Chapter XXVII: Part II: Sonnet--Rydal with Wordsworth (4)

The first of our present conclusions needs only a short explanation. When we say that in every creature there is a motive power which, _considered in its absolute state_, has no need of producing a momentum, we mean that in every creature there is an act which is a principle of activity, but that the exercise of this activity is not required for the substantial perfection and essential constitution of the creature itself, though it may be required for some other reason, as we shall see presently. In fact, every substance has its own complete being independently of accidents; and since the exertion of motive power is an accident, every substance is entitatively independent of it. We conceive that if God had created nothing but an element of matter, such an element would indeed (on its own part) be ready to act and to produce a momentum of movement; but, as there would be no subject capable of receiving a momentum, the motive power would remain _in actu primo_--that is, without actual exertion. And yet it is evident that the non-existence of other elements can have no bearing on the intrinsic constitution and substantial perfection of the element in the question. Therefore the power of an element of matter is a first act, which, as far as the entity of the element itself is concerned, has no need of producing any second act.

Nevertheless, since all creatures must in some manner glorify God as long as they exist, because such is the true and highest end of their existence, hence to every created power some proportionate term or subject corresponds, in which its exertion is received without interruption. In the same manner as the understanding never lacks an intelligible object, and the sense never lacks a sensible term, about which to exercise itself by immanent operation, the motive power of inferior beings never fails to meet a proportionate--that is, movable--term and to impress upon it a momentum of a certain intensity. Hence, when we regard, not the substance of natural things as such, but the natural necessity they are under of tending constantly to the ultimate end of their creation, we see that their first act of moving must always entail some second act, or momentum, in all the terms which it can reach according to its natural determination.

The second conclusion is self-evident; for, if the principle of real movement were not an objective reality, a real effect would proceed from an unreal cause--which is absurd. Nor does it matter that the power is only a “first” act. For, as we have explained above, it is first as compared with the acts which it can produce, but it is intrinsically complete in the entity of the agent, as it is terminated to its substantial term.

The third conclusion is nothing but a corollary of the well-known axiom that in all things the principle of operation is the substantial act: _Forma est id quo agens agit_, and _Principium essendi est principium operandi_. We have proved in another place[156] that no natural accident possesses active power or is actually concerned in any of the effects produced by the agent. This truth should be well understood by the modern scientists who very commonly mistake the conditions of the action for the active principle. Of course no creature can act independently of accidental conditions; but these conditions have no bearing on the active power itself--they only determine (formally and not efficiently) the mode of its application according to a constant law. Thus the distance of two material points has no _active_ influence on their motive power or on their mutual action, but only constitutes the two points in a certain relation to one another; and when such a relation is altered, the action is changed, not because the power is modified, but because its determination to act--that is, its very nature--demands that it should in its application follow the Newtonian law of the inverse ratio of the squared distances.

The philosophers of the old school admitted, but never proved, that, although the substantial form is the main principle of activity in natural things, nevertheless this principle was in need of some accidental entity, that it might be proximately disposed to produce its act. This opinion, too, originated in the confusion of active power with the conditions on which the mode of its exertion depends. What they called “active qualities” is now acknowledged to be, not a new kind of active power superadded to the substantial forms, but merely a result of the concurrence of many simple powers acting under determinate conditions. The accidental change of the conditions entails the change of the result and action, but the active powers evidently remain the same. The ancients said also that the substantial forms were the active principles of substantial generations, whereas the “active qualities” were the active principles of mere alterations. As we have shown that the whole theory of substantial generations, as understood by the peripatetic school, is based on assumption and equivocation, and leads to impossibilities,[157] we may be dispensed from giving a new refutation of the opinion last mentioned.

Our fourth conclusion directly follows from the general principle that the act by which a thing has its first being is its principle of action: _Quo aliquid primo est, eo agit_. The substantial act, considered as to its absolute entity, does not connote action, but simply constitutes the being of which it is the act. In order to conceive it as an active power, we must refer to the effects which it virtually contains--that is, we must consider its virtuality. In this manner what is a second act with regard to the substance of the agent, will be conceived as a first act with reference to the effects it can produce, according to a received axiom: _Actus secundus essendi est actus primus operandi_.

The fifth conclusion, notwithstanding the contrary opinion of many philosophers, is quite certain. For all intrinsic modification is the result of passive reception or passion. Now, to produce a momentum of movement is action, not passion. Therefore, when such a momentum is produced, no other subject is intrinsically modified by it except the one which passively receives it. It is therefore the being which is acted on, not that which acts, that acquires an intrinsic modification. The power of the agent is not entitatively and intrinsically more actuated by action than by non-action. Its action is an extrinsic termination, and gives it nothing but the real denomination of agent, by which it is really related to the term acted on. The patient, by its reception of the momentum, becomes similarly related to the agent, as is evident. And the relation consists in this: that the patient acquires formally an act which the agent virtually contains. This relation is of accidental causality on the one side and of accidental dependence on the other. The foundation of the relation is the accidental action as coming from the one and terminating in the other.

As everything that is in movement must have received the motion from a distinct agent, according to the principle _Omne quod movetur, ab alio movetur_, it follows that whatever is in movement is accidentally dependent on an extrinsic mover; and, since all material elements are both movers and moved, they all have a mutual accidental causality and dependence.

Our sixth conclusion is sufficiently clear from what has been said concerning the sixth conclusion of the preceding series. The momentum of movement is evidently the second act of the motive power--that is, the extrinsic term of its exertion. The entitative distance between two momentums produced by the same mover is an extrinsic relation; for its foundation is the virtuality of the act by which the agent is, as has been explained above. But the same momentums, as possessing greater or less intensity, can also be compared with one another according to their intrinsic entity or degree; and thus they will be found to have a mutual relation arising from an intrinsic foundation.

_Remarks._--As the ubication, so also the momentum produced by accidental action, can be considered both absolutely and respectively. The momentum, considered absolutely, is an act received in a subject--an absolute momentum, an extrinsic term of the virtuality of the motive principle; and, as such a momentum is only one out of the innumerable acts which can proceed from the agent, it has an entity infinitely less than that of the agent. It is evident, in fact, that between a substantial and an accidental act there must be an infinite entitative disproportion, both because no substance can be substantially changed by its accidents, and because the substantial act can never be exhausted, and not even weakened, by the production of accidental acts, as we have established in another place.[158] The momentum is considered respectively when it is compared with another momentum, in which case we can find the relation of the one to the other as to intensity. This intensity is measured by the quantity of the movement to which they give rise when not counteracted.

The unit of intensity is arbitrary in the momentums, as in their principles, for the same reason--that is, because in neither case a natural unit of intensity can be found. The number expressing the relative intensity of a momentum is only virtually discrete, because the momentum is only virtually compounded, since it is not a number of distinct acts, but one act equivalent to many.

_Movement and its affections._--The production of a momentum entails movement. The general definition of movement, according to Aristotle and S. Thomas, is _Actus existentis in potentia ut in potentia_, or, as we would say, an actual passage from one potential state to another. Now, all created being is potential in two manners: first, on account of its passive receptivity; secondly, on account of its affectibility, which is a consequence of its passivity, as we have explained in the “Principles of Real Being.”[159] Hence the momentum of movement, inasmuch as it is received in the patient, actuates its passive potency; and inasmuch as its reception entails a certain mode of being, it affects its resultant potentiality. But besides this double potentiality, which is intrinsic to the subject, there is another potentiality which refers to an extrinsic term, and for this reason movement is considered both as it is a modification of its subject, _ratione subjecti_, and as it points at an extrinsic term, _ratione termini_.

With regard to its subject, movement is usually divided into _immanent_ and _transient_. It is called immanent when it results from immanent acts, as when the soul directs its attention to such or such an object of thought; and it is called transient when it brings about a change in a subject distinct from the agent, as when a man moves a stone, or when the sun moves the earth. But this is inaccurate language; for what is transient in these cases is the _action_, not the _movement_.

With regard to its term, movement is divided into two kinds--that is, movement to a place, _motus ad ubi_, and movement towards a certain degree of perfection or intensity of power, _motus virtutis_.[160] The first is called _local_ movement, of which we will speak presently. The second is subdivided into _intension_, _remission_, and _alteration_. Intension and remission are the acquisition or loss of some degree of perfection or of intensity with regard to power and qualities; alteration is the passage from one kind of quality or property to another. Thus, in water, heat is subject to intension and remission; but when the cohesive force of the molecules is superseded by the expansive force of vapor, there is alteration.

It is important to notice that there is no _motus virtutis_ in primitive elements of matter. The exertion of their power varies indeed according to the Newtonian law, but the power itself is always exactly the same, as its principle is the substantial act, which cannot be modified by accidental action. It is only in material compounds that the _motus virtutis_ can be admitted, for the reason that the active powers and qualities in them are a result of composition; hence a change in the mode of the composition brings about a change in the resultant. So also in spiritual substances there is no _motus virtutis_, because their active faculties are always substantially the same. True it is that the intellect has also its passivity with regard to intelligible species, and that it acts by so much the more easily and perfectly in proportion as it is better furnished with intelligible species distinctly expressed and arranged according to their logical and objective connection. But this cannot mean that the active power of the intellect can be increased, but only that it can be placed in more suitable conditions for its operations. And the like is to be said of all acquired habits; for they give a greater facility of acting, not by intensifying the intrinsic power, but by placing the active faculty in such conditions as are more favorable for its operation.

But let us revert to local movement. This movement may be defined as _the act of gliding through successive ubications_. Such a gliding alters the relations of one body to another, as is evident, but it involves no new intrinsic modification of the subject. As long as the subject continues to move under the same momentum, its intrinsic mode of being remains uniformly the same, while its extrinsic relations to other bodies are in continual change. Hence the local movement of any point of matter merely consists in the act of extending from ubication to ubication, or, as we may say, in _the evolution of the intensity of the momentum into continuous extension_. The reason of this evolution is that the momentum impressed on a subject has not only a definite intensity, but also a definite direction in space; whence it follows that the subject which receives the momentum receives a determination to describe a line in a definite direction, which it must follow, owing to its inertia, with an impetus equal to the intensity of the momentum itself. And in this manner a material point, by the successive flowing of its ubication, describes a line in space, or evolves the intensity of its momentum into extension.

Hence, of local movement we can predicate both _intensity_ and _extension_. The intensity is the formal principle, which, by actuating the inertia or mobility of the subject, evolves itself into extension. The extension is the actual evolution of the momentum, and constitutes the essence of local movement, which is always _in fieri_. And this is what is especially pointed out in Aristotle’s words: _Motus est actus existentis in potentia, ut in potentia_. The _actus_ refers to the intensity, which is not _in fieri_, but has a definite actuality; whilst the _in potentia ut in potentia_ clearly refers to the evolution of extension, which is continually _in fieri_ under the influx of said act. Accordingly, local movement is both intensive and extensive. But this last epithet is to be looked upon as equivalent to “extending,” not to “extended”; for it is the line drawn, or the track of the movement already made, that is properly “extended,” whereas the movement itself is the act of extending it.

The formal intensity of local movement is called _velocity_. We say the _formal_ intensity, because movement has also a _material_ intensity. The formal intensity regards the rate of movement of each element of matter taken by itself, and it is greater or less according as it evolves a greater or a less extension in equal times. The material intensity regards the quantity of matter which is moving with a given velocity, and is measured by the product of the velocity into the mass of the moving body. This product is called the momentum of the body, or its quantity of movement.

Local movement is subject to three affections--viz., _intension_, _remission_, and _inflexion_. In fact, since local movement consists in extending with a certain velocity in a certain direction, it is susceptible of being modified either by a change of velocity, which will intensify or weaken it, or by a change of direction--that is, by inflexion. So long, however, as no agent disturbs the actual movement already imparted to a body, the movement must necessarily continue in the same direction and with the same velocity; for matter, owing to its inertia, cannot modify its own state. This amounts to saying that the tendency uniformly to preserve its rate and its direction is not an accidental affection, but the very nature, of local movement.

This being premised, we are going to establish a series of conclusions, concerning movement and its affections, parallel to that which we have developed in the preceding pages respecting power and its exertions. The reader will see that the chain of our analogies must here end; for, since movement is not action, it affects nothing new, and produces no extrinsic terms, but only entails changes of local relations. On the other hand, the affections of local movement are not of a transient, but of an immanent, character, and thus they give rise to no new entity, but are themselves identified with the movement of which they are the modes. Our conclusions are the following:

1st. There is in all local movement something permanent--that is, a general determination of a lasting character, which has no need of being individuated in one manner more than in another.

2d. This constant determination is an objective reality.

3d. This same determination is nothing accidentally superadded to local movement.

4th. This determination is the virtuality of the momentum of movement, or the act of evolving extension in a definite direction.

5th. This determination is not intrinsically modified by any accidental modification of local movement.

6th. The affections of local movement are intrinsic and intransitive modes, which identify themselves with the movement which they modify.

The first of these conclusions is briefly proved thus: whatever is a subject of real modifications has something permanent. Local movement is a subject of real modifications. Therefore, local movement involves something permanent.

The second conclusion is self-evident.

The third conclusion, too, is evident. For whatever is accidentally superadded to a thing can be accidentally taken away, and therefore cannot belong to the thing permanently and invariably. Hence the constant and fixed determination in question cannot be an accident of local movement.

The fourth conclusion is a corollary of the third. For nothing is necessarily permanent in local movement, except that which constitutes its essence. Now, its essence lies in this: that it must evolve extension at the rate and in the direction determined by the momentum of which it is the exponent. Therefore the permanent determination of which we are speaking is nothing else than the virtuality of the momentum itself as developing into extension. And since the momentum by which the moving body is animated has a determinate intensity and direction, which virtually contains a determinate velocity and direction of movement, it follows that the permanent determination in question consists in the actual tendency of movement to evolve uniformly and in a straight line--_uniformly_, because velocity is the form of movement, and the velocity determined by the intensity of the actual momentum is actually one; _in a straight line_, because the actual momentum being one, it gives but one direction to the movement, which therefore will be straight in its tendency. Whence we conclude that it is of the essence of local movement to have _an actual tendency to evolve uniformly in a straight line_.

Some will object that local movement may lack both uniformity and straightness. This is quite true, but it does not destroy our conclusion. For, as movement is always _in fieri_, and exists only by infinitesimal instants in which it is impossible to admit more than one velocity and one direction, it remains always true that within every instant of its existence the movement is straight and uniform, and that in every such instant it tends to continue in the same direction and at the same rate--that is, with the velocity and direction it actually possesses. This velocity and direction may, of course, be modified in the following instant; but in the following instant, too, the movement will tend to evolve uniformly and in a straight line suitably to its new velocity and direction. Whence it is manifest that, although in the continuation of the movement there may be a series of different velocities and directions, yet the tendency of the movement is, at every instant of its existence, to extend uniformly in a straight line. This truth is the foundation of dynamics.

Our fifth conclusion is sufficiently evident from what we have just said. For, whatever be the intensity and direction of the movement, its determination to extend uniformly in a straight line is not interfered with.

Our last conclusion has no need of explanation. For, since the affections of local movement are the result of new momentums impressed on the subject it is plain that they are intrinsic modes characterizing a movement individually different from the movement that preceded. The tendency to evolve uniformly in a straight line remains unimpaired, as we have shown; but the movement itself becomes entitatively--viz., quantitatively--different.

_Remarks._--Local movement is divided into _uniform_ and _varied_. Uniform movement we call that which has a constant velocity. For, as velocity is the form of movement, to say that a movement is uniform is to say that it has but one velocity in the whole of its extension. We usually call “uniform” all movement whose apparent velocity is constant; but, to say the truth, no rigorously uniform movement exists in nature for any appreciable length of time. In fact, every element of matter lies within the sphere of action of all other elements, and is continually acted on, and continually receives new momentums; the evident consequence of which is that its real movement must undergo a continuous change of velocity. Hence rigorously uniform movement is limited to infinitesimal time.

Varied movement is that whose rate is continually changing. It is divided into _accelerated_ and _retarded_; and, when the acceleration or the retardation arises from a constant action which in equal times imparts equal momentums, the movement is said to be _uniformly_ accelerated or retarded.

_Epilogue._--The explanation we have given of space, duration, and movement suffices, if we are not mistaken, to show what is the true nature of the only continuous quantities which can be found in the real order of things. The reader will have seen that the source of all continuity is motive power and its exertion. It is such an exertion that engenders local movement, and causes it to be continuous in its entity, in its local extension, and in its duration. In fact, why is the local movement continuous _in its entity_? Because the motive action strengthens or weakens it by continuous infinitesimal degrees in each successive infinitesimal instant, thus causing it to pass through all the degrees of intensity designable between its initial and its final velocity. And again: why is the local movement continuous _in its local extension_? Because it is the property of an action which proceeds from a point in space and is terminated to another point in space, to give a local direction to the subject in which the momentum is received; whence it follows that the subject under the influence of such a momentum must draw a continuous line in space. Finally, why is the local movement continuous _in its duration_? Because, owing to the continuous change of its ubication, the subject of the movement extends its absolute _when_ from _before_ to _after_, in a continuous succession, which is nothing but the duration of the movement.

Hence absolute space and absolute duration, which are altogether independent of motive actions, are not _formally_ continuous, but only supply the extrinsic reason of the possibility of formal continuums. It is matter in movement that by the flowing of its _ubi_ from _here_ to _there_ actually marks out a continuous line in space, and by the flowing of its _quando_ from _before_ to _after_ marks out a continuous line in duration. Thus it is not absolute space, but the line drawn in space, that is _formally_ extended from _here_ to _there_; and it is not absolute duration, but the line successively drawn in duration, that is _formally_ extended from _before_ to _after_.

With regard to the difficulties which philosophers have raised at different times against local movement we have very little to say. An ancient philosopher, when called to answer some arguments against the possibility of movement, thought it sufficient to reply: _Solvitur ambulando_--“I walk; therefore movement is possible.” This answer was excellent; but, while showing the inanity of the objections, it took no notice of the fallacies by which they were supported. We might follow the same course; for the arguments advanced against movement are by no means formidable. Yet we will mention and solve three of them before dismissing the subject.

_First._ If a body moves, it moves where it is, not where it is not. But it cannot move where it is; for to move implies not to remain where it is, and therefore bodies cannot move. The answer is, that bodies neither move where they are nor where they are not, but _from_ the place where they are _to_ the place where they are not.

_Second._ A material element cannot describe a line in space between two points without gliding through all the intermediate ubications. But the intermediate ubications are infinite, as infinite points can be designated in any line; and the infinite cannot be passed over. The answer is that an infinite multitude cannot be measured by one of its units; and for this reason the infinite multitude of ubications which may be designated between the terms of a line cannot be measured by a unit of the same kind. Nevertheless, a line can be measured by movement--that is, not by the ubication itself, but _by the flowing_ of an ubication; because the flowing of the ubication is continuous, and involves continuous quantity; and therefore it is to be considered as containing in itself its own measure, which is a measure of length, and which may serve to measure the whole line of movement. If the length of a line were an infinite sum of ubications--that is, of mathematical points--the objection would have some weight; but the length of the line is evidently not a sum of points. The line is a continuous quantity evolved by the flowing of a point. It can therefore be measured by the flowing of a point. For as the line described can be divided and subdivided without end, so also the time employed in describing it can be divided and subdivided without end. Hence the length of a line described in a finite length of time can be conceived as an infinite virtual multitude of infinitesimal lengths, just in the same manner as the time employed in describing it can be conceived as an infinite multitude of infinitesimal instants. Now, the infinite can measure the infinite; and therefore it is manifest that an infinite multitude of infinitesimal lengths can be measured by the flowing of a point through an infinite multitude of infinitesimal instants.[161]

_Third._ The communication of movement, as we know by experience, requires time; and yet time arises from movement, and cannot begin before the movement is communicated. How, then, will movement be communicated? The answer is that time and movement begin together, and evolve simultaneously in the very act of the communication of movement. It is not true, then, that all communication of movement requires time. Our experience regards only the communication of _finite_ movement, which, of course, cannot be made except the action of the agent continue for a finite time. But movement is always communicated by infinitesimal degrees in infinitesimal instants; and thus the beginning of the motive action coincides with the beginning of the movement, and this coincides with the beginning of its duration.

And here we end. The considerations which we have developed in our articles on space, duration, and movement have, we think, a sufficient importance to be regarded with interest by those who have a philosophical turn of mind. The subjects which we have endeavored so far to investigate are scarcely ever examined as deeply as they deserve by the modern writers of philosophical treatises; but there is no doubt that a clearer knowledge of those subjects must enable us to extricate ourselves from many difficulties to be met in other parts of metaphysics. It is principally in order to solve the sophisms of the idealists and of the transcendental pantheists that we need an exact, intellectual notion of space and of time. We see how Kant, the father of German idealism and pantheism, was led into numerous errors by his misconception of these two points, and how his followers, owing to a like hallucination, succeeded in obscuring the light of their noble intellects, and were prompted to deny and revile the most certain and fundamental principles of human reasoning. In fact, a mistaken notion of space lies at the bottom of nearly all their philosophical blunders. If we desire to refute their false theories by direct and categorical arguments, we must know how far we can trust the popular language on space, and how we can correct its inaccuracies so as to give precision to our own phraseology, lest by conceding or denying more than truth demands we furnish them with the means of retorting against our argumentation. This is the main reason that induced us to treat of space, duration, and movement in a special series of articles, as we entertained the hope that we might thus help in cutting the ground from under the feet of the pantheist by uprooting the very germ of his manifold errors.

NOT YET.

Methought the King of Terrors came my way:
Whom all men flee, and none esteem it base.
But lo! his smile forbidding me dismay,
I stood--and dared to look him in the face.
“So soon!” the only murmur in my heart:
For I had shaped the deeds of many years--
Ambitioning atonement, and, in part,
To reap in joy what I had sown in tears.
Then, turning to Our Lady: “O my Queen!
’Twere very sweet already to have won
My crown, and pass to see as I am seen,
And nevermore offend thy Blessed Son:
Yet would I stay--and for myself, I own:--
To stand, at last, the nearer to thy throne.”

SONGS OF THE PEOPLE.

Without going back to abstruse speculations on the origin of music in England (there is a mania in our century for discovering the “origin” of everything, and theorizing on it, long before a sufficient number of facts has been collected even to make a pedestal for the most modest and limited theory), we gather from the mention of it in old English poems, and books on ballads and songs, glees and catches, that it existed in a very creditable form at least eight hundred years ago. Indeed, there was national and popular music before this, and the Welsh songs, the oldest of all, point far back to a legendary past as the source of their being. The first foreign song that mingled with the rude music of the early Britons was doubtless that of the Christian missionaries in the first century of our era, and after that there can have been little music among the converted Britons but what was more or less tinged with a foreign and Christian element. We know, too, that at various times foreign monks either came or were invited to the different kingdoms in England to teach the natives the ecclesiastical chant. Gardiner, in his _Music of Nature_, says that “as the invaders came from all parts of the Continent, our language and music became a motley collection of sounds and words unlike that of any other people; and though we have gained a language of great force and extent, yet we have lost our primitive music, as not a single song remains that has the character of being national.” He also says that before music was cultivated as an art, England, in common with other countries, had its national songs, but that these, with the people who sang them, were driven by the conquerors into Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. This assertion is rather a sweeping one, and the recognized formula about the ancient inhabitants of Britain being _all_ crowded into certain particular districts is one that will bear modifying and correcting. The British Anthropological Society has, during the last ten years, made interesting researches in the field of race-characteristics in different parts of England, and an accumulation of facts has gone far to prove the permanence of some Gaelic, Cymric, and Celtic types in other parts, exclusive of Wales and Cornwall. Dr. Beddoe and Mr. Mackintosh have published the result of their observations, and the latter concludes that “a considerable portion of the west Midland and southwestern counties are scarcely distinguishable from three of the types found in Wales--namely, the British, Gaelic, and Cymrian. In Shropshire, and ramifying to the east and southeast, the Cymrian type may be found in great numbers, though not predominating.… In many parts of the southwest the prevailing type among the working classes is decidedly Gaelic.… North Devon and Dorset may be regarded as its headquarters in South Britain.” Then, again, the district along the borders of Wales, especially between Taunton and Oswestry, and as far east as Bath, shows a population more naturally intellectual than that of any other part of England, and that without any superiority of primary education to account for it. The people are what might be called Anglicized Welsh, and there is among them a greater taste for solid knowledge than in the heart of England. Lancashire is to a great extent Scandinavian, and also somewhat Cymrian, as we have seen, and there the people are known as a shrewd, hardy race, thoughtful and fond of study, and great adepts in music.

At a large school in Tiverton, Devonshire, nine-tenths of the boys presented the most exaggerated Gaelic physiognomy; while at another, near Chichester, the girls were all of the most unmistakable Saxon type. We need not go further in this classification, and only introduced it to show that massing together all British types in Wales and Cornwall is a fallacy, such as all hasty generalizations are. It is not so certain, therefore, that there exists no indigenous element in the old songs that have survived, though in many an altered form, in some of the rural districts of England. Then, again, how is the word “national” used--in the sense of indigenous, or of popular, or of exclusively belonging to one given country? English music was, before the Commonwealth, at least as indigenous as the English language, as that gradually grew up and welded itself together. As to popularity, there was a style of song--some specimens of which we shall give--which was known and used by the poorest and humblest, and a style, too, far removed from the plebeian, though it may have been rather sentimental. Then glees and catches are, though of no very great antiquity, essentially English, and are scarcely known in any other country. If “national” stands for “political,” as many people at this day seem to take for granted, then, indeed, England has not much to boast of. That music is born rather of oppression and defeat, and loves to commemorate a people’s undying devotion to their own race, laws, customs, and rulers. Irish and Welsh and Jacobite songs exhibit that style best, though only the first of the three have any present significance, the two other kinds having long ago become more valuable for their intrinsic or historical merit than for their political meaning. Certain modern English songs, such as “Ye Mariners of England,” “Rule Britannia,” “The Death of Nelson,” might be called national songs in the political sense; but “God Save the King,” though patriotic and loyal, is thoroughly German in style and composition, and therefore hardly deserves the title national.

The Welsh have kept their musical taste pure. Mr. Mackintosh, in his paper on the _Comparative Anthropology of England and Wales_, says of the quiet and thoughtful villagers of Glan Ogwen, near the great Penrhyn slate quarries, that “their appreciation of the compositions of Handel and other great musicians is remarkable; and they perform the most difficult oratorios with a precision of time and intonation unknown in any part of England, except the West Riding of Yorkshire, Lancashire, Worcester, Gloucester, and Hereford.” The three latter are towns where the musical festivals are so frequent that the taste of the people cannot help being educated up to a good standard. Hereford, too, is very near the Welsh border. “The musical ear of the Welsh is extremely accurate. I was once present in a village church belonging to the late Dean of Bangor, when the choir sang an anthem composed by their leader, and repeated an unaccompanied hymn-tune five or six times without the slightest lowering of pitch. The works of Handel, Haydn, Beethoven, and Mozart are republished with Welsh words at Ruthin and several other towns, and their circulation is almost incredible. At book and music shops of a rank where in England negro melodies would form the staple compositions, Handel is the great favorite; and such tunes as ‘Pop goes the Weasel’ would not be tolerated. The native airs are in general very elegant and melodious. Some of them, composed long before Handel, are in the Handelian style; others are remarkably similar to some of Corelli’s compositions. The less classical Welsh airs, in 3-8 time, such as ‘Jenny Jones’ are well known. Those in 2-4 time are often characterized by a sudden stop in the middle or at the close of a measure, and a repetition of pathetic slides or slurs.”

Much of this eulogium might be equally applied to the people of Lancashire, especially the men, who know the great oratorios by heart, and sing the choruses faultlessly among themselves, not only at large gatherings, but in casual reunions, whenever three or four happen to meet. Their part-singing, too, in glees, both ancient and modern, is admirable, and they have scarcely any taste for the low songs which are only too popular in many parts of England.

The songs of chivalry were another graft on the stock of English music, and the honor paid to the bards and minstrels was a mingling of the love of a national institution at least as old as the Druids--some say much older--and of the enthusiasm produced by the metrical relation of heroic feats of arms. The Crusades gave a great impulse to the troubadours’ songs, while the ancient British custom of commemorating the national history by the oral tradition and the music of the harpers, seemed to merge into and strengthen the new order of minstrels. Long before the bagpipe became the peculiar--almost national--instrument of Scotland, the harp held that position, as it has not yet ceased to do, in Ireland and Wales. The oldest harp now in Great Britain is an Irish one, which was already old in 1064. It is now in the museum of Trinity College, Dublin. These ancient instruments were very different from the modern ones on which our grandmothers used to display their skill before the pianoforte became, to its detriment, the fashionable instrument for young ladies; and even now the Irish and Welsh harps are made exactly on the old models, and have no pedals. But the use of the harp was not confined to the Welsh, and in the reign of King John, in the XIIth century, on the occasion of an attack made on the old town of Chester by the Welsh during the great yearly fair, it is recorded in the town annals that the commandant assembled all the minstrels who had come to the place upon that occasion, and marched them in the night, with their instruments playing, against the enemy, who, upon hearing so vast a sound, were filled with such terror and surprise that they instantly fled. In memory of this famous exploit, no doubt suggested by the Biblical narrative of Gideon’s successful stratagem, a meeting of minstrels is annually kept up to this day, with one of the Dutton family at their head, to whom certain privileges are granted. In the reign of Henry I. the minstrels were formed into corporate bodies, and enjoyed certain immunities in various parts of the kingdom. Gardiner[162] says that “the most accomplished became the companions and favorites of kings, and attended the court in all its expeditions.” Perhaps we may refer the still extant office of poet-laureate to this custom of retaining a court minstrel near the person of the sovereign. In the time of Elizabeth the profession of a harper had become a degraded one, only embraced by idle, low, and dissolute characters; and so it has remained ever since, through the various stages of ballad-monger, street-singer and fiddler, in which the memory of the once noble office has been merged or lost. In Scotland the piper, a personage of importance, has taken the place of the harper since the time of Mary, Queen of Scots, who introduced the pipes from France; but in Wales the minstrel, with his harp, upheld his respectability much longer, and even now most of the old families, jealous and proud of their national customs, retain their bard as an officer of the household. The writer has seen and heard one of these ancient minstrels, in the service of a family living near Llanarth, the mistress (a widow) making it her special business to promote the keeping up of all old national customs. She was an excellent farmer, too, and had a pet breed of small black Welsh sheep, whose wool she prepared for the loom herself, and with which she clothed her family and household. In the neighboring town she had got up an annual competition of harpers and choirs for the performance of Welsh music exclusively. The concert was always the occasion of a regular country festivity, ending with a ball, and medals and other prizes were given by her own hand to the best instrumental and vocal artists.

In Percy’s _Reliques_ a description is given of the dress and appearance of a mediæval bard, as personated at a pageant given at Kenilworth in honor of Queen Elizabeth. The glory of the brotherhood was already so much a thing of the past that it was thought worth while to introduce this figure into a mock procession. This very circumstance is enough to mark the decline of the art in those days, but already a new sort of popular song had sprung up to replace the romances of chivalry. “A person,” says Percy, “very meet for the purpose, … his cap off; his head seemly rounded tonsure-wise, fair-kembed [combed], that with a sponge daintily dipt in a little capon’s grease was finely smoothed, to make it shine like a mallard’s wing. His beard smugly shaven; and yet his shirt, after the new trink, with ruffs fair starched, sleeked and glittering like a pair of new shoes; marshalled in good order with a setting stick and strut, that every ruff stood up like a wafer.[163] A long gown of Kendal-green gathered at the neck with a narrow gorget, fastened afore with a white clasp and a keeper close up to the chin, but easily, for heat, to undo when he list. Seemly begirt in a red caddis girdle; from that a pair of capped Sheffield knives hanging at two sides. Out of his bosom was drawn forth a lappet of his napkin [handkerchief] edged with a blue lace, and marked with a true-love, a heart, and _D_ for Damain; for he was but a bachelor yet. His gown had long sleeves down to mid-leg, lined with white cotton. His doublet-sleeves of black worsted; upon them a pair of poynets [wristlets, from _poignet_] of tawny chamlet, laced along the wrist with blue threaden points; a wealt towards the hand of fustian-a-napes. A pair of red neather stocks, a pair of pumps [shoes] on his feet, with a cross cut at the toes for corns; not new, indeed, yet cleanly blackt with soot, and shining as a shoeing-horn. About his neck a red riband suitable to his girdle. His harp in good grace dependent before him. His wrest [tuning-key] tyed to a green lace, and hanging by. Under the gorget of his gown, a fair chain of silver as a squire minstrel of Middlesex, that travelled the country this summer season, unto fairs and worshipful men’s houses. From his chain hung a scutcheon, with metal and color, resplendent upon his breast, of the ancient arms of Islington.” The peculiarities marking his shoes no doubt referred to the long pedestrian tours of the early minstrels.

Chaucer, in the XIVth century, makes frequent mention of music, both vocal and instrumental. Of his twenty-nine Canterbury Pilgrims, six could either play or sing, and two, the Squire and the Mendicant Friar, could do both. Of the Prioress he quaintly says:

“Ful wel she sangé the service devine,
Entunéd in hire nose ful swetély.”

Dr. Burney thinks that part-singing was already known and practised in Chaucer’s time, and draws this inference from the notice the poet takes in his “Dream” of the singing of birds:

“… for some of them songe lowe
Some high, and all of one accorde”;

and it is certain that this kind of music was a great favorite with the English people at a very early period, and was indebted to them for many improvements. The same writer says that the English, in their secular music and in part-singing, rather preceded than followed the European nations, and that, though he could find no music in parts, except church music, in foreign countries before the middle of the XVIth century, yet in England he found Masses in four, five, and six parts, as well as secular songs in the vulgar tongue in two or three parts, in the XVth and early part of the XVIth centuries. Ritson, it is true, in his _Ancient Songs from the Time of King Henry III. to the Revolution_, disputes this, but Hawkins is of the same opinion as Burney. Mr. Stafford Smith, at the end of the last century, made a collection of old English songs written in score for three or four voices; but though the oldest music to such songs is scarcely intelligible, the number collected proves how popular that sort of music was in early times. (Perhaps the illegibility of the music is due to the old notation, in use before the perfected stave of four lines became general--the pneumatic notation, supposed by Coussemaker, Schubiger, Ambros, and other writers on music to have been developed out of the system of accents of speech represented by signs, such as are still used in French.)

Landini, an Italian writer of the XVth century, in his _Commentary on Dante_, speaks of “many most excellent musicians” as coming from England to Italy to hear and study under Antonio _degli organi_ (a name denoting his profession); while another writer, the choir-master of the royal chapel of Ferdinand, King of Naples, mentions the excellence of the English vocal music in parts, and even (incorrectly) calls John of Dunstable (a musician of the middle of the XVth century) the “inventor of counterpoint.”

One of the oldest compositions of this kind is a manuscript score in the British Museum, a canon in unison for four voices, with the addition of two more voices for the _pes_, as it is called, which is a kind of ground, and is the basis of the harmony. The words, partially modernized, are as follows (they are much older than the music, which is only four hundred years old):

“Summer is a-coming in,
Loud sing cuckoo;
Groweth seed
And bloweth mead,
And springeth the weed new.
Ewe bleateth after lamb;
Loweth after calf, cow;
Bullock sterteth [leaps],
Buckè verteth [frequents green places],
Merry sing cuckoo;
Nor cease thou ever now.”

Dr. Burney says of this song that the modulation is monotonous, but that the chief merit lies in “the airy, pastoral correspondence of the melody with the words”--a merit which many modern compositions of the “popular” type are very far from possessing. Under the Tudors music made rapid strides. Dr. Robert Fairfax was well known as a composer in those days, and a collection of old English songs with their music (often in parts), made by him, has been preserved to this day. Besides himself, such writers as Cornyshe, Syr Thomas Phelyppes, Davy, Brown, Banister, Tudor, Turges, Sheryngham, and William of Newark are represented. Of these, Cornyshe was the best, and Purcell, two hundred years later, imitated much of his rondeau style, most of these composers being entirely secular. Henry VIII. himself wrote music for two Masses, and had them sung in his chapel; and to be able to take a part in madrigals, and sing at sight in any piece of concerted music, was reckoned a part of a gentleman’s education in those days. The invention of printing gave a great impulse to song-writing and composing, though for some time after the words were printed the music was probably still copied by hand over the words; for the printing of notes was of course a further and subsequent development of the new art. A musician and poet of the name of Gray became a favorite of Henry VIII. and of the Protector Somerset “for making certain merry ballades, whereof one chiefly was ‘The hunt is up--the hunt is up.’”[164]

“A popular species of harmony,” says Ritson, “arose in this reign; it was called ‘King Henry’s Mirth,’ or ‘Freemen’s Songs,’ that monarch being a great admirer of vocal music. ‘Freemen’s Songs’ is a corruption of ‘Three-men’s Songs,’ from their being generally for three voices.” Very few songs were written for one voice.

Ballads were very popular, and formed one of the great attractions at fairs. An old pamphlet, published in the reign of Elizabeth, mentions with astonishment that “Out-roaring Dick and Wat Winbars” got twenty shillings a day by singing at Braintree Fair, in Essex. It does seem a good deal, considering that the sum was equal to five pounds of the present money, which again is equivalent to about thirty dollars currency. These wandering singers, the lowly successors of the proud minstrels, were in their way quite as successful; but, what is more wonderful, their songs were for the most part neither coarse nor vulgar. Good poets wrote for music in those days; _now_, as a general rule, it is only rhymers who avowedly write that their words may be set to music. As quack-doctors, fortune-tellers, pedlers, etc., mounted benches and barrel-heads to harangue the people, and thus gained the now ill-sounding name of mountebanks, so too did these singers call over their songs and sing those chosen by their audience; and they are frequently called by the writers of those times _cantabanchi_, an Italian compound of _cantare_ (to sing) and _banchi_ (benches). Among the headings given of these popular songs are the following: “The Three Ravens: a dirge”; “By a bank as I lay”; “So woe is me, begone”; “Three merry men we be”; “But now he is dead and gone”; “Now, Robin, lend me thy Bow”; “Bonny Lass upon a green”; “He is dead and gone, Lady,” etc. There is a quaint grace and sadness about the titles which speaks well for the manners of those who listened and applauded. Popular taste has certainly degenerated in many parts of England; for such titles _now_ would only provoke a sneer among an average London or Midland county audience of the lower classes. Gardiner says: “The most ancient of our English songs are of a grave cast, and commonly written in the key of G minor.”

Among the composers of the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. was Birde, who wrote a still popular canon on the Latin words “Non nobis, Domine,” and set to music the celebrated song ascribed to Sir Edward Dyer, a friend of Sir Philip Sidney, “My Mind to me a Kingdom is.”

Birde’s scholar, Morley, produced a great number of canzonets, or short songs for three or more voices; and Ford, who was an original genius, published some pieces for four voices, with an accompaniment for lutes and viols, besides other pieces, especially catches of an humorous character. George Kirbye was another canzonet composer, and Thomas Weelkes has been immortalized by the good-fortune which threw him in Shakspere’s way, so that the latter often wrote words for his music. Yet doubtless the fame of the one, as that of the other, was chiefly posthumous; and poet and musician, on a par in those days, may have starved in company, unknowing that a MS. of theirs would fetch its weight in gold a hundred years after they were in their graves.