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to read many more of your productions with our former delight, instead of the real regret with which we have perused" The Liberal." For our own sakes, as well as for yours, we would seriously advise you no longer to continue such a publication, with such an associate. For your own sake, and for the sake of that land of which you might still be an ornament, we would prevent you from hardening and encrusting your own heart with pride and self-conceit; we would save you from that debasement of intellect, that induration and ossification of mind, which invariably follow upon a long indulgence in impure thoughts, misanthropic sensuality; gross, low, and profligate licentiousness. We would warn you against blending things honourable and sacred with things base, grovelling, and contemptible, until you have lost the perception of the difference; from sneering at all lofty, generous, and dignified emotions, until you become incapable of feeling and appreciating them; until you become a being, upon whom lovers of their country will look with disdainful indignation, and Christians, my Lord, with melancholy compassion. When you step out of your proper sphere, be assured, that you are only a common man; and "The Liberal" at best will be no better than an ordinary magazine. On the other hand, my Lord, what a wide field of fame and utility is open to you. What glorious prizes are still within your reach. We will not believe, that you can be so infatuated as to pursue a scheme in which your time is worse than wasted, your talents are worse than misapplied, when you might be nobly and happily employed in the composition of works, worthy of yourself, honourable to your age and country, and shedding lustre upon the powers of the human intellect.

My Lord, we have now spoken our minds. There are many persons, we believe, who have been prevented from addressing you with freedom, by their fears of the caustic severity of your retorts. We certainly are not of the number. However formidable you may be as an adversary, we are perfectly assured, that while the contest turns upon the points mentioned in this letter, we shall not suffer the most from the encounter. It may be well for you, if you

receive our strictures with the same spirit in which they are written:-bur at all events they are fully at your service. We are, my Lord,

Your Lordship's most obedient servants,

THE COUNCIL OF TEN.

ROYAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC.

THE establishment of the Royal Academy of Music being likely to form an era in the musical annals of this country, there can be no one of our readers, whose mind is in the least degree susceptible of the charms of this fascinating art, that will not think a few of our pages well bestowed în an investigation of the origin, plan, and probable utility of this new society. In the first place, however, we will clear the ground a little, by offering a few observations on the comparative state of the musical art, in our own and neighbouring countries; trying, as we proceed, strictly to define the sense in which we receive certain musical terms, that are often used so vaguely as to confuse all argument on this subject. It is very generally said, that there are but two genuine schools of music in Europe; namely, the vocal school of Italy, and the instrumental one of Germany. Here the question naturally arises, what is strictly meant by the term school? By some it has been confounded with style, and a national school, or style of music, have been considered as synonymous expressions. The more received sense, however, of the word school, as applied to the music of a nation, is a predominance of talent and originality of taste amongst certain individuals of that nation, applied to form a code of harmonic laws, (if I may so express myself), for some particular branch of the musical art, to the justice of which, the cultivated ear of surrounding nations spontaneously assents, willingly submitting native taste and prejudices to this foreign musical aristocracy. In this sense, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, are the most prominent of the German instrumental aristocracy; as Cherubini, Pae

siello, Cimarosa, and more recently, perhaps, Rossini, are of the Italian vocal one.

If we turn from these countries to France, which must certainly be allowed the next rank in musical importance, we shall find that she possesses no school of music, at least none to which the above definition is applicable; it is true that in the style of the " petit opéra" the French music has a pleasing gaiety of character very distinct from that species of composition in other countries, and that it is frequently received and naturalized by several adjoining nations; still its reception out of France, is far from being general, neither is its superiority to the light opera music of Italy asserted by any but Frenchmen, or its style imitated by foreign composers; whilst the music of Italy and Germany, have imitators and performers throughout the world.France has then no legitimate claim to a national school of music, in the sense we have received this term. Let us now consider the music of our own country, and see how far we have at present, the power of competing with the nations already named.-It must at once be allowed that we have no school of music, according to the present definition. Many of our glees are truly beautiful and perfectly original compositions, but, speaking as travellers, we must own that we have never been able to convince foreign musicians of their peculiar merit. We were present once at Paris, at an attempt made, in a mixed musical circle of Italians, French, and English, to sing two or three of Webbe's best glees; the voices were good and the glees were really well sung, without any instrumental accompaniment: they made, however, no sensation, and the utmost that was said was, with a non-chalant air, " Oui, oui, la musique est belle,-belle pour l'église," and though the singers were frequently after in the same musical society, they were never asked to repeat their national compositions. We only state the above anecdote, en passant, as an instance that any peculiarity of merit in our own favourite style of vocal music, has not yet been acknowledged abroad, nor is likely to be so.-Were the question asked, whence arises the insen. sibility of foreigners, to the beauties of our part-songs? We should answer, that the nationality of the melodies o

them, is the principal reason: the melodies of our glees, have generally a character very distinct from the part-songs of either the Italians, French or Germans; and, it must be confessed, partake a good deal of the ecclesiastical style of music, having originated in the madrigals, which were, many of them, church music adapted to profane words.

Now music is, to a very great extent, an imitative art, and the taste of different nations for different styles is, in some measure, factitious; the impression that any peculiar style of music makes on the human mind depending, in no inconsiderable degree, on the organs of the hearer having been prepared by habit to receive such sounds. We doubt much, for instance, whether the music of Mozart would cause any degree of pleasurable sensation to the ear of a South Sea islander; we are inclined to believe that the contrary effect would take place, and that he would endeavour to make his escape as soon as possible-and this it is which, in a slighter degree, operates on the musical tastes of more polished nations. They have tacitly agreed to receive the two great schools of German and Italian music (the former, even to the present moment, not without much opposition.) To these, then, the national ear of all civilized people has become accustomed, whilst each country seems to determine that, beyond the pale of these two conspicuous musical schools, there is nothing good, excepting its own compositions, which it would fain indeed believe are often equal, if not superior, in merit to those even of Italy or Germany:-thus many a true Frenchman (a good theorist too) will, from his heart, prefer a song of Gretry or Boieldieu to one of Paesiello or Rossini: an Englishman will prefer to either a five-part glee of Webbe, or, perhaps, a song of Purcell or Dibdin; and thus, we take it, does the national taste of all countries operate.-Besides, several foreign nations have an advantage over the English in possessing a more generally pleasing character of national music; the Spanish dance, the light opera of the French, will easily make their way in foreign countries from their gaiety and point, whereas England has unfortunately but one style of music with any peculiarity of merit, namely. part-songs, which can hardly be said to have attained

much popularity, even at home, and form decidedly the style most unlikely to give a predominant character to our music on the Continent. We here do not at all rest on the merit of our ballad compositions, the general taste of which must be allowed, even by ourselves, to be common-place and dull (we might almost use the term vulgar) beyond those of all other European nations (Holland always excepted.) We are aware that there are some striking exceptions to this remark. not, however, in sufficient number to invalidate its general truth; and it must be remembered, that we are here speaking of purely English, and not Scotch melodies, the-best of which are obviously imitative of the Italian school. This dearth in England of good popular music may in some measure be accounted for by the two following remarks: 1st., That the higher ranks of society find it so easy in this wealthy country to command the talent of the first Italian and German artists, that they have not, hitherto, thought it worth the trouble to patronise and foster native musical genius, the consequence of which has been, 2ndly, That our native composers and performers have been left to trim their talent down to the level of the middle ranks in life, who decidedly, in England, are not gifted with much musical taste. What, indeed, can be clearer than the necessity which artists are under thus to bring down their genius and acquirements to the level of those whom it is their interest to please? Were they not to do so, they might, like the painter in England of a large altar-piece, reap honour; but the gifts of fortune would escape them; there is but one sure rule by which a composer of dramatic music in any country can succeed, and this is, to be a little, and but a little, above the taste of the town-no one in his senses would at present dare to venture on the composition' of an opera for the English stage with music in the style of Rossini; the experiment would be sure to fail. We have a tolerably striking illustration of this truth, in the languid reception of some translations from the operas of Mozart and Rossini, even with a great part of the music served up, (for the words are expressive of our meaning,) to the British public under the more engaging form of melo-dramatic accompaniment, as in the

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