cheerfulness. It is the clumsy gambol of a lettered elephant. We wonder that so grave an animal should have strayed into the province of the ape; yet admire that practice should have given the bulky quadruped 30 much agility.

• Upon the whole, Johnson's style appears to me so encumbered, so void of ear and harmony, that I know no modern writer whose works can be read aloud with so little satisfaction. I question whether one should not read a page of equal length in any modern author, in a minute's time less than one of Johnson's, all proper pauses and accents being duly attended to in both.

• His works are the antipodes of taste, and he a schoolmaster of truth, but never its parent; for his doctrines have no novelty, and are never inculcated with indulgence either to the froward child or to the dull one. He has set nothing in a new light, yet is as diffuse as if we had every thing to learn. Modern writers have improved on the ancients only by conciseness. Dr. Johnson, like the chymists of Laputa, endeavours to carry back what has been digested, to its pristine and crude principles. He is a standing proof that the Muses leave works unfinished, if they are not embellished by the Graces."

We do not insert this criticism because we approve it, but in order to censure the arrogance and injustice of Lord Orford's decisions. Had he attacked Johnson's Jacobitical principles in early life, and his numerous writings against Sir Robert Walpole and the Whigs, we should have joined him: but in not only condemning his style, but his want of genius, we cannot in justice to ourselves, as well as to the memory of the venerable moralist, refrain from taking up arms in his defence.

Lord Orford condemns a marked manner:- but have not the greatest writers, like the greatest painters, a style and manner by which critics and connoisseurs discover them? and are not the styles of Shakspeare, Milton, Dryden, and Pope, as well known and as universally admired as those of Raphael, Titian, Coreggio, and Rubens? and does not Shakespeare call a dull, insipid man, "a fellow without mark or likelihood?" Cicero, in writing on philosophical subjects, was obliged to introduce Greek terms, because the Roman language could supply him with none for new ideas; and Johnson's great and comprehensive conceptions could not be conveyed in common language. He excites no passions but indignation,' says the noble critic :-the voice of the public, we believe, speaks otherwise. Whose works are read with more delight and instruction?-Lord Orford even condescends to call names, to which we make no reply :-yet in defence of the great writer's style, it may be asked whether he has injured our language by making it more grammatical? or whether, by avoiding the use of proverbs, cant phrases, and colloquial barbarisms, which can

not

not be translated, he has not rendered it more intelligible to foreigners, and to posterity? If the same ideas can be conveyed in elegant and grammatical language, without antient idioms and vulgar phraseology, the admirers of Johnson will probably tell us that they willingly resign the beauties of our antient dialect, to the conjectures of antiquaries and commentators.

• Strange occurrences' are well selected and pleasantly related. Detached thoughts. These consist of antitheses and prettinesses, more than depth of thinking, or elegant expression. We select two or three of the best.

• Many new pieces please on first reading-if they have more novelty than merit. The second time they do not please, for surprise has no second part.'

Posterity always degenerates till it becomes our ancestors." • Men are often capable of greater things than they perform. They are sent into the world with bills of credit, and seldom draw to their full extent.'

Miscellaneous Verses.

The first of these, the Funeral of the Lioness, we fear was meant to ridicule a great personage, on a very melancholy occasion; and the vignettes seem to confirm our apprehension.

The Verses on the Looking glass are pleasant, but would surely read much better if, instead of the Galicism one (on) so often repeated, in the last six lines, the pronouns we and our were to be used.

Some of these lines are rough, and the measure with which the author commences is forgotten :-which is the case in the following portrait de Madame la Marquise du Deffand, a bluestocking friend of our author at Paris. In other respects, the thoughts are ingenious and lively.

• Where do Wit and Memory dwell?
Where is Fancy's favourite cell?
Where does Judgment hold her court,
And dictate laws to Mirth and Sport?
Where does Reason-not the dame
Who arrogates the sage's name,
And, proud of self-conferr'd degree,
Esteems herself Philosophy !
But the Reason that I mean,
Slave of Truth, and Passion's queen,
Who doubts, not dictates, seeks the best,
And to Presumption leaves the rest :
With whom resides the winning Fair?
With Rousseau? - No; nor with Voltaire;

Nor where leaf-gold of eloquence.
Adorning less than veiling sense,

02

Dazzles

Dazzles the passions it can heat,
And makes them party to the cheat.
Where does Patience (tell who know)
Bear irremediable woe;
And, though of life's best joy bereft,
Smile on the little portion left?

• Lastly, tell where boundless flows
The richest stream that Friendship knows
That neither laves the shores of Love,
Nor bathes the feet of Pride above;
But, rolling 'twixt disparted coasts,
Impartial glides through rival hosts;

}

And, like St. Charity, divides
To Gaul and Albion equal tides?

• Together all these virtues dwell:
St. Joseph's convent * is their cell :
Their sanctuary, Du Deffand's mind-
Censure, be dumb ! she's old † and blind."

The chief merit of these vers de société consists in jocularity and good-humour. They are local and temporary, and not sufficiently polished and important to deserve a place in so pompous an edition of the author's works.

The following Song is spritely and playful:

• What a rout do you make for a single poor kiss!

I seiz'd it, 'tis true, and I ne'er shall repent it:
May he ne'er enjoy one, who shall think 'twas amiss!
But for me, I thank dear Cytherea, who sent it.
• You may pout, and look prettily cross; but I pray,
What business so near to my lips had your cheek?
If you will put temptation so pat in one's way,

Saints, resist if ye can; but for me, I'm too weak.

But come, my sweet Fanny, our quarrel let's end;
Nor will I by force what you gave not, retain:
By allowing the kiss, I'm for ever your friend-
If you say that I stole it, why take it again."

The letters at the end of this volume, between the author and his friend Mr. West, discover the early time of life at which they were written, in their perpetual effort at wit and display of learning. In those of Mr. Walpole, we remark much original humour and oddity; and those of Mr. West display genius and thinking of a more serious kind. Most readers

** The convent at Paris, within whose precincts the marquise du Deffand had apartments." + In the year 1766 she was 65 years old. She died at the age of 83.

must be acquainted with this amiable young writer (West) from his correspondence with Gray, in the agreeable life of that polished poet which has been published by Mr. Mason All that is left of him was produced in sickness during a gradual decay: but there remain sufficient specimens of his genius, to render it probable that he would have obtained a conspicuous niche in the Temple of Fame, had a restoration to health, and longevity, been his portion.

[To be concluded in our next Number.]

ART. IX. Melody the Soul of Music: an Essay towards the Improvement of the Musical Art: with an Appendix, containing an Account of an Invention. 8vo. pp. 82. Glasgow, printed at the Courier Office. 1798.

THIS pamphlet is divided into three parts; of which the first

relates to the

Theory of Melody; its Use and Corruption.

The benevolence of the ingenious author seems equal to that of a father who is said, when on his death-bed, to have revealed to his son the invaluable secret, that "the wing of a hare was the best part of that favourite animal;" for he kindly informs the public that melody is better than harmony, and that Scots tunes, and airs equally artless, never intended to be clothed with harmony, constitute all the music to which lovers of that art should listen, or which Artists themselves should cultivate.

Unluckily for his system, music is too highly cultivated in this country for professors to adopt such simplicity as this author wants, and which would save musicians infinite study, pains, and labour. Tunes of the nursery and the street are very pleasing, in their place, to those who voluntarily listen to them: but, at an opera, oratorio, or public concert, where the audience, among many that are equally ignorant of good composition and accurate performance, consists of others who are themselves good performers and good judges; they would not be contented with a bag-piper, or an ale-house Welshharper, though he should treat them with the grave simple airs to which our author seems so partial. Are Handel's elaborate and sublime choruses simple music? Do the exquisite slow movements in Haydn's admirable symphonies, or the graceful and pathetic airs in the operas of Sacchini and Paesiello, 'more resemble the incoherencies of a madman, than the persuasive and delightful eloquence of a moving orator?'

The author has frequently quoted Dr. Burney, and sometimes against himself. We have turned to the Doctor's history

of music, and we find that he is as great an enemy to the abuse of complication and execution as this writer can be : but he distinguishes very properly, we think, between simplicity and rusticity. Science and dexterity in the performance of instruments are not to be abolished in order to flatter ignorance, and the uncultivated ears of one set of hearers only. The worthy Dr. Beattie is quoted by the essayist in favour of simplicity in music: but, though we respect his good taste in poetry, morality, and theology, yet, when he writes on the subject of music with little knowlege or experience in refined, polished, or learned compositions, and with strong prejudices in favour of the national music of his country, we cannot but regard his musical decisions as narrow and contracted. The public are too ready to suppose that persons who have excelled in one branch of art or science, which they have particularly cultivated, are indued with knowlege in others of which they are totally ignorant. Pope, Swift, and Johnson, deemed music so trivial an art that it degraded human nature, and they treated its votaries as fools :- but their ears were so defective, that a totally blind person was as well qualified to decide critically on painting, as these great writers were with respect to music. Dr. Beattie's ear is not physically defective, but prejudiced in favour of old ditties with which it has been fed.

What the author imagines in hearing the Cameronians rant is as fanciful as seeing images in the fire, and good and bad fortune in coffee-grounds. However, music can scold and sooth; it can awaken various ideas and reminiscences; it can paint: but it cannot reason.

More notes are certainly wanting in instruments than from the voice, in order to produce the same effects, and to exhibit the power and genius of an instrument such as a harpsichord, harp, or lute; which cannot sing, that is, not sustain the sounds like a voice, violin, flute, or hautbois. Yet these can produce harmony, and give an idea of melody: but simple melody on instruments of which the tones are transient has no other expression than loud and soft. Indeed, our ancestors cultivated no melody out of the church but vulgar old ballad tunes, such as our author wishes to monopolize the musical scale-but, as this cultivation consisted of only multiplying notes on the virginal in variations of the most difficult and unmeaning kind, and in which no simplicity, passion, nor expression were ever attempted, they prove that something more was wanted than these tunes, even in the infancy of music.

We have heard, as well as the author of this essay, from very good authority, that Dr. Haydn was extremely affected by the mass of sound produced at St. Paul's by the charity children.