Chapter VIII: Part 8

One consequence of the occupation of Algeria has generally been overlooked,--its naval result. Hitherto France had absolutely no good port in the Mediterranean (if we except those of Corsica) but Toulon and Marseilles. It was absolutely less at home in its own sea than England. The new conquest gave it a strip of coast on the southern border of the sea, but no port. The harbor of Algiers, with the exception of a little haven artificially protected and capable of holding insecurely a dozen vessels, was much like that of Cherbourg, an open bay, facing northward. The storms sweep it with such fury that not less than twenty vessels have been driven ashore in one gale. But the French genius seems to delight in such struggles for empire with the waves. Almost with the taking of the citadel the engineer began his work. Two jetties, as they are called, were pushed out from the land into deep water,--one from the mole on the north, half a mile long, and the other from Point Bab-Azoum on the south, a third of a mile long. In 1850 these were so far complete as to inclose a safe harbor of two hundred acres. But not content, the French have already planned, and possibly are now finished, still other works, by which the perilous roadstead outside this harbor shall be transformed into a secure anchorage of sixteen hundred acres. Past events warrant us in believing that these improvements will be pursued with no slack hand, until astonished Europe finds another Cherbourg, a safe harbor, ample means of repair, and frowning guns to repel all invaders. Imprudent Young France, indeed, whispers now that Algiers makes the Mediterranean a French lake. But that is a little premature. While Gibraltar and Malta hold safely their harbors, and England's naval power is unbroken, no nation can truly make this boast.

* * * * *

The next enterprise of France was hardly so creditable to her as the Algerine conquest. Midway in the Pacific is the island of Tahita or Otaheite,--as fair a gem as the sun ever looked down upon. The soft and balmy air,--the undulating surface, rising to mountains and sinking into deep valleys, luxuriant with tropical verdure,--the distant girdle of coral reefs, which holds the island set in a circlet of tranquil blue waters,--the gentle and indolent temper of the natives,--have all conspired to throw an air of romance around the very name Otaheite. The Christian world is bound to it by another tie. For thither came Protestant missionaries, drawn by the reports of the tractable disposition of the islanders, and labored with such success that in 1817 the king and all his subjects espoused Christianity.

Into this island Eden discord came in the guise of a Roman catechist, who was sent thither for the express purpose of proselyting. As if aware of the nature of his ungracious task, he disguised his real character. But he was detected, and, together with a companion who had joined him, was dismissed from the island by Queen Pomare, who dreaded the sectarian strife his presence would awaken. This was her whole offence. Four years later, in 1838, when the whole transaction might well have been forgotten, Captain De Petit Thouars appeared in the French frigate Venus, and demanded and obtained satisfaction in the sum of two thousand piastres Spanish, and freedom for Catholic worship. In two subsequent visits, though no new offence had been given, he increased the severity of his demands, first putting the island under a protectorate, and finally, in 1843, taking full possession of it as a French colony. The helpless Queen appealed to Louis Philippe, who returned the island, but reaffirmed the protectorate.

This same French protectorate is a rare piece of ponderous irony. The French governor collects all export and import duties, writes all state-papers, assembles and dismisses the island legislature according to his good pleasure, doles out to the Queen a yearly allowance of a thousand pounds, puts her in duress in her own house, if her conduct displeases him, and will not allow her to see strangers, except by his permission. Few will believe that zeal for the honor of the Catholic Church prompted Louis Philippe to inflict so disproportioned a punishment. That the island is the best victualling-station in the South Pacific is a far greater sin, and one for which there could be in covetous eyes no adequate punishment, except that seizure which is so modestly termed a protectorate.

* * * * *

Pass now from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean. There is the little rocky island of St. Paul, situated in the same latitude as Cape Town and Melbourne; and, planted with singular accuracy equidistant from the two, it is the only place of shelter in the long route between them. Its harbor, if harbor it may be called, is the most secure, the most secluded, and the most romantic, perhaps, in the whole world. St. Paul is of volcanic origin. It is, indeed, little more than an extinct crater with a narrow rim of land around it to separate it from the sea. Through this rim the waters of the great Indian Ocean have cut a channel. The crater has thus become a beautiful salt lake, a mile in diameter, clear, deep, almost circular, and from whose border, on every side, rise the old volcanic walls draped in verdure. The strait connecting it with the sea is but three hundred feet wide, and at high tide ten feet deep,--thus affording an easy passage for small vessels into this most delightful seclusion; and no doubt the strait might be so deepened as to float the largest ships. St. Paul is not at present much frequented. But in a sea which is every year becoming more populous with the commerce of every nation, who shall tell what such a central station may become? Its title was somewhat uncertain. England thought she held it as a dependency of Mauritius. But in 1847 the governor of Bourbon, with a happy audacity, took possession of it, as an outpost of his own island, and planted a little French colony of fishermen. We have not heard that the assumption has been disputed.

* * * * *

No doubt, most of our readers may have observed in the daily prints occasional allusions to the French War in Cochin China. Probably few have understood the full meaning of the facts so quietly chronicled. Perhaps none have dreamed that they were reading the first notices of a new Eastern conquest, which, in extent and importance, may yet be second only to that which has already been achieved by the British in Hindostan. Yet so it is. The Cambodia is the largest river in Southern Asia, and, together with the smaller and parallel river of Saigon, drains a tract of not less than five hundred thousand square miles. The region for which the French have been contending includes the provinces which cluster around the mouths of these two rivers, and command them. No position could be happier. For while on the one hand it controls the outlet of a river stretching up into a rich and fertile country eighteen hundred miles, on the other it projects into the Chinese Sea at a point nearly midway between Singapore and Hong Kong, and so secures to its possessor a just influence in that commercial highway. The ostensible cause of the war in this region was the murder of a French missionary. If this was ever the real cause, it long since gave way to a settled purpose of conquest.

In the latter part of the year 1862 the Emperor of Cochin China was forced to cede to France the coveted provinces. Already new fortifications have arisen at Saigon, and dock-yards and coal-depots been established, and all steps taken for a permanent occupation of the territory. The following advertisement appeared in the London "Times" for January 23, 1863,--"Contract for transportation from Glasgow to Saigon of a floating iron dock in pieces. Notice to ship-owners. The administration of the Imperial Navy of France have at Glasgow a floating iron dock in pieces, which they require to be transported from that port to Saigon, Cochin China. The said dock, with machinery, pumps, anchors, and instruments necessary to its working, will weigh from two thousand to twenty-five hundred tons. Ship-owners disposed to undertake the transport are requested to forward their tenders to the Minister of Marine and Colonies previous to the fifth of February next." Now, if we consider that the news of the cession of these provinces did not reach France until the close of the year 1862, that this advertisement is dated January 23, 1863, and that a dock of the magnitude described could hardly be constructed short of many months, we shall be satisfied, that, long before any definite articles of peace had been proposed, the Emperor had settled in his own mind just what region he would annex to his dominions.

* * * * *

We shall not need much argument to convince us that the subjugation of Mexico does not, either in character or methods, differ much from other acts of the French ruler. Nevertheless, the details are curious and instructive. It must be allowed that Mexico had given the Allies causes of offence. She left unpaid large sums due from her to foreign bond-holders. The subjects of the allied powers, temporarily resident in Mexico, were robbed by forced loans, and sometimes imprisoned, and even murdered. To redress these grievances, an expedition was fitted out by the combined powers of England, France, and Spain. The objects of the expedition were, first, to obtain satisfaction for past wrongs, and, second, some security against their recurrence in the future. It was expressly agreed by all parties, that the Mexicans should be left entirely free to choose for themselves their own form of government. Later events would seem to prove that England and Spain were sincere in their professions.

Everything went on smoothly until the capture of Vera Cruz. Then the French Emperor unfolded secret plans which were not contained in the original programme. They were these: To take advantage of the weakness of the United States to establish in Mexico a European influence; to take possession of its capital city; and thence to impose upon the Mexican people a government more agreeable than the present to the Allies. England and Spain retired from the expedition with scarcely concealed disgust, declaring, in almost so many words, that they did not come into Mexico to rob another people of their rights, but to gain redress and protection for their own subjects. Louis Napoleon does not even seek to conceal his intentions from us. "We propose," he says, "to restore to the Latin race on the other side of the Atlantic all its strength and prestige. We have an interest, indeed, in the Republic of the United States being powerful and prosperous; but not that she should take possession of the whole Gulf of Mexico, thence to command the Antilles as well as South America, and to be the only dispenser of the products of the New World." This is plain enough. What will be the final form of settlement we do not even conjecture. It is probable that the Emperor does not himself know. With our fortunes so unsettled, and with so many European jealousies to conciliate, even his astute genius may well be puzzled as to the wisest policy. But it is of no consequence what particular government France may impose upon the conquered State,--monarchical, vice-regal, or republican,--Maximilian, a Bonaparte, or some one of the seditious Mexican chiefs. In either case, if the French plan succeeds, the broad country which Cortés won and Spain lost, will be virtually a dependency of France.

* * * * *

Even while we write, France has embarked in yet other schemes of colonial aggrandizement. She has just purchased the port of Oboch on the eastern coast of Africa, near the entrance of the Red Sea. The place is not laid down upon the maps; nor is its naval and commercial importance known; but its proximity to Aden suggests that it may be intended as a checkmate to that English stronghold. In the great island of Madagascar she is founding mercantile establishments whose exact character have not as yet been divulged; but experience teaches us that these enterprises are likely to be pursued with promptness and vigor.

Thus France is displaying in colonial affairs an aggressive activity which was scarcely to have been expected. To what extent she may perfect her plans no one can prophesy. That she will be able to girdle the earth with her possessions, and rear strongholds in every sea, is not probable. England has chosen almost at her leisure what spots of commercial advantage or military strength she will occupy; and the whole world hardly affords the material for another colonial system as wide and comprehensive.

* * * * *

There is one consideration which ought not to be overlooked. It is this: the relations which Louis Napoleon has succeeded in maintaining between himself and that power which had the most interest in defeating his schemes, and the most ability to do it. Under the Bourbons, the whole policy of France was based upon a principle of settled and unchangeable enmity to England. As a result, war always broke out while French preparations were incomplete; and the concentrated English navy swept from the sea almost every vestige of an opposing force. The present French emperor has adopted an altogether different course. He has sought the friendship of England. He has multiplied occasions of mutual action. He has sedulously avoided occasions of offence. Kinglake, in his "Crimean War," intimates that Louis Napoleon desired this alliance with England and her noble Queen to cover up the terrible wrongs by which he had obtained his authority. It is more likely far that he sought it in order that under its shadow he might build himself up to resistless power: just as an oak planted beneath the shade of other trees grows to strength and majesty only to cut down its benefactors.

This proposal for alliance was unquestionably received by the English people at first with feelings akin to disgust. The memory of the bad faith by which power had been won, of the wrongs and exile of the greatest statesmen and soldiers of France, and of the red carnage of the Boulevards, was too recent to make such a friendship attractive. Though acceptance of it might be good policy, yet it could not be yielded without profound reluctance. But soon this early sentiment gave way to something like pride. It was so satisfactory to think that the allied powers were wellnigh irresistible; that they had only to speak and it must be done; that they could dictate terms to the world; that they could scourge back even the Russian despot, seeking to pour down his hordes from the icy North to more genial climes. It is hardly surprising, then, that men came to congratulate themselves upon so favorable an alliance, and concluded to overlook the defect in his title in consideration of the solid benefits which the occupant of the French throne conferred.

But this feeling could not last. When the people of England saw how inevitably Louis Napoleon reaped from every conflict some selfish advantage, how the Crimean War gave him all the prestige, and the Italian War the coveted province of Nice, they began to doubt his fair professions. And this jealousy is fast deepening into fear. The English people have an instinct of approaching danger. Any one can see that the "_entente cordiale_" is not quite what it once was. When a British Lord of Admiralty can rise in his place in Parliament, and, after alluding to the powerful and increasing naval force of France, add,--"I say that any Ministry who did not act upon that statement, and did not at once set about putting the country in the position she ought to occupy in respect to her navy, would deserve to be sent to the Tower or penitentiary,"--we may be sure that England has as much jealousy as trust, and perhaps quite as much alarm as either.

But we have only to look at her acts to know what England is thinking. For six years she has been engaged in an unceasing war with France,--not, indeed, with swords and bayonets, but as really with her workshops and dockyards. She has tasked these to their uttermost to maintain and increase her naval superiority. And this is not the only evidence we have of her true feeling. The building of new fortifications for her ports, and the enlargement and strengthening of the old defences, all tell the same story of profound distrust. "Plymouth has been made secure. The mouth of the Thames is thought to be impregnable." That is the way English papers write. Around Portsmouth and Gosport she has thrown an immense girdle of forts. We may think what we will of Cherbourg, England views it in the light of a perpetual menace. To the proud challenge she has sent back a sturdy defiance. Right opposite to it, on her nearest shore, she has reared a "Gibraltar of the Channel." If you take your map, you will perceive, facing Cherbourg, and projecting from the southern coast of England, the little island of Portland, which at low tide becomes a peninsula, and is connected with the main land by Chesil Bank, a low ridge of shingle ten miles long. On the extreme north of this island, looking down into Weymouth Bay, is a little cluster of rocky hills, rising sharply to a considerable height, and occupying, perhaps, a space of sixty acres. This is where the fortress, or Veme, as it is called, is built. On the northern side, the cliff lifts itself up from the waters of the bay almost in a perpendicular line, and is absolutely inaccessible. On all other sides the Veme has been isolated by a tremendous chasm, which makes the dry ditch of the fort. This chasm has been blasted into the solid rock, and is nowhere less than a hundred feet wide and eighty feet deep. At the angles of the fortress it widens to two hundred feet, and sinks beneath the batteries in a sheer perpendicular of one hundred and thirty feet. Two bastions jut from the main work into it, protecting it from approach by a terrible cross-fire. All the appointments are upon the same scale. The magazines, the storehouses, the water-tanks, are built to furnish supplies for a siege, not of months, but of years. On every side the rocky surface of the hills has been shaved down below the level of its guns; so that there is not a spot seaward or landward that may not be swept by its tremendous batteries. Such is this remarkable stronghold which is rising to completion opposite Cherbourg. Yet it is but one of several strong forts which are to protect the single harbor of Weymouth Bay. Was this Titanic work reared in the spirit of trust? Does it speak of England's hope of abiding friendship with France? No; it tells us that beneath seeming amity a deadly struggle is going on,--that every dock hollowed, every ship launched, every colony seized, and every fortress reared, is but another step in a silent, but real, contest for supremacy.

When this hidden fire shall burst forth into a devouring flame, when this seeming alliance shall change into open enmity and bitter war, no one can prophesy. But no doubt sooner or later. For between nations, as well as in the bosom of communities, there are irrepressible conflicts, which no alliances, no compacts, and no motives of wisdom or interest can forever hold in check. And when it shall burst forth, no one can foretell what its end shall be. That dread uncertainty, more than all these things else, keeps the peace. We can but think that the naval preëminence of England has grown out of the real character of her people and of their pursuits,--and that the same causes which, in the long, perilous conflicts of the past, have enabled her to secure the sovereignty of the seas, will strengthen her to maintain that sovereignty in all the conflicts which in the future may await her. But, whatever may be the result, to whomsoever defeat may come, nothing can obliterate from the pages of history the record of the sagacity, perseverance, and courage with which the French people and their ruler have striven to overcome a maritime inferiority, whose origin, perhaps, is in the structure of their society and in the nature of their race.

* * * * *

SOMETHING LEFT UNDONE.

Labor with what zeal we will,
Something still remains undone,
Something, uncompleted still,
Waits the rising of the sun.

By the bedside, on the stair,
At the threshold, near the gates,
With its menace or its prayer,
Like a mendicant it waits:

Waits, and will not go away,--
Waits, and will not be gainsaid.
By the cares of yesterday
Each to-day is heavier made,

Till at length it is, or seems,
Greater than our strength can bear,--
As the burden of our dreams,
Pressing on us everywhere;

And we stand from day to day
Like the dwarfs of times gone by,
Who, as Northern legends say,
On their shoulders held the sky.

* * * * *

THE GREAT INSTRUMENT.

Early in the month of November the mysterious curtain which has hidden the work long in progress at the Boston Music Hall will be lifted, and the public will throng to look upon and listen to the GREAT ORGAN.

It is the most interesting event in the musical history of the New World. The masterpiece of Europe's master-builder is to uncover its veiled front and give voice to its long-brooding harmonies. The most precious work of Art that ever floated from one continent to the other is to be formally displayed before a great assembly. The occasion is one of well-earned rejoicing, almost of loud triumph; for it is the crowning festival which rewards an untold sum of devoted and conscientious labor, carried on, without any immediate recompense, through a long series of years, to its now perfect consummation. The whole community will share in the deep satisfaction with which the public-spirited citizens who have encouraged this noble undertaking, and the enterprising; and untiring lover of science and art who has conducted it from the first, may look upon their completed task.

What is this wondrous piece of mechanism which has cost so much time and money, and promises to become one of the chief attractions of Boston and a source of honest pride to all cultivated Americans? The organ, as its name implies, is _the instrument_, in distinction from all other and less noble instruments. We might almost think it was called organ as being a part of an unfinished _organism_, a kind of Frankenstein-creation, half framed and half vitalized. It breathes like an animal, but its huge lungs must be filled and emptied by alien force. It has a wilderness of windpipes, each furnished with its own vocal adjustment, or larynx. Thousands of long, delicate tendons govern its varied internal movements, themselves obedient to the human muscles which are commanded by the human brain, which again is guided in its volitions by the voice of the great half-living creature. A strange cross between the form and functions of animated beings, on the one hand, and the passive conditions of inert machinery, on the other! Its utterance rises through all the gamut of Nature's multitudinous voices, and has a note for all her outward sounds and inward moods. Its thunder is deep as that of billows that tumble through ocean-caverns, and its whistle is sharper than that of the wind through their narrowest crevice. It roars louder than the lion of the desert, and it can draw out a thread of sound as fine as the locust spins at hot noon on his still tree-top. Its clustering columns are as a forest in which every music-flowering tree and shrub finds its representative. It imitates all instruments; it cheats the listener with the sound of singing choirs; it strives for a still purer note than can be strained from human throats, and emulates the host of heaven with its unearthly "voice of angels." Within its breast all the passions of humanity seem to reign in turn. It moans with the dull ache of grief, and cries with the sudden thrill of pain; it sighs, it shouts, it laughs, it exults, it wails, it pleads, it trembles, it shudders, it threatens, it storms, it rages, it is soothed, it slumbers.

Such is the organ, man's nearest approach to the creation of a true organism.

But before the audacious conception of this instrument ever entered the imagination of man, before he had ever drawn a musical sound from pipe or string, the chambers where the royal harmonies of his grandest vocal mechanism were to find worthy reception were shaped in his own marvellous structure. The _organ_ of hearing was finished by its Divine Builder while yet the morning stars sang together, and the voices of the young creation joined in their first choral symphony. We have seen how the mechanism of the artificial organ takes on the likeness of life; we shall attempt to describe the living organ in common language by the aid of such images as our ordinary dwellings furnish us. The unscientific reader need not take notice of the words in parentheses.

The annexed diagram may render it easier to follow the description.

The structure which is to admit Sound as a visitor is protected and ornamented at its entrance by a light movable awning (the external ear). Beneath and within this opens a recess or passage, (_meatus auditorium externus_,) at the farther end of which is the parchment-like front-door, D (_membrana tympani_).

Beyond this is the hall or entry, H, (cavity of the _tympanum_,) which has a ventilator, V, (Eustachian tube,) communicating with the outer air, and two windows, one oval, _o_, (_fenestra ovalis_,) one round, _r_, (_fenestra rotunda_,) both filled with parchment-like membrane, and looking upon the inner suite of apartments (labyrinth).

This inner suite of apartments consists of an antechamber, A, (vestibule,) an arched chamber, B, (semicircular canals,) and a spiral chamber, S, (_cochlea_,) with a partition, P, dividing it across, except for a small opening at one end. The antechamber opens freely into the arched chamber, and into one side of the partitioned spiral chamber. The other side of this spiral chamber looks on the hall by the round window already mentioned; the oval window looking on the hall belongs to the antechamber. From the front-door to the oval window of the antechamber extends a chain, _c_, (_ossicula auditûs_,) so connected that a knock on the first is transmitted instantly to the second. But as the round window of the spiral chamber looks into the hall, the knock at the front-door will also make itself heard at and through that window, being conveyed along the hall.

In each division of the inner suite of apartments are the watchmen, (branches of the auditory nerve,) listening for the approach of Sound. The visitor at length enters the porch, and knocks at the front-door. The watchmen in the antechamber hear the blow close to them, as it is repeated, through the chain, on the window of their apartment. The impulse travels onward into the arched chamber, and startles its tenants. It is transmitted into one half of the partitioned spiral chamber, and rouses the recumbent guardians in that apartment. Some portion of it even passes the small opening in the partition, and reaches the watchmen in the other half of the room. But they also hear it through the round window, not as it comes through the chain, but as it resounds along the hall.

Thus the summons of Sound reaches all the watchmen, but not all of them through the same channels or with the same force. It is not known how their several precise duties are apportioned, but it seems probable that the watchmen in the spiral chamber observe the pitch of the audible impulse which reaches them, while the others take cognizance of its intensity and perhaps of its direction.

Such is the plan of the organ of hearing as an architect might describe it. But the details of its special furnishing are so intricate and minute that no anatomist has proved equal to their entire and exhaustive delineation. An Italian nobleman, the Marquis Corti, has hitherto proved most successful in describing the wonderful _key-board_ found in the spiral chamber, the complex and symmetrical beauty of which is absolutely astonishing to those who study it by the aid of the microscope. The figure annexed shows a small portion of this extraordinary structure. It is from Kölliker's well-known work on Microscopic Anatomy.

Enough has been said to show that the ear is as carefully adjusted to respond to the blended impressions of sound as the eye to receive the mingled rays of light; and that as the telescope presupposes the lens and the retina, so the organ presupposes the resonant membranes, the labyrinthine chambers, and the delicately suspended or exquisitely spread-out nervous filaments of that other organ, whose builder is the Architect of the universe and the Master of all its harmonies.

Not less an object of wonder is that curious piece of mechanism, the most perfect, within its limited range of powers, of all musical instruments, the _organ_ of the human voice. It is the highest triumph of our artificial contrivances to reach a tone like that of a singer, and among a hundred organ-stops none excites such admiration as the _vox humana_; a brief account of the vocal organ will not, therefore, be out of place. The principles of the action of the larynx are easily illustrated by reference to the simpler musical instruments. In a flute or flageolet the musical sound is produced by the vibration of a column of air contained in its interior. In a clarionet or a bassoon another source of sound is added in the form of a thin slip of wood contained in the mouth-piece, and called the _reed_, the vibrations of which give a superadded nasal thrill to the resonance of the column of air.

The human organ of voice is like the clarionet and the bassoon. The windpipe is the tube containing the column of air. The larynx is the mouth-piece containing the reed. But the reed is double, consisting of two very thin membranous edges, which are made tense or relaxed, and have the interval between them through which the air rushes narrowed or widened by the instinctive, automatic action of a set of little muscles. The vibration of these membranous edges (_chordæ vocales_) produces a musical sound, just as the vibration of the edge of a finger-bowl produces one when a wet finger is passed round it. The cavities of the nostrils, and their side-chambers, with their light, elastic sounding-boards of thin bone, are essential to the richness of the tone, as all singers find out when those passages are obstructed by a cold in the head.

The human voice, perfect as it may be in tone, is yet always very deficient in compass, as is obvious from the fact that the bass voice, the barytone, the contralto, and the soprano have all different registers, and are all required to produce a complete vocal harmony. If we could make organ-pipes with movable, self-regulating lips, with self-shortening and self-lengthening tubes, so that each tube should command the two or three octaves of the human voice, a very limited number of them would be required. But as each tube has but a single note, we understand why we have those immense clusters of hollow columns. As we wish to produce different effects, sometimes using the pure flute-sounds, at other times preferring the nasal thrill of the reed-instruments, we see why some of the tubes have simple mouths and others are furnished with vibratory tongues. And, lastly, we can easily understand that the great interior spaces of the organ must of themselves furnish those resonant surfaces which we saw provided for, on a small scale, in the nasal passages,--the sounding-board of the human larynx.

* * * * *

The great organ of the Music Hall is a choir of nearly six thousand vocal throats. Its largest windpipes are thirty-two feet in length, and a man can crawl through them. Its finest tubes are too small for a baby's whistle. Eighty-nine _stops_ produce the various changes and combinations of which its immense orchestra is capable, from the purest solo of a singing nun to the loudest chorus in which all its groups of voices have their part in the full flow of its harmonies. Like all instruments of its class, it contains several distinct systems of pipes, commonly spoken of as separate organs, and capable of being played alone or in connection with each other. Four _manuals_, or hand key-boards, and two _pedals_, or foot key-boards, command these several systems,--the _solo_ organ, the _choir_ organ, the _swell_ organ, and the _great_ organ, and the _piano_ and _forte_ pedal-organ. Twelve pairs of bellows, which it is intended to move by water-power, derived from the Cochituate reservoirs, furnish the breath which pours itself forth in music. Those beautiful effects, for which the organ is incomparable, the _crescendo_ and _diminuendo_,--the gradual rise of the sound from the lowest murmur to the loudest blast, and the dying fall by which it steals gently back into silence,--the _dissolving views_, so to speak, of harmony,--are not only provided for in the swell-organ, but may be obtained by special adjustments from the several systems of pipes and from the entire instrument.

It would be anticipating the proper time for judgment, if we should speak of the excellence of the musical qualities of the great organ before having had the opportunity of hearing its full powers displayed. We have enjoyed the privilege, granted to few as yet, of listening to some portions of the partially mounted instrument, from which we can confidently infer that its effect, when all its majestic voices find utterance, must be noble and enchanting beyond all common terms of praise. But even without such imperfect trial, we have a right, merely from a knowledge of its principles of construction, of the preëminent skill of its builder, of the time spent in its construction, of the extraordinary means taken to insure its perfection, and of the liberal scale of expenditure which has rendered all the rest possible, to feel sure that we are to hear the instrument which is and will probably long remain beyond dispute the first of the New World and second to none in the Old in the sum of its excellences and capacities.

The mere comparison of numbers of pipes and of stops, or of external dimensions, though it gives an approximative idea of the scale of an organ, is not so decisive as it might seem as to its real musical effectiveness. In some cases, many of the stops are rather nominal than of any real significance. Even in the Haarlem organ, which has only about two-thirds as many as the Boston one, Dr. Burney says, "The variety they afford is by no means what might be expected." It is obviously easy to multiply the small pipes to almost any extent. The dimensions of an organ, in its external aspect, must depend a good deal on the height of the edifice in which it is contained. Thus, the vaulted roof of the Cathedral of Ulm permitted the builder of our Music-Hall organ to pile the _façade_ of the one he constructed for that edifice up to the giddy elevation of almost a hundred feet, while the famous instrument in the Town Hall of Birmingham has only three-quarters of the height of our own, which is sixty feet. It is obvious also that the effective power of an organ does not depend merely on its size, but that the perfection of all its parts will have quite as much to do with it. In judging a vocalist, we can form but a very poor guess of the compass, force, quality of the voice, from a mere inspection of the throat and chest. In the case of the organ, however, we have the advantage of being able to minutely inspect every throat and larynx, to walk into the interior of the working mechanism, and to see the adaptation of each part to its office. In absolute power and compass the Music-Hall organ ranks among the three or four mightiest instruments ever built. In the perfection of all its parts, and in its whole arrangements, it challenges comparison with, any the world can show.

Such an instrument ought to enshrine itself in an outward frame that should correspond in some measure to the grandeur and loveliness of its own musical character. It has been a dream of metaphysicians, that the soul shaped its own body. If this many-throated singing creature could have sung itself into an external form, it could hardly have moulded one more expressive of its own nature. We must leave to those more skilled in architecture the detailed description of that noble _façade_ which fills the eye with music as the voices from behind it fill the mind through the ear with vague, dreamy pictures. For us it loses all technical character in its relations to the soul of which it is the body. It is as if a glorious anthem had passed into outward solid form in the very ecstasy of its grandest chorus. Milton has told us of such a miracle, wrought by fallen angels, it is true, but in a description rich with all his opulence of caressing and ennobling language:--

"Anon out of the earth a fabric huge
Rose, like an exhalation, with the sound
Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet,
Built like a temple, where pilasters round
Were set, and Doric pillars overlaid
With golden architrave; nor did there want
Cornice or frieze with bossy sculptures grav'n."

The structure is of black walnut, and is covered with carved statues, busts, masks, and figures in the boldest relief. In the centre a richly ornamented arch contains the niche for the key-boards and stops. A colossal mask of a singing woman looks from over its summit. The pediment above is surmounted by the bust of Johann Sebastian Bach. Behind this rises the lofty central division, containing pipes, and crowning it is a beautiful sitting statue of Saint Cecilia, holding her lyre. On each side of her a griffin sits as guardian. This centre is connected by harp-shaped compartments, filled with pipes, to the two great round towers, one on each side, and each of them containing three colossal pipes. These magnificent towers come boldly forward into the hall, being the most prominent, as they are the highest and stateliest, part of the _façade_. At the base of each a gigantic half-caryatid, in the style of the ancient _hermæ_, but finished to the waist, bends beneath the superincumbent weight, like Atlas under the globe. These figures are of wonderful force, the muscular development almost excessive, but in keeping with their superhuman task. At each side of the base two lion-_hermæ_ share in the task of the giant. Over the base rise the round pillars which support the dome and inclose the three great pipes already mentioned. Graceful as these look in their position, half a dozen men might creep into one of them and lie hidden. A man of six feet high went up a ladder, and standing at the base of one of them could just reach to put his hand into the mouth at its lower part, above the conical foot. The three great pipes are crowned by a heavily sculptured, ribbed, rounded dome; and this is surmounted, on each side, by two cherubs, whose heads almost touch the lofty ceiling. This whole portion of the sculpture is of eminent beauty. The two exquisite cherubs of one side are playing on the lyre and the lute; those of the other side on the flute and the horn. All the reliefs that run round the lower portion of the dome are of singular richness. We have had an opportunity of seeing one of the artist's photographs, which showed in detail the full-length figures and the large central mask of this portion of the work, and found them as beautiful on close inspection as the originals at a distance.

Two other lateral compartments, filled with pipes, and still more suggestive of the harp in their form, lead to the square lateral towers. Over these compartments, close to the round tower, sits on each side a harper, a man on the right, a woman on the left, with their harps, all apparently of natural size. The square towers, holding pipes in their open interior, are lower than the round towers, and fall somewhat back from the front. Below, three colossal _hermæ_ of Sibyl-like women perform for them the office which the giants and the lion-shapes perform for the round towers. The four pillars which rise from the base are square, and the dome which surmounts them is square also. Above the dome is a vase-like support, upon which are disposed figures of the lyre and other musical symbols.

The whole base of the instrument, in the intervals of the figures described, is covered with elaborate carvings. Groups of musical instruments, standing out almost detached from the background, occupy the panels. Ancient and modern, clustered with careless grace and quaint variety, from the violin down to a string of sleigh-bells, they call up all the echoes of forgotten music, such as the thousand-tongued organ blends together in one grand harmony.

The instrument is placed upon a low platform, the outlines of which are in accordance with its own. Its whole height is about sixty feet, its breadth forty-eight feet, and its average depth twenty-four feet. Some idea of its magnitude may be got from the fact that the wind-machinery and the swell-organ alone fill up the whole recess occupied by the former organ, which was not a small one. All the other portions of the great instrument come forward into the hall.

In front of its centre stands Crawford's noble bronze statue of Beethoven, the gift of our townsman, Mr. Charles C. Perkins. It might be suggested that so fine a work of Art should have a platform wholly to itself; but the eye soon reconciles itself to the position of the statue, and the tremulous atmosphere which surrounds the vibrating organ is that which the almost breathing figure would seem to delight in, as our imagination invests it with momentary consciousness.

As we return to the impression produced by the grand _façade_, we are more and more struck with the subtile art displayed in its adaptations and symbolisms. Never did any structure we have looked upon so fully justify Madame de Staël's definition of architecture, as "frozen music." The outermost towers, their pillars and domes, are all _square_, their outlines thus passing without too sudden transitions from the sharp square angles of the vaulted ceiling and the rectangular lines of the walls of the hall itself into the more central parts of the instrument, where a smoother harmony of outline is predominant. For in the great towers, which step forward, as it were, to represent the meaning of the entire structure, the lines are all curved, as if the slight discords which gave sharpness and variety to its less vital portions were all resolved as we approached its throbbing heart. And again, the half fantastic repetitions of musical forms in the principal outlines--the lyre-like shape of the bases of the great towers, the harp-like figure of the connecting wings, the clustering reeds of the columns--fill the mind with musical suggestions, and dispose the wondering spectator to become the entranced listener.

The great organ would be but half known, if it were not played in a place fitted for it in dimensions. In the open air the sound would be diluted and lost; in an ordinary hall the atmosphere would be churned into a mere tumult by the vibrations. The Boston Music Hall is of ample size to give play to the waves of sound, yet not so large that its space will not be filled and saturated with the overflowing resonance. It is one hundred and thirty feet in length by seventy-eight in breadth and sixty-five in height, being thus of somewhat greater dimensions than the celebrated Town Hall of Birmingham. At the time of building it, (1852,) its great height was ordered partly with reference to the future possibility of its being furnished with a large organ. It will be observed that the three dimensions above given are all multiples of the same number, thirteen, the length being ten times, the breadth six times and the height five times this number. This is in accordance with Mr. Scott Russell's recommendation, and has been explained by the fact that vibrating solids divide into _harmonic lengths_, separated by _nodal points_ of rest, and that these last are equally distributed at aliquot parts of its whole length. If the whole extent of the walls be in vibration, its angles should come in at the nodal points in order to avoid the confusion arising from different vibrating lengths; and for this reason they are placed at aliquot parts of its entire length. Thus the hall is itself a kind of passive musical instrument, or at least a sounding-board, constructed on theoretical principles. Whatever is thought of the theory, it proves in practice to possess the excellence which is liable to be lost in the construction of the best-designed edifice.

* * * * *

We have thus attempted to give our readers some imperfect idea of the great instrument, illustrating it by the objects of comparison with which we are most familiar, and leaving to others the more elaborate work of subjecting it to a thorough artistic survey, and the rigorous analysis necessary to bring out the various degrees of excellence in its special qualities, which, as in a human character, will be found to mark its individuality. We shall proceed to give some account of the manner in which the plan of obtaining the best instrument the Old World could furnish to the New was formed, matured, and carried into successful execution.

It is mainly to the persistent labors of a single individual that our community is indebted for the privilege it now enjoys in possessing an instrument of the supreme order, such as make cities illustrious by their presence. That which is on the lips of all it can wrong no personal susceptibilities to tell in print; and when we say that Boston owes the Great Organ chiefly to the personal efforts of the present President of the Music-Hall Association, Dr. J. Baxter Upham, the statement is only for the information of distant readers.

Dr. Upham is widely known to the medical profession in connection with important contributions to practical science. His researches on typhus fever, as observed by him at different periods, during and since the years 1847 and 1848, in this country, and as seen at Dublin and in the London Fever Hospital, were recognized as valuable contributions to the art of medicine. More recently, as surgeon in charge of the Stanley General Hospital, Eighteenth Army Corps, he has published an account of the "Congestive Fever" prevailing at Newborn, North Carolina, during the winter and spring of 1862-63. We must add to these practical labors the record of his most ingenious and original investigations of the circulation in the singular case of M. Groux, which had puzzled so many European experts, and to which, with the tact of a musician, he applied the electro-magnetic telegraphic apparatus so as to change the rapid consecutive motions of different parts of the heart, which puzzled the eye, into successive _sounds_ of a character which the ear could recognize in their order. It was during these experiments, many of which we had the pleasure of witnessing, that the "side-show" was exhibited of counting the patient's pulse, through the wires, at the Observatory in Cambridge, while it was beating in Dr. Upham's parlor in Boston. Nor should we forget that other ingenious contrivance of his, the system of _sound-signals_, devised during his recent term of service as surgeon, and applied with the most promising results, as a means of intercommunication between different portions of the same armament.

In the summer of 1853, less than a year after the Music Hall was opened to the public, Dr. Upham, who had been for some time occupied with the idea of procuring an organ worthy of the edifice, made a tour in Europe with the express object of seeing some of the most famous instruments of the Continent and of Great Britain. He examined many, especially in Germany, and visited some of the great organ-builders, going so far as to obtain specifications from Mr. Walcker of Ludwigsburg, and from Weigl, his pupil at Stuttgart. On returning to this country, he brought the proposition of procuring a great instrument in Europe in various ways before the public, among the rest by his "Reminiscences of a Summer Tour," published in "Dwight's Journal of Music." After this he laid the matter before the members of the Harvard Musical Association, and, having thus gradually prepared the way, presented it for consideration before the Board of Directors of the Music-Hall Association. A committee was appointed "to consider." There was some division of opinion as to the expediency of the more ambitious plan of sending abroad for a colossal instrument. There was a majority report in its favor, and a verbal minority report advocating a more modest instrument of home manufacture. Then followed the anaconda-torpor which marks the process of digestion of a huge and as yet crude project by a multivertebrate corporation.

On the first of March, 1856, the day of the inauguration of Beethoven's statue, a subscription-paper was started, headed by Dr. Upham, for raising the sum of ten thousand dollars. At a meeting in June the plan was brought before the stockholders of the Music Hall, who unanimously voted to appropriate ten thousand dollars and the proceeds of the old organ, on condition that fifteen thousand dollars should be raised by private subscription. In October it was reported to the Directors that ten thousand dollars of this sum were already subscribed, and Dr. Upham, President of the Board, pledged himself to raise the remainder on certain conditions, which were accepted. He was then authorized to go abroad to investigate the whole subject, with full powers to select the builder and to make the necessary contracts.

Dr. Upham had already made an examination of the best organs and organ-factories in New England, New York, and elsewhere in this country, and received several specifications and plans from builders. He proceeded at once, therefore, to Europe, examined the great English instruments, made the acquaintance of Mr. Hopkins, the well-known organist and recognized authority on all matters pertaining to the instrument, and took lessons of him in order to know better the handling of the keys and the resources of the instrument. In his company, Dr. Upham examined some of the best instruments in London. He made many excursions among the old churches of Sir Christopher Wren's building, where are to be found the fine organs of "Father Smith," John Snetzler, and other famous builders of the past. He visited the workshops of Hill, Gray and Davidson, Willis, Robson, and others. He made a visit to Oxford to examine the beautiful organ in Trinity College. He found his way into the organ-lofts of St. Paul's, of Westminster Abbey, and the Temple Church, during the playing at morning and evening service. He inspected Thompson's _enharmonic_ organ, and obtained models of various portions of organ-structure.

From London Dr. Upham went to Holland, where he visited the famous instruments at Haarlem, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam, and the organ-factory at Utrecht, the largest and best in Holland. Thence to Cologne, where, as well as at Utrecht, he obtained plans and schemes of instruments; to Hamburg, where are fine old organs, some of them built two or three centuries ago; to Lubeck, Dresden, Breslau, Leipsic, Halle, Merseburg. Here he found a splendid organ, built by Ladergast, whose instruments excel especially in their tone-effects. A letter from Liszt, the renowned pianist, recommended this builder particularly to Dr. Upham's choice. At Frankfort and at Stuttgart he found two magnificent instruments, built by Walcker of Ludwigsburg, to which place he repaired in order to examine his factories carefully, for the second time. Thence the musical tourist proceeded to Ulm, where is the sumptuous organ, the work of the same builder, ranking, we believe, first in point of dimensions of all in the world. Onward still, to Munich, Bamberg, Augsburg, Nuremberg, along the Lake of Constance to Weingarten, where is that great organ claiming to have sixty-six stops and six thousand six hundred and sixty-six pipes; to Freyburg, in Switzerland, where is another great organ, noted for the rare beauty of its _vox-humana_ stop, the mechanism of which had been specially studied by Mr. Walcker, who explained it to Dr. Upham.

Returning to Ludwigsburg, Dr. Upham received another specification from Mr. Walcker. He then passed some time at Frankfort examining the specifications already received and the additional ones which came to him while there.