A Lecture.
(OVERTURE.)
"Give me sweet music when I'm glad--
Give me sweet music when I'm sad;
For music softens every woe,
And brightens every rapture's flow.
"Oh! give me music! In my years
Of childhood's hopes and childhood's fears,
One sweetly-breathing vocal lay
Could steal my griefs, my fears away.
"Yes, music, come! Thou dying voice
Of distant days--of far-past joys--
Come, softly breathe into mine ear,
And thine shall be the flowing tear!
"Come in the strain I loved so well,
And of the lip that breathed it tell.
Oh! be the lingerings of thy lays
The voice of those departed days!"
Association not only gives significancy to music, but contributes
greatly to heighten its agreeable effect. We have heard it performed,
some time or other, in an agreeable place, perhaps, or by an agreeable
person, or accompanied with words that describe agreeable ideas; or we
have heard it in our early years--a period of life which we seldom look
back upon without pleasure, and of which Bacon recommends the frequent
recollection, as an expedient to preserve health. Nor is it necessary
that musical compositions should have much intrinsic merit, or that they
should call up any distinct remembrance of the agreeable ideas
associated with them. There are seasons at which we are gratified with
very moderate excellence. In childhood every tune is delightful to a
musical ear: in our advanced years, an indifferent tune will please,
when set off by the amiable qualities of the performer, or by any other
agreeable circumstance. The flute of a shepherd, heard at a distance, on
a fine summer day, amidst beautiful scenery, will give rapture to the
wanderer, though the tune, the instrument, and the musician be such as
he could not endure in any other place. If a song, or piece of music,
should call up only a faint remembrance that we were happy the last time
we heard it, nothing more would be needful to make us listen to it again
with peculiar satisfaction.