gamates itself with the fathomless flood of eternal intellect, he soars with comets, glides with planets, or returns to earth to dally with a dew-drop, and sees them all governed by the same law-gravitation. He gazes with equal delight on the mountain eagle or brilliant beetle; and contemplates with equal instruction, "the cedar that groweth in Lebanon, or the hyssop that springeth out of the wall;" and when gazing on the minutest flower of the field, with all his admiration of that luxurious eastern monarch, gorgeous in "barbaric pearls and gold," feels, that "in all his glory, he was not arrayed like one of these." Retired to his rest, unsated by excess, unmaddened with irrational revelry, and unsickened with the dinning jargon of loquacious ignorance, he pays (lamenting 'tis all he can pay) his cordial tribute of grateful thanksgiving to that Being, whose inconceivable wisdom has arranged, and whose infinite benevolence has imparted faculties to all his creatures of fully enjoying the exhaustless profusion of blessings He has spread around them in immeasurable exuberance and perfection. Of a truth, the Study of Nature, whose radii, infinitely more numerous than sun-rays, all and always point to the "vast centre which is every where, and whose circumference is nowhere," must excite devout feelings, the highest, and the very best. And her votary at every hour, and more collectedly as he retires to that repose his active and innocent pursuits prepare him for, must, with the Hallowed Name in his heart, silently exclaim with the Bard of Israel—"Oh Lord! how manifold are Thy works! in wisdom hast Thou made them all." NATIONAL MELODY. FIRST LECTURE. MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, NOTHING Would overcome the scruples arising from my conscious inability to instruct or amuse this Society, but my ardent desire to comply with their repeated solicitations: and the cheerful readiness with which I come forward at their call, to do the best I can, will mitigate their censure, on the inefficiency or failure of the little all I can do. Let it not be thought that the approbation and applause I have heretofore enjoyed at your hands, however it may encourage, has made me confident. No: it was placed in my heart, as will any ye may heafter indulge me with, incalculably more to your benignity, than to any merit of mine. National Melody was thought by the able persons who have the management of this Society, a subject of some novelty amid their numerous and elaborate Lectures; and that, interspersed with Specimens of the Melodies of many nations, lightly touched upon a good Instrument, it might give a variety to these Lectures, and excite some interest in the persons who do us the honour to attend them. I was not selected from a supposition of possessing any superior knowledge to illustrate, or capability to perform them; but from being known to possess a very extensive and copious Collection of the Melodies of all Nations; which I have spent, perhaps wasted, much time in accumulating, from my earliest years. It was commenced when I first entered the University of Oxford, by the advice, and under the direction of, my friend Dr. Crotch, professor of Music to that University and has been one of my favourite studies and delights to the present moment. Never having had any regular musical education, it cannot be expected that I handle these matters with much intricacy of science, or legerity of execution; indeed either of these, did I possess them, would be detrimental to my purpose, and defeat my effect; where pure and unshackled simplicity is the Lode-star by which I steer. I bring to my business, however, the very best of all recommendations,-enthusiastic love of my subject; and a most ardent desire to give you all the entertainment in my power: :-not from dry and difficult learning, which I might easily gather out of books; or worthless rubbish I might as easily rake up from Antiquity; but from the suggestions of my own mind and memory; and that in language as facile and familiar as common conversation. So that after all, my Discourse, at best, will only be the mere thread of a garland enwreathed with some of the choicest blossoms of National Melody. Those of strings I purpose touching on the Piano-Forte; and those of wind on the various modifications of the very excellent Organ behind me, the noble gift of a munificent Individual to the Choral Society; so that, after all, should my best endeavours fail to please you, the fault will be neither in the music, nor the instruments,—but in me. And here, my audience will, I am sure, concur with me in courteously thanking our friends, the Gentlemen of the Choral Society, for the use of their Concert Room, and noble Organ; which I fear, for this occasion, may feel suprised if not offended, at being touched by so rude and inefficient a finger. I feel well aware of the presence of many gentlemen, and indeed ladies, before whom for me to lecture on even this simplest department of Music, or to attempt its illustration by playing, is a piece of the highest presumption: Yet when from these, and indeed from all, I solicit kind indulgence and courtesy, I confidently feel that I am not soliciting in vain. My first intention was to have compressed the matter into one Lecture : but the Council thinking this incompatible with the extensive nature of the subject; request me to divide it into two. This first I shall therefore devote to the general subject, and to the Melodies of foreign nations, which to refined tastes may sound dry and inelegant. But I must entreat my kind audience to bear in mind, they are not invited to hear flush and showy music, but specimens of curious melody. As, were I delivering you a Lecture on Botany, I should not produce as specimens the tawdry tulips, or flashy dahlias of the garden; but the rare and interesting gems of vegetation culled in the deep solitudes of the umbrageous forest, or picked from the grey heights and crags of towering cliffs. These National Melodies are the pure fountains of Music undefiled: and may be compared to those secluded wells and rivulets we seek among the recesses of remote mountains; delighted with their peacefulness and purity; while we comtemplate them brilliantly dancing along ferny glades, and leaping playfully over mossy rocks, in skeins of silvery threads, as if cheerfully willing to contribute their share to greater streams of more importance to the mass of mankind; where the meeting of the waters gleam to the broad gaze of admiration, as they before simply sparkled to the cordial glance of taste. The second Lecture will embrace the Melodies of our own country; where I shall have less to say, and more to play and will be more interesting from the real excellence of the specimens selected from the Music of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. I now proceed to business, "with all the speed I may." Melody, as defined by musical scholars, is a succession of two or more single tones, given after each other: as Harmony is a combination of two or more tones, given together. And as any number of tones given together, however discordant, constitute Harmony; so any succession of single tones, however senseless or unpleasing, constitute Melody. This is scientific definition. In this Discourse, however, I consider by Melody, what is commonly called Tune; and from my necessarily very limited time, I must chiefly have to deal with those that are pleasing or beautiful; or striking from some singularity of circumstance. Melody is to Music, what Poetry is to Language; I do not mean Versification, for that in Music would be rhythm. But that which by expression, frequently even a single word, or bar, gives life, soul, and spirit, to the sentiment; and creates a delicious, as it were a divine, emotion in the heart. Melody has not inaptly been compared to graceful motion; and to me, the gentle waving of leafy boughs of trees in the tepid air of high summer, has always given an idea of Melody: so exquisitely described by Horace in one Sapphic verse, every word of which is poetry : "Arbor æstivà recreatur aurâ."—And Robert Burns, with bewitching loveliness, compares it to the elegant gracefulness of the female form: "O! my Love's like the red red rose Melody may with the most striking propriety, be called the soul of music; as harmony may the body; and these when united, and modestly (not meretriciously) arrayed in the chaste and lovely drapery of taste, enrapture the affections with enchantment, far more than did the fabled powers of magic; facinate the heart; and, as Milton boldly and beautifully expresses it, "create a soul under the ribs death." Music, to those who are sensitively alive to its facinating charms, elevates and acuminates the sensual feelings to the highest degree approaching spirituality; and at the same time brings on the sublime nature of the soul, to animate and enrich the corporeal affections with its fullest powers of divinity: thus raising our existence to its highest pitch of perfection and felicity, while in this mingled state of spirit and matter,—and for a time, almost making tality put on immortality." This influence is one of the many reasons, why music in all times and countries, has been, and ever ought to be, intimately and intellectually introduced into all public worship; as it raises the mind, soul, and body to its fittest (physical) state for devotional adoration to the Supreme Being. This is finely and allegorically alluded to in Dryden's exquisitely rich Ode to Music, when speaking of the respective powers of Old Timotheus and St. Cecilia-" He raised a mortal to the skies, She drew an angel down:" for so truly angelic is the power of music, that "Heaven itself will stoop to her." mor The surprising influence of music has been known and acknowledged at all times in all nations; its unquestionable pervasion of the virtuous passions: it adds sweetness to the most delicious, increases the benevolent, and exalts the noble. And if it does not allay, or mitigate the vicious (which it sometimes does) it never encreases them-for the coarse, callous, and depraved are insensible to its refined powers. The poets indeed-the men of all others most sensitively alive to the alluring charms of their sister art-have elevated her powers to a most extravagant height; much of which is mere rhapsody, and more allegory; but this very circumstance is a proof that her powers, so far from being inconsiderable, are of far more than common force. Books are crowded with instances of her effects on mankind, both morally and physically; even to the curing of diseases; as well as upon animals, and even inanimate nature. At this day in the eastern countries, serpents are charmed with music, and become gentle, docile, and submissive at the feet of the charmer: of this we read in Scripture, and elsewhere and in my long and laborious Tour through the Hebrides and Highlands of Scotland, among other wild melodies of those wild regions, I picked up a tune called in the Earse Language "Caberfae," wherewith the natives charm the Seals, so as to be more easily caught and this with the Bagpipes. Though our old friend Joe Miller, tells a different effect of that instrument on certain wolves, who beset a Bagpiper while E : : |