these beautiful little ducks were in past years excessively abundant, so that a good gunner, paddling one of the sharp, swift skiffs peculiar to those waters, was certain of filling his boat with these delicious ducks within a few hours’ shooting. Both of these species are rather tame than otherwise, the blue-winged bird more particularly, which has a habit, on the lower waters of the Delaware especially, of congregating on the mud in vast flocks, sunning themselves in the serene and golden light of a September noon, so careless and easy of approach, that the gunner is frequently enabled to paddle his skiff within a few yards of them, and to rake them with close discharges of his heavy batteries. At times, when the tide is out, and the birds are assembled on the flats out of gunshot from the water’s edge, the thorough-going sportsman, reckless of wet feet or muddy breeches, will run his skiff ashore, several hundred yards above or below the flock, and getting cautiously overboard, will push it before him over the smooth, slippery mud-flats, keeping himself carefully concealed under its stern until within gunshot, which he can sometimes reduce to so little as fifteen or twenty yards, by this murderous and stealthy method. The Green-Winged Teal is much less apt to congregate, especially on shore, than the other, and consequently, affords less sport to the boat-shooter, keeping for the most part afloat in little companies, or trips, as they are technically called, very much on the alert, and springing rapidly on the wing when disturbed. They, and the Blue-Wings also, fly very rapidly, dodging occasionally on the wing, not unlike to a wild, sharp-flying Woodcock, and when they alight, darting downward with a short, sudden twist among the reeds or rushy covert, exactly after the fashion of the same bird.

The commoner and, in our opinion—where these birds are abundant either along the courses of winding drains or streamlets, or in large reedy marshes, with wet soil and occasional pools or splashes—far the more exciting way of killing them is to go carefully and warily on foot, with a good medium-sized double-gun, say of eight to ten pounds weight, and a thoroughly well broke and steady spaniel, to retrieve and occasionally to flush the birds, which will sometimes, though rarely, lie very hard. A good sportsman will frequently, thus late in the autumn, when the mornings are sharp and biting, and the noons warm and hazy, but before the ice makes, pick up, on favorable ground, his eight or nine couple in a day’s walking, with a chance of picking up at the same time a few Snipe, Golden Plovers, Curlew, or Godwit; and this, in our mind, is equal to slaughtering a boat load by sneaking up in ambush to within twenty yards of a great company, whistling to make them lift their heads and ruffle up their loosened plumage, so as to give easy entrance to the shot, and then pouring into them at half point-blank range, a half pound of heavy shot.

In the southern States they are commonly taken, says Wilson, “in vast numbers, in traps placed on the small dry eminences that here and there rise above the water of the inundated rice fields. These places are strewed with rice, and by the common contrivance called a figure four, they are caught alive in hollow traps.” This we, of course, merely mention as illustrative of the habits of the bird; for, of course, no sportsman would dream of resorting to so worse than poacher-like a proceeding. The mode described by the eloquent pioneer of American natural history, is probably practised, for the most part, by the negroes for the supply of their masters’ table, and furnishing their own pockets with a little extra change, and is not used by the planters as a means of sport or amusement. It must be remembered, also, that Wilson, than whom there is no writer more to be relied on in matters which he relates of his own knowledge, and as occurring in his own days, must often be taken _cum grano salis_, as to the numbers of birds slain in this way or that within a certain time—things which he records, probably, on hearsay, and on which—we are sorry to say it—even good sportsmen, men who on any other subject would scorn to deviate one hair’s breadth from the truth, will not hesitate to draw a bow as long and as strong as Munchausen’s. Again, he writes of times when sporting was but little pursued, otherwise than as a method of procuring superior food for the table, or for the purpose of destroying noxious vermin and beasts of prey; when the rules of sportsmanship were little understood and as little regarded; and, lastly, when game abounded to a degree literally inconceivable in our day—although we have ourselves seen, with sorrow, the diminution, amounting in many regions around our large cities almost to extinction, of all birds and beasts—nay, but even fish of chase, within the last twenty years. We must be careful therefore not to charge exaggeration on a writer who, beyond a doubt, faithfully recorded that which he himself saw and enjoyed in his day; which we might see likewise and enjoy in our generation, and our children and grand-children after us, if it were not for the greedy, stupid, selfish, and brutal pot-hunting propensities of our population, alike rural of the country and mechanical of the cities, which seems resolutely and of set purpose bent on the utter annihilation of every species of game, whether of fur, fin or feather, which is yet found within our boundaries.

In my opinion, the common error of all American fowlers and duck shooters, lies, in the first place, in the overloading the gun altogether, causing it to recoil so much as to be exceedingly disagreeable and even painful, and in the same degree diminishing the effect of the discharge; for it must never be forgotten that when a gun recoils, whatever force is expended on the retrogressive motion of the breech, that same force is to be deducted from the propulsion of the charge. In the second place, he erroneously loads with extremely large and heavy shot, the result of which is, in two respects, inferior to that of a lighter and higher number. First, as there will be three or four pellets of No. 4 for every one pellet of A or B in a charge, and, consequently, as the load is thereby so much the more regularly distributed, and so much the more likely to strike the object, and that in several places more, in the ratio of three or four to one, than could be effected by A’s or B’s. Second, as the flesh will constantly close over the wound made by a small shot, so as to cause the bleeding to go on internally to the engorgement of the tissues and suffocation by hemorrhage; whereas the wound made by the large grain will relieve itself by copious bleeding, and the bird so injured will oftentimes recover, after having fallen even to the surface of the water, or lain flapping, as it were, in the death-struggle on the blood-stained sand or grassy hassocks. This fact has been well noticed, and several examples adduced to prove its truth, by Mr. Giraud, in his exceedingly clear and correct, though, to our taste, far too brief volume on the “Birds of Long Island.”

For my own use I invariably adopt for all the smaller species of duck—as the two varieties of Teal, the Summer Duck, the Golden Eye, and the Buffel-headed Duck, _Anates_, _Carolinensis_, _Discors_, _Sponsa_, and _Fuligulæ_, _Clanguid_, and _Albeola_—the same shot which is generally used for the various birds known on our shores and rivers as bay-snipe, viz: No. 4 or 5—the latter best for the Plovers, the former for duck, whether in large or small guns. In this relation I may observe that, on one occasion—the only one, by the way, on which I ever saw a green-winged teal in the summer season—I killed a couple of these beautiful birds, right and left, while woodcock shooting, in Orange County, New York, with No. 8 shot. They sprang quite unexpectedly from behind a willow bush, on the Wuwayanda creek, and I dropped them both quite dead, some what to my own astonishment, and to the utter astounding of Fat Tom, who witnessed it, into the middle of the stream, respectively at twenty and twenty-five yards distance. Until I recovered them I supposed that they were young wood ducks, but on examination they proved to be young green-winged teal, of that season, in their immature plumage. This must have been in the last week of July or the first of August—it was many years since, and as at that time I kept no shooting diary, I unfortunately am unable to verify the exact date. The birds must, I conclude, have been bred in that vicinity, by what means I cannot conjecture, unless that the parent birds might have been wounded in the spring, and disabled from completing their northern migration, and that this, as is some times the case with the minor birds of passage, might have superinduced their breeding in that, for them, far southern region. In corroboration of this I may add that, in the spring of 1846, a couple of these birds haunted a small reedy island in front of my house, on the Passaic, to so late a day in summer—the 29th, if I do not err, of May—that I sedulously avoided disturbing them, in the hope that they would breed there. This I yet think would have been the case but for the constant disturbance of that lovely river throughout the summer by gangs of ruffianly loafers, with whom the neighboring town of Newark abounds beyond any other town of its size in the known world, boating upon its silvery surface day and night, and rendering day and night equally hideous with their howls and blasphemies.

Before proceeding to the description of these birds it is well to observe that it will be found the better way, in approaching them, as indeed _all_ wild fowl, to work, if possible, up wind to them; not that wild fowl have the power, as some pretend, of scenting the odor of the human enemy on the tainted gale, as is undoubtedly the case with deer and many other quadrupeds, but that their hearing is exceedingly acute, and that their heads are pricked up to listen, at the occurrence of the least unusual sound, and at the next moment—_hey, presto!_—they are off.

The little cut at the head of this paper, for his spirited and faithful execution of which the author and artist must be permitted to return his acknowledgments to his friend, Mr. Brightly, represents a favorite feeding ground of the various tribes of water fowl, as is indicated by the large gaggle of geese passing over, from right to left, and the trip of green-wings alighting to the call of a clamorous drake in the background. On a rocky spur of the shore, in the right foreground, is a male Green-Winged Teal, in the act of springing, with his legs already gathered under him; and, still nearer to the front of the picture, on the right, a Blue-Winged Drake, swimming on the limpid water, soliciting his congener, with reverted neck, and the harsh gabble—whence his name—to take wing and greet the new-comers—it being the object of the draftsman to give an idea not merely of the markings and form of these two most beautiful and graceful of the duck tribe, but of their motions, the character of their flights, and the nature of their feeding grounds and habitations.

The head of the Green-Winged Teal is of moderate size and compressed; the bill nearly as long as the head, deeper than broad at the base, depressed at the tip; neck slender, of moderate length; body full and depressed; wings rather small, feet short and rather far back.

The plumage is short and blended; that of the hinder head and neck elongated into a soft filamentous drooping crest. The bill is black; iris hazel; feet light blue; head and upper part of neck bright chestnut brown; a broad band of shining rich bottle-green, narrowings from the eye backward and downward to the nape, margined below with black, anterior to which is a white line; chin dusky brown. Upper parts and flanks white, beautifully and closely undulated with narrow lines of deep gray. Anterior to the wings is a broad transverse lunated white bar—_this alone distinguishing the American from the European bird_. The wing coverts, scapulars and quills gray. The speculum bright green above, blue-black below, margined posteriorly with pure white. Tail brownish gray, margined with paler brown. Lower part of the neck undulated, like the back. Breast pale rufous, spotted and banded with black; white below. Abdomen white, barred with gray. A black patch under the tail; the lateral tail coverts tawny, the larger black, white-tipped and margined. Length of male bird, 14¾.24. Female, 13¾.22½.

The description and drawing of this bird are taken, by kind permission, which the writer gratefully acknowledges, from a fine specimen in the Academy of Natural Science of this city.

The Blue-Winged Teal is rather larger than the above, the male measuring 16.31½, the female 15.24.

The shape and proportions of this bird closely resemble those of the latter, but in plumage it widely differs from it. The bill is blueish black; iris dark hazel; feet dull yellow, webs dusky; upper part of the head black, a semilunar patch of pure white, margined with black anterior to the eye; the rest of the head and upper neck deep purplish gray, with changeable ruddy reflections. The lower hind neck, back, alula, and upper parts generally, rich chocolate brown, every feather margined with paler tints, from reddish buff to pale reddish gray, with black central markings, changing to metallic green in the centres. Upper wing coverts rich ultra-marine blue, with a metallic lustre; the lower parts pale reddish orange, shaded on the breast with purplish red, and thickly spotted with roundish or eliptical black spots; axillary feathers, lower wing coverts, and a patch on the side of the rump, pure white; lower tail coverts brownish black.

These, with the exception of the Buffel-Headed Duck, are the two smallest; with the exception of the Summer Duck, the two loveliest; with the exception of the Canvas-Back the two best of the duck tribe. Well met be they, whether on the board or in the field—shot be they with No. 4—eaten roast, underdone, with cayenne and a squeeze of a lemon, lubricated with red wine, _quantum suff._

* * * * *

THE FINE ARTS.

_Amateur Concerts—Difference between Stage Singing and Chamber
Singing—Effect produced by Stage Acting on the Manners and
Conversation in Private—Origin of the modern florid style of
singing—Conclusion._

Concerts are popular all over the Union, but in no other town are they so successful and popular as in Philadelphia. We have here all kinds of these entertainments, Ethiopian Concerts—Donation Concerts—Society Concerts, such as the Musical Fund and Philharmonic—and pre-eminent above all others, in point of fashion, Amateur Concerts.

A small, good Opera Troupe, it is true, would be of more service to our musical taste; for this hearing the works of great masters by bits, as it were, is not of much benefit; however, so that we have music in some manner is better than not to have it at all.

The concerts of the past winter were all well attended; but the Amateur Concerts were the favorites, and were, indeed, very successful. The amateurs, both ladies and gentlemen, surprised their audiences; and great praise is due to “_Maestro Perelli_.” We have heard some of them execute pieces in a manner that would have done credit to a professional singer. But while we admired, we felt a little disposed to remonstrate, for one or two old-fashioned reasons.

If they are really amateurs, and are training their voices for private singing, are they not running a risk of injuring their style by singing in public?

In the olden times of vocal training, there was always a marked difference made between public and private singing. So particular were the old masters that they divided singing into three classes—church singing, stage singing, and chamber singing.

Church singing required a more simple manner, a more pure and severe style, than stage singing; but the voice like that intended for the stage, had to be strong and full, with great volume and power, and the intonation clear and correct. There was not much difference between the voices of the church and stage singer; that is, it was not thought that either style injured the voice for the other, on the contrary, some of the finest voices the Italian school has produced, have been trained in church choirs, under the old chapel-masters.

But there was always a marked and decided difference made between stage singing and chamber singing. For the latter, it is necessary to have a plain, simple manner, a clear, pure intonation, good articulation, and great polish. The cadenzas and ornaments should be few, but of the most exquisite style and finish. Strength and volume of voice are not so much needed for the chamber singer, as delicacy of articulation and purity of tone.

Tone, in music as in painting, is mellowed by distance, and the singer who wishes to produce a pleasing effect in the drawing-room, should bear this in mind. It is as absurd to present in private a piece of music executed in the ornamented, operatic style, as it would be to hang in a cabinet or drawing-room, a large painting fitted for a church, a gallery, or a theatre; or, to make another comparison, for an orator, a public speaker, to entertain the guests of his drawing-room, with the same loud tone, earnest rhetorical manner, and volume of voice, that he used in the public assembly or town-meeting.

The habit of singing in public will give to the private singer, a manner and style which may sound very well in the concert-room, or on the stage where they are mellowed by distance, and softened by an orchestra, but this same manner and style will appear in private, coarse, violent, and theatrical. There should be a difference between public and private singing; both styles are beautiful, and equally effective in their way, but they should be kept separate.

It is well known that actors and actresses, in dressing for the stage, are apt to lose that nice, delicate eye for color, which is required to render a private costume pleasing; they become fond of strong contrasts, bright colors, and ornaments which appear glaring and wanting in harmony off the stage. Stage acting also affects the conversation, the tone of voice, and manner of expression. We were much amused once with the witty reply of a clever person, when asked why he did not admire a distinguished actress he had met with in private.

“She is too theatrical,” he said. “First she gives us a dash of tragedy _à la_ Lady Macbeth, then comes a touch of genteel comedy _à la_ Lady Teazle, which is very tiresome. One likes such exhibitions well enough on the stage, but they are quite out of place in one’s drawing-room.”

And thus it is with vocal music, to make it pleasing in society, or what is better, in one’s home circle, it should be like drawing-room, or home costume, home manner, conversation, reading—simple, pure, with few ornaments, and those well chosen.

Though these rules seem severe, they are not confining, for the chamber-singer is not limited. The music of the great masters can be produced in private, with great effect, in the same manner as all of us have, doubtless, heard a good reader give in private circles, scenes from Shakspeare and other dramatic poets. If the reader should present to us in his reading, all the starts, the loud tones and energetic manner required on the stage to produce an illusion, his reading would create disgust in us, and we would listen unwillingly; but if, on the contrary, he should read in a quiet manner, but with clear enunciation, and good emphasis, leaving our imaginations and recollections to make up the stage illusion, then, his reading would prove effective and pleasing.

Every vocalist knows that the graces and ornaments of a piece are entirely independent of the melody. The musical student who has studied the works of the old composers, will understand this better than the amateur who has been confined to modern compositions.

In the olden times more stress was laid upon the simple melody. Haydn used to say,

“Let your _air_ be good, and your composition will be so likewise, and will assuredly please.”

But in the present day, the air is almost forgotten in the rich _rifioramenti_, and bewitching _capricci_ of the Italian singer, the surprising _vocalization_ of the French, and the graces, shakes, and turns of the English vocalist.

We do not object to these adornments; when properly used, they produce a pleasing effect—they break up the monotony of the melody; but any one will see how necessary it is to have these adornments different in different places. The graces, cadenzas, etc., which would be added to a piece sung on the stage, should not be used in the drawing-room or in the church, although the simple melody itself, may from its character do very well for either place, if sung with appropriate ornaments.

These elaborate, ornamental, vocal passages, which appear in modern compositions, are not to be found in the old writers. They would have considered it derogatory to the dignity of their melodies, to have written out in them the _rifioramenti_ of the singer.

We remember seeing, several years ago, some Italian copies and manuscripts of compositions by Durante, Trajetta, Paisiello, and other old Italian masters. They belonged to a singular, remarkable person, then living in this country, Signor Trajetta, the son of the old Maestro Trajetta, the master and companion of Sacchini. These compositions were for the voice, and in looking over them, we were struck with their bareness and severity. The airs were, many of them, pure, and full of beautiful melody, but we could readily imagine that it would require a very severe taste to listen to them without finding them monotonous, and so we said.

“Ah!” replied Trajetta’s pupil, as wild an enthusiast as his master, “your taste has been spoiled and vitiated by modern music.”

The present taste for florid execution was caused, it is said, by the desire of the vocalists to rival the instrumental passages of the Opera. During the time of Metastasio, the musicians, especially those of the German school, so famous for instrumentation, overpowered the singers. The struggle of the singers for the lead, caused Metastasio to make a remark which would apply very well in this day—that the singers in an Opera made _vocal concertos_ of their passages.

Agujari turned her voice into a flute, and the capricious, bewitching Gabrielli, the pet pupil of Porpora, astonished every one by her wonderful _capricci_ and delicate chromatic passages.

A love for the wonderful displays itself constantly in mixed audiences, and they are more likely to applaud that which is surprising, rather than that which is strictly good. This approbation is apt to dull the taste of the singer who will forget or neglect good old rules, when by outraging them, they secure applause.

The taste for vocal gracing and adornment has increased to such a degree that it would be almost impossible to present a composition of an old master, or even of composers so late as Mozart, without adding to the adornments of the original composition. Rossini, whose vocal compositions in some places appear to consist only of connected phrases of ornaments and gracings, so completely is the melody hidden by the _cadenzas_, had two styles. His early style was chaste and simple; his greatest opera, _Tancredi_, was written in this style, and the reader, if familiar with Rossini’s works, has only to compare this beautiful opera with one of his last compositions, _Semiramide_, to see the strong contrast between the two styles of composition. His _L’Italiani in Algeri_ and _Il Turco in Italia_, operas which contain some of his most exquisite melodies, belong also to this simple style; but his more popular operas, _Il Barbiere_, _La Cenerentola_, _Otello_, _La Gazza Ladra_, _etc._, are in his later style, which is florid, not only in the vocal parts, but also in the orchestral accompaniments; indeed, he seemed to have attained the extreme of this florid style, but the composers of the present time have gone far beyond him; for instance, Verdi, whose compositions appear to be entirely made up of _rifioramenti_, and while listening with amazement to the vocal feats his singers perform, in executing his compositions, a good old-fashioned lover of music is very apt to wonder if a melody really exists under all these embellishments.

There is an interesting account given in Stendhal’s Life of Rossini, relative to his adoption of the florid style in composition. In 1814 he went to Milan, to superintend the bringing out of his opera, _L’Aureliano in Palmiro_. The principal tenore, Velluti, a very handsome man, had a voice of great flexibility. At the first rehearsal, Velluti sung his part in a manner that delighted the composer; at the second rehearsal, the singer added some cadenzas, which Rossini applauded even rapturously; at the third rehearsal, the original melodies of some of the cavatinas seemed lost amid the luxurious profusion of vocal ornaments; but at the first public representation of the opera the singer added so many _fiorituri_, that Rossini exclaimed, “_Non conosco più la mia musica!_”[7]; however, Velluti’s singing was well received by the audience, and every vocal feat brought down thunders of applause. The hint was not lost on Rossini. He observed that his opera had but little success without Velluti, and he resolved in future to compose in a different style. He would no longer remain at the mercy of the singer, but write down in his score a sufficient number of embellishments, not leaving room for the addition of a single _appogiatura_ by the singer.

We have digressed from the original subject, dear reader, in order to show that the _rifioramenti_ of a piece are mere additions, and also to point out to the amateur the propriety of omitting startling and surprising stage points, when presenting in private fine operatic passages, and the nice, delicate taste that would be displayed in giving more of the original melody, avoiding embellishments, using them only where they seem absolutely necessary to break up the monotony of a continuous strain, and render it more effective.

We could give our other objection to this public singing of amateurs, which objection applies more particularly to lady amateurs; but we have chatted long enough already, and, moreover, our objection is decidedly too old-fashioned to be talked about in these days, “of rights of men, women and children;” therefore, we will suffer it to pass unmentioned, trusting to the force of the one already given to convince you, at least good reader.

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OLD ’76 AND YOUNG ’48.—This is the title of a new picture by WOODVILLE, received from Dusseldorf for the New York Art Union, which is to be engraved for one of the future distributions of that association. The _Mirror_ describes the picture as fully justifying the high opinion formed of the young artist’s genius, and as placing his name in the front rank of our American artists. The picture represents a young soldier just returned from Mexico, travel-stained and wounded; he sits at a table relating his adventures to his grandfather, “Old ’76,” while his father and mother, and a group of colored servants, peeping in at the door, are eagerly listening to the soldier’s rehearsal of his battles. All the accessories of the picture are purely American, and help to carry out the story; the portrait of the old man, painted in all his rosy prime, the bust of Washington, the ornaments on the mantle, all are in strict keeping; but it is in the individualities of character as delineated in the countenances and actions of the different personages that the genius of the artist is displayed; the old man, leaning on his crutch, shaking his head with a mixed feeling of pride in his grandson’s achievements, and a recollection of his own acts in the times that tried men’s souls, is a triumph of the artist; the old fellow seems to be just at the point of saying “O yes, my boy, all that is very well; you fought bravely, no doubt, and General Taylor was a good soldier; but it’s nothing to old ’76, and General Taylor ain’t Washington.” It is a most successful effort.

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MONUMENT TO PEEL.—The proposal to erect a national monument to Sir Robert Peel, by subscriptions limited to one penny each person, will be entirely successful.

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[7] “I don’t know my own music!”

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REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.

_Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy: Delivered at the Royal
Institution, in the years 1804, 1805 and 1806: By the late Rev.
Sidney Smith, M. A. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 12mo._

Sidney Smith appears, in this volume, as an ethical and metaphysical philosopher, and certainly ethics and metaphysics were never before made so clear and so entertaining. Sharp, shrewd, sensible, witty, humorous, eloquent, discriminating, the author goes on, from topic to topic, analyzing and laughing, condensing maxims into epigrams, embodying principles in sarcasms, eliciting jokes from abstractions; and after making his reader laugh tears into his eyes and pains into his sides, really leaves him in possession of more metaphysical knowledge than he would get from Dugald Stewart. The mind of Sidney Smith was so beautiful and brilliant, that men have done injustice to its depth and exactness. He was really an accomplished belles-lettres scholar, a close reasoner, a proficient in the philosophy of politics, morals and mind, as well as a wit and humorist; and in one of the rarest gifts of reason, justness and readiness in the conception of premises, he evinced equal force and fertility. Besides all this, he was an honest, courageous, uncanting, and disinterested man—loving and possessing goodness and virtue, hating and denouncing wickedness and vice. His goodness had not the weak diffusion which characterises the quality in the so-called “good people;” but will and intellect condensed it into lightning, and launched it at error and evil. It smiles sweetly, but it also smites sharply; and no man is more worthy of contemptuous pity than the bigot, dunce, libertine, professional rascal or knavish politician, who comes within word-shot of Sidney’s indignation.

There is no part of the present book which will not delight and instruct the general reader; but the most original portions are those devoted to practical remarks on mental diseases and to acute observations on minor topics of the great subject. To all who know Sidney Smith’s writings it is needless to add, that every idea in the volume is conceived and stated clearly, and that the author’s ignorance in the higher regions of his theme never seeks refuge in obscure terms, but is boldly, and some times exultingly, acknowledged. Many of the great philosophers, and especially the idealists and skeptics, are rather fleeringly disposed of. Common sense is Sydney’s test; but common sense is hardly able to grapple with Aristotle and Descartes, the greatest of metaphysicians; and they are, therefore, praised for their power and ridiculed for its perversion. The author’s peculiar felicity in making ludicrous statements which operate with the force of arguments, is displayed throughout the volume. “Bishop Berkeley,” he says, “destroyed this world in one volume octavo, and nothing remained after his time but mind; which experienced a similar fate from the hand of Mr. Hume, in 1737.” Nothing could be more felicitous than this statement, considered as a practical argument against the systems of the idealists and skeptics. Again he says: “A great philosopher may sit in his study, and deny the existence of matter; but if he take a walk into the streets he must take care to leave his theory behind him. Pyrrho said there was no such thing as pain; and he saw no _proof_ that there were such things as carts and wagons; and he refused to get out of their way: but Pyrrho had, fortunately for him, three or four stout slaves, who followed their master without following his doctrine; and whenever they saw one of these ideal machines approaching, took him up by the arms and legs, and, without attempting to controvert his arguments, put him down in a place of safety.”

The passages on Aristotle are in a similar vein of pleasantry. “Some writers,” he remarks, “say he was a Jew; others that he got all his information from a Jew, that he kept an apothecary’s shop, and was an Atheist; others say, on the contrary, that he did not keep an apothecary’s shop and that he was a Trinitarian.” Further on he adds, that Aristotle’s philosophy “had an exclusive monopoly granted to it by the Parliament of Paris, _who forbad the use of any other in France_;” and he goes on to compare the great Stagarite with Bacon, to the manifest disadvantage of the former. After speaking of the triumphs of the Baconian method, and the indebtedness of mankind to the vast understanding of its author, he proceeds to remark, that to “the understanding of Aristotle, equally vast, perhaps, and equally original, we are indebted for fifteen hundred years of quibbling and ignorance; in which the earth fell under the tyranny of words, and philosophers quarreled with one another, like drunken men in dark rooms, _who hate peace without knowing why they fight, or seeing how to take aim_.” Zeno, the founder of the sect of the Stoics, is represented as a Cyprus merchant, who had studied the writings of the most eminent Socratic philosophers, and who, in the course of his mercantile pursuits, “freighted a ship for Athens, with a very valuable cargo of Phœnician purple, which he completely lost by shipwreck, on the coast near the Piræus. A very acute man, who found himself in a state of sudden and complete poverty in Athens, would naturally enough think of turning philosopher, both as by its doctrines it inspired him with some consolation for the loss of his Phœnician purple, and by its profits afforded him some chance of subsistence without it.” Socrates, he says, was the great father and inventor of common sense, “as Ceres was of the plough and Bacchus of intoxication.” Two thousand years ago, he adds, “common sense was not invented. If Orpheus, or Linus, or any of those melodious moralists, sung, in bad verses, such advice as a grand-mamma would now give to a child of six years old, he was thought to be inspired by the gods, and statues and altars were erected to his memory. In Hesiod there is a very grave exhortation to mankind to wash their faces; and I have discovered a very strong analogy between the precepts of Pythagoras and Mrs. Trimmer—both think that a son ought to obey his father, and both are clear that a good man is better than a bad one.”

Among the best lectures of the volume, both for sense and brilliancy, are those on the “Conduct of the Understanding,” the “Faculties of Animals and Men,” “Habit,” and “Wit and Humor.” In these Sydney Smith exhibits both his power of rapid analysis and his power of clearly perceiving the essential points of the subjects he discusses. The lecture on the “Faculties of Animals and Men,” is a sort of humorous philosophical poem in prose, the beauty of the humor being as striking as its laughable quality. He commences with observing that he would do no injustice to the poor brutes, especially as they have “no professors to revenge their cause by lecturing on our faculties;” and he is so perfectly satisfied with the superiority of men to animals, that he sees no reason why he should not give the latter full credit for what “few fragments of soul and tatters of understanding they may really possess.” His settled opinion is, that baboons and blue apes will never rival mankind in understanding or imagination, though he confesses that he has sometimes felt a little uneasy at Exeter ’change, “from contrasting the monkeys with the ’prentice boys who are teasing them;” but a few pages of Locke, or a few lines of Milton, always restored him to his tranquil belief in the superiority of man. He then proceeds to give a humorous statement of the various opinions held by philosophers on the physiology of brutes, emphasising especially the theory of Père Bougeant, a Jesuit, that each animal is animated by a separate and distinct devil; “that not only this was the case with respect to cats, which have long been known to be very favorite residences of familiar spirits, but that a particular devil swam with every turbot, grazed with every ox, soared with every lark, dived with every duck, and was roasted with every chicken.” Smith then goes on to define and illustrate instinct, with an analysis as fine as the humor is exquisite. Instinct he considers as an animal’s unconscious use of means which are subservient to an end, in contradistinction to reason, which is a conscious use of those means and a perception of their relation to the end. The examples are all stated in Smith’s peculiar manner. It would take, he says, “a senior wrangler at Cambridge ten hours a day, for three years together, to know enough mathematics for the calculation of these problems, with which not only every queen bee, but every _under-graduate grub_, is acquainted the moment it is born.”