sionally for loud choruses. The relative minor of this, G, is said to be "meek and pensive; replete with melancholy." The "Miserere" by Allegri, which we have described above, is in this key.

E flat, major. Mr. Gardiner describes this as "full, mellow, soft and beautiful." It is a key in which all musicians delight; though less decided in its character than some of the others, the regularity of its beauty renders it a general favorite. This key has been used with wonderful effect by Haydn on one occasion. It is undoubtedly well known to many of our readers, that Haydn composed a set of pieces which were intended to represent the last scene in the life of our Saviour. They are commonly called "The seven last words." Seven different expressions or exclamations, reported by the different Evangelists as having been uttered by our Saviour in his last hours, are taken as the subjects of these. The last but one of these is written for the words, "Into thy hands I commend my spirit," and the key of E flat has been selected as best fitted to give them expression. Never was a more serene and soothing, yet deeply solemn melody, conceived; it conveys to us the peace of a spirit, whose last agony has passed away, and which is about to ascend to heaven. There is nothing, in this portion, of the heart-rending pathos and despair, or the bursts of terrible suffering which have made us shudder in the former parts of the composition: all is gentle, composed and tranquil; and as the sounds fade away, we feel that our hearts are comforted, and that the effect of the other portions would have been too powerful but for the soothing influence of this.

A flat, major. Described as "the most lovely of the tribe, unassuming, gentle, soft, delicate, and tender." This key will be easily recognised by most of our readers, as a great number of the psalm tunes in Zeuner's collections of sacred music are composed in it. Among the more remarkable and best known are Hummel and the Missionary Chant. The relative minor of this key, F, is said to be "religious, penitential, and gloomy." In the "Seven last words," Haydn has selected this as best fitted for the words "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"— and it is by far the most solemn and pathetic part of the whole composition; the cry of agony and the sound of wailing are expressed with fearful power in this wonderful piece. That fine old air, "Roslin Castle," a universal favorite, is enough to make known the characteristics of the key of F minor.

We cannot close our remarks without one piece of advice to

organists: namely, that they should never attempt to play extempore unless they have some sentiment distinctly felt to which they wish to give utterance. Nothing is more stale, flat, and unprofitable, than the vague running over the keys of the instrument, or modulating from key to key without any definite object. All the science in the world, and even a fine ear for music will be of little avail unless the organist has the proper spirit for his duty. He should be deeply impressed with the sacredness of his task; he should feel that he is not a mere hireling engaged to do a certain amount of drudgery, but that he is called upon to offer up to God a sublime tribute of adoration. Inspired with holy reverence and awe, he should seek to pour out his soul in praise to the Almighty. And if he comes to the work with such feelings, he will find the noble instrument not wanting in the power to give utterance to his devotion.

ART. IV.—Remains of the late Right Reverend Daniel Sandford, D. D. Oxon. Bishop of Edinburg in the Scottish Episcopal Church; including Extracts from his Diary and Correspondence, and a selection from his unpublished Sermons, with a memoir by the REV. JOHN SANDFORD, Vicar of Chillingham. Edinburg: 1830. 2 vols. 8vo.

THERE is little likelihood, we apprehend, of an American reprint of these volumes containing the Remains of Bishop Sandford, and a memoir of his life by one of his sons. The enterprise of publishers, in common with others, has been obstructed by commercial disorders. But even when the current of republication is flowing with a full tide, the channel is very apt to be choked with the light rubbish of the foreign press-court gossip and trashy novels-apocryphal travels and biographies of vagabond players-memoirs of men of abandoned character and of women not much better. It is however, by no means our intention to imply that when a publisher gives to a work calculated to win an innocent though short-lived popularity a preference over others of more substantial merit but of less certain success,

there is any ground for legitimate complaint. The latter may not be good in the trade sense of the term, and unquestionably there is no obligation on a publisher to sacrifice himself for the contingent benefit of sound literature. Such simple-hearted enthusiasm would soon close its labors of love with bankruptcy, and by increasing the risk of the trade extend its injury still further. Our estimate of the duties of publishers is reasonable, though we cannot but believe that the selection of foreign works for republication is often checked by a little too much timidity. An increased confidence in the intelligence of the people-a better disposition to elevate the standard of the taste for reading, by administering rather more nourishing and wholesome diet, would, we feel persuaded, secure larger and more certain profits to those whose dealings in literature are with it only as so much merchandise-something to be trafficked with. It is not pleasant to think such thoughts about books, still less to give them utterance. The student is accustomed to the reflection that "books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a progeny of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are" that "a good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life," and it sadly damps his enthusiasm to behold them dealt with like a bale of cloth or a crate of crockery. But these things must be; the publisher is right, for it is his vocation to speculate, not on the remote fame of a book, but on its virtues for the market; it is not enough for him to believe that it may pass into the enduring literature, which is transmitted from one age to another, he must be persuaded that it is endowed with the power of earning present readers-the charm that creates a demand and a sale. While we are thus disposed to be very moderate in our expectations of the services to be rendered by publishers in giving currency to works of high and permanent merit, there is a word or two to be said touching their responsibilities. We call on them to make no sacrifices of personal interest-no man is required to be guilty of the infatuation, when he is seeking his livelihood, of embarking in any enterprize that will take the bread from out his mouth. Let them publish only what will yield a profit; but when they dare to publish indiscriminately any thing that will profit them, it ought to be at the risk of outraging the moral sense of an offended community. The frailty of poor human nature will always supply the ready purchaser of all that misguided intellects and corrupt hearts are able to invent, and when the publisher and the author conspire

in such cause, is there any exaggeration in referring them to the same class with those, who in a barbarous age waged their warfare on their fellow-beings by poisoning their wells? The publication of a licentious or immoral book, for the sake of the profit which it so surely brings, must rest for its justification on the same plea, which would palliate the guilt of the proprietor of a faro-bank, or of those outcasts of society, who in various forms earn their wages from the weaknesses, the passions, and the vices of mankind. This is strong language: we intend it to be so; for we apprehend that there are symptoms of an increasing looseness of principle on this subject. The instances appear to become more frequent of the press being employed to supply editions of books which are native only to the matured profligacy of an European metropolis. Unless our growth be forced by unnatural appliances, we are not yet quite tall enough to reach up to the full grown wickedness that is engendered in an advanced and highly artificial state of society. We may be apt enough scholars without any superfluous tutoring in the lessons of refined and luxurious vice: besides, we have faults enough of our own, the passions and errors of a young nation and new modes of civil life: why then should we, before our day, be tempted to dally with the decrepid iniquities of ancient communities? Why should we be impatient and laborious to transplant and cultivate the exotics of foreign folly and foppery, when the wind or a bird in the air will carry soon enough some stray seed to drop upon our soil? Something of simplicity of feelings and habits, though probably fast declining, is still left among us

"The ancient spirit is not dead,

Old times, we trust, are breathing here."

Many a publisher who would shrink with virtuous indignation from works of palpable blasphemy or obscenity, will yet deal most callously with productions that may prove more fatal in vitiating the popular taste, because more insidious. It is for the former only that public opinion is usually vigilant enough, for when atheism, or blasphemy, or scandal, or obscenity is printed, the spurious birth is generally cast into the street without the paternity of either publisher or printer. But there are many books in which the poison is concealed, in which the tendencies are all immoral, and these, more than those whose grossness is its own antidote, are sent forth unblushingly. It is the weakness of man's nature that gives them a reception, and the weakness of man's law that gives them impunity. And what a glaring mani

festation there is in this particular of the imperfection—the inevitable imperfection-of human jurisprudence! A poor starving wretch is detected in pilfering a little food, to sustain expiring nature, or an old garment to save him from perishing with the winter's cold, and he forfeits his freedom in a gaol. A hot-headed citizen strikes his neighbor or libels his good name, and justice lays her heavy hand upon him. A desperate debtor is driven by the agony of bankruptcy to the folly of forgery, and the law prescribes its penalties for his infirmity and crime. A bolder villain robs a mail, and atones for what may have been the rash impulse of a moment's temptation, with his life. Thus the law proclaims its sanctions and forfeitures to secure property and character and physical life. On the other side may be seen, consorting with innocence, that moral guilt which legislation cannot, and professes not to strike at. The publisher, for instance, scatters by hundreds, or it may be by thousands, volumes that can pour their slow poison into the moral life of man-that can defile the imagination, and betray the natural sense of right and wrong—that can undermine the slender and unsteady fabric of youthful integrity, and even steal its native innocence from the heart of unsuspicious maidenhood-and then, after thus spreading the elements of ruin, he goes “unwhipp'd of justice." The jurisdiction over such matters belongs to the private court of conscience, or to the open tribunal of public opinion, and to them they must be left. Shakspeare has depicted poor old Lear as meditating something like a reform of the law in these respects, but it was not till his wits were crazed, and his sovereignty shattered by daughters and storms.

The effects of such publications as we have been alluding to, are, it is true, often very remote, and there may be therefore great difficulty in tracing them to their causes, but that we have not spoken too strongly, we appeal to any reflecting mind to consider how mighty-whether for good or evil-a mere book may be in its influence on the formation of character- and how limitless that influence both as to time and numbers. We have said more on this subject than we anticipated in touching it, but we are earnest to guard against an abuse, which is calculated to make books suspected things, and to create a necessity of subjecting them to some sort of family censorship before they can be with safety entrusted to the hands of the young and innocent. We have taken this opportunity of expressing ourselves, because respectable publishers are sometimes found yielding to the temptation of issuing works of which the chief attraction is their ex