often asked, but seldom correctly answered. Music, as a science, is but
little understood. The importance of its detail is not considered,
because its effects are not examined, by the appreciating eye of
knowledge. To common observers, music possesses no feature worthy of
consideration, beyond an accidental succession of notes, which gives a
pleasing sensation to the ear, without intention or design. Most persons
believe that they could write music, if they only knew their notes. To
“turn” a melody is the easiest thing in life, and all the adjuncts,
harmony and instrumentation, are merely mechanical parts of the art,
which every one might learn. This is a popular and very gross error.
Music is either a simple succession of relative intervals, which form a
melody, or an aggregate of consonant or dissonant sounds, which produces
a harmony. These two combined, form a vehicle for the expression of the
passions of the human heart, more forcible and more truthful, than the
noblest works of either the painter or the poet.
It would require too much space, and would lead me too far from my
original subject, to enquire into, and to trace out, the means by which
simple sounds, produced by vibration, percussion or detonation, affect
the mind and imagination of the hearer. It will be sufficient to say,
that the individual experience of every one, will bear witness to the
existence of this most powerful agency.
The music of a low sweet voice, how it penetrates and vibrates through
the whole being! The music of the small birds, though limited in its
scale, how it fills up the measure of the imagination, by giving a voice
of harmony to the silent beauties of nature. The pealing organ with its
various tones, breathes out religious strains, and moves the heart to
penitence and prayer. This instrument is suited above all others, to
display the imagination of a master hand, from the vast extent of its
compass, and the almost endless variety of its powers by combinations.
It affects the imagination more than any individual instrument, or any
combination of instruments. How deep and varied the emotions of the
heart of him, whose “spirit is attentive,” while listening to one of the
sublime masses of Mozart, Haydn or Beethoven. With what a thrilling and
awful feeling, the dark, mysterious and wailing miserere falls upon the
soul; and with what a happy contrast, does the beautiful and comforting
benedictus, pour “oil upon the bruised spirit.”
The shrill fife, the hollow drum and the clangourous trumpet, speak to
other and wilder passions of our hearts. They breathe an inspiration
into the mind; they nerve the arm, make firm the tread, and give an
animated existence to slumbering ambition, or wavering courage. The soft
toned flute, the plaintive oboe, the mellow clarionette, with the other
various harmonious instruments, under the influence of the creative
mind, affect to smiles or tears, discourse of love, or breathe of hate,
according to the shades of feeling pourtrayed by the composition.
But by what means is the imitation of these non-tangible things,
transferred to a medium, which is not visible to the eye, nor
distinguishable to the touch? From whence does the musician draw, to
enable him to affect his hearers, by the means of sound, with the very
feelings which he attempts to imitate? We will proceed to answer these
inquiries.
The task of the poet is one of less difficulty, than the task of the
musician, for he treats of real or imaginary subjects, with the aid of a
medium that is universally understood and appreciated, according to the
various degrees, and powers of the peruser’s intellect. This medium is
language. Words embody and define ideas; a word can express a passion,
and other words can describe its rise and progress, and follow it in all
its secret channels, and through all its numerous ramifications. The
power of language is unbounded. Every thing that is, has a name, which
name becomes associated with it in the mind, and inseparable from it,
always presenting to the mental vision the object that it represents.
The most subtle emotions of the human mind, feelings which lie deep in
the recesses of the heart, can be torn from their lair, and displayed
before the world by means of this mighty agent. Even nature with her ten
thousand hoarded secrets, is over mastered, and bares her bosom to the
force of thought, and stands revealed to the world, yea, even to her
innermost core, by the power of language. To aid him in the task, the
poet hath a million adjuncts. He moves amidst the human world, and
gathers from its denizens, unending food for thought and
observation,—their joys and their sorrows; their pursuits and their
ends; their passions and their vices, their virtues and their charities.
The life of a single being in that living mass, would form a subject of
varied and startling interest, and leave but little for the imagination
to fill up, or to heighten. He looks up into the heavens, and finds a
space of boundless immensity, in which his restless speculation may run
riot. He looks abroad upon the face of nature, and there are endless
stores of bright and beautiful things, to feed his fancy, to stimulate
his imagination and refresh his thoughts.
How few of these fruitful themes, are available to the musician!
The painter in all his beautiful creations, pourtrays his subjects by
the means of the actual. From the living loveliness which he daily sees,
he hoards up rich stores of beauty, for some happy thought. But to aid
him in his labors, he has the actual form and color, light and shade.
The forms of beauty that glow and breathe upon the canvass; the quiet
landscape, so full of harmony and peacefulness; the rolling ocean, the
strife of the elements, the wild commingling of warring men, are but the
transcripts of the actual things.
The sculptor as he hews from the rough block, some form of exquisite
loveliness, whose charms shall throw a spell over men’s souls for ages,
does but compress into one fair creation, the beauties of a thousand
living models.
But the resources of the musician are in his own soul. From that alone
can he forge the chain of melody, that shall bind the senses in a
wordless ecstasy. Tangibilities to him are useless. Comparisons are of
no avail. He individualises, but does not reflect. He feels but does not
think. He deals with action and emotion, but form and substance are
beyond his imitation. He is a metaphysician, but not a philosopher. But
the depth of the music, will depend entirely upon the man. From a close
study of the works of Mozart and Beethoven, a correct and metaphysical
analysis of their characters can be obtained. In the early works of
Mozart will be found a continuous chain of tender and impassioned
sentiment; an overflowing of soul, an exuberance of love, and his early
life will be found to be a counterpart of these emotions. In him the
passions were developed at an age, when in ordinary children their germ
would be scarcely observed. Loved almost to idolatry by his family, and
loving them as fondly in return, his life was passed in one unceasing
round of the tenderest endearments. All that was beautiful in his nature
was brought into action, and gave that tone of exquisite tenderness,
that pervades all his imperishable works. But as the passing years
brought with them an increase of thought and reflection, a change is to
be found equally in the character of the music and the man. This change
can be traced in his later operas, Le Nozze de Figaro, Don Giovanni,
Cosi Fan Tutti, La Clemenza di Tito, Die Zauberflöte, and Die Entführung
aus dem Serail. In these works there is the evidence of deeper and more
comprehensive thought; the metaphysical identity of character is as
strictly maintained, and as closely developed, as it could be pourtrayed
by words. His Il Don Giovanni, stands now, and will forever stand, an
unapproachable model of musical perfection.
The character of Beethoven exhibits no decided change through life,
excepting, that in his later years the characteristics of his youth and
manhood, increased to a degree of morbid acuteness. From his earliest
childhood he was of a retiring, studious, and reflective nature. The
conscious possession of great genius, made him wilful and unyielding in
his opinions. Too high minded to court favours, he at various times
suffered the severest privations that poverty could inflict; and, taking
deeply to heart the total want of public appreciation, he became morose,
distrustful and dissatisfied. These feelings were rendered morbid in the
highest degree, by the melancholy affliction that assailed him in his
later years. He became nearly deaf, and was consequently deprived of the
dearest enjoyment of a musician’s life. These feelings were developed,
in a marked degree, in all his purely ideal compositions. Dark and
mysterious strains of harmony would be succeeded by a burst of wild and
melancholy fancy. Anon a tender, but broad and flowing melody, would
melt the soul by its passionate pathos, but only of sufficient duration
to render the cadence of heart-rending despair, which succeeds it, the
more striking. Rapid and abrupt modulations, strange and startling
combinations, bore evidence of his wild imagination, and the
uncontrollable impulse of his feelings. The opera of Fidelio, the only
dramatic work that he ever wrote, ranks only second to Don Giovanni. In
Fidelio each person has a distinct musical character, so clearly and
forcibly marked, that the aid of words is not necessary to distinguish
them. It would be impossible to transpose them without losing their
identity, and destroying the sense of the music. Mozart’s genius was
tender yet sublime: Beethoven’s was melancholy, mysterious, yet
gigantic. Each painted himself; each drew from his own bosom all the
inspiration his works exhibited. They required no outward influence;
they needed no adventitious circumstances to rouse their imagination, or
to cause their thoughts to flow, for in their own souls was an ever
gushing spring of divine melody, that could not be controlled. They
_thought music_, and, as light flows from the sun, gladdening the
creation, so their music came from them, irradiating the hearts of men,
and throwing over them a delicious spell, whose charm is everlasting.
Music is so ethereal, and deals so little in realities, that its
followers, partaking of its characteristics, are in most instances,
impulsive, impassioned and unworldly. Careless of the excitements and
mutations of the times; unambitious of place or power; indifferent to
the struggles and heart-burnings of party politicians, from the utter
uncongeniality of the feelings and emotions they engender, with their
own, they live secluded, shut up within their own hearts, and seldom
appear to the world in their true colors, from the utter impossibility
of making it comprehend or sympathise with their refined and mysterious
feelings. The world has no conception of the exquisite delight that
music confers upon musicians. It is not mere pleasure; it is not a mere
gratification that can be experienced and forgotten! Oh, no! It is a
blending of the physical with the intellectual; it softens the nature;
it heightens the imagination; it throws a delicious languor over the
whole organization; it isolates the thoughts, concentrating them only to
listen and receive; it elevates the soul to a region of its own, until
it is faint with breathing the melodious atmosphere.
Music is the offspring of these feelings. The inspiration is the gift of
God alone, and cannot be added to or diminished.
* * * * *
EUROCLYDON.
BY CHARLES LANMAN, AUTHOR OF “ESSAYS FOR SUMMER HOURS.”
At one stride came the dark, and it is now night. Cold and loud is the
raging storm. Rain enow and sleet are dashing most furiously against the
windows,—actually dampening the curtains within. There—there goes a
shutter, torn from its hinges by the wind! Another gust,—and how
desolate its moan! It is the voice of the Winter Storm Spirit, who comes
from beyond the ice-plains of the North. I can interpret his cry, which
is dismal as the howl of wolves.
“Mortal crouch—crouch like a worm beside thy hearth-stone and
acknowledge thy insignificance. When the skies are bright, and thou art
surrounded by the comforts of life, thou goest forth among thy fellows
boasting of thine intellect and greatness. But when the elements arise,
shaking the very earth to its foundation, thou dost tremble with fear,
and thy boasting is forgotten. Approach the window, and as thou lookest
upon the gloom of this stormy night, learn a lesson of humility. Thou
art in thyself as frail and helpless as the icicle depending from yonder
bough.
“O, this is a glorious night for me! I have broken the chains which have
bound me in the Arctic Sea, and fearful elements follow in my path to
execute my bidding. Listen, while I picture to your mind a few of the
countless scenes I have witnessed, which are terrible to man, but to me
a delight.
“An hundred miles away, there is a lonely cottage on the border of an
inland lake. An hour ago I passed by there, and a mingled sound of woe
came from its inmates, for they were poor and sick, and had no wood. A
miserable starving dog was whining at their door. I laughed with joy and
left them to their suffering.
“I came to a broad river, where two ferrymen were toiling painfully at
their work. I loosened the ice that had been formed farther up, and it
crushed them to death in its mad career.
“Beside a mountain, a solitary foot-traveller, of three score years and
ten, was ascending a road heavily and slow. I chilled the crimson
current in his veins, and the pure white snow became his winding sheet.
What matter! It was his time to die.
“On yonder rock-bound coast, a fisherman was startled from his fireside
by a signal of distress. He looked through the darkness and discovered a
noble ship hastening toward a dangerous reef. I brought her there,
regardless of the costly merchandize and freight of human life. She
struck,—and three hundred hardy men went down into that black roaring
element which gives not back its dead. The morrow will dawn, and the
child at home will lisp its father’s name, unconscious of his fate, and
the wife will smile and press her infant to her bosom, not doubting but
that her husband will soon return to bless her with his love. I have no
sympathy with the widow and the fatherless.
“Hark! did you not hear it?—that dismal shout! Alas! the deed is
done,—the touch of the incendiary hath kindled a fire such as this city
has never beheld. What rich and glowing color in those clouds of smoke
rising so heavily from yonder turrets! Already they are changed into an
ocean of flame, hissing and roaring. Unheard, save at intervals, is the
cry of the watchman, and the ringing bells; and muffled are the hasty
footsteps of the thronging multitude, for the snow is deep. Slowly do
the engines rumble along, while strained to their utmost are the sinews
of those hardy firemen. But useless is all this noise and labor, for the
receptacles of water are blocked with ice. Fire! fire!! fire!!!”
And here endeth the song of Euroclydon, which was listened to on the
16th of December, 1835. It will be recollected, that when the sun rose
in unclouded beauty on the following morning, six hundred buildings had
been consumed, many lives lost and twenty millions of property
destroyed.
* * * * *
MYSTERY.
All things are dark! A mystery shrouds the same
Yon gorgeous sun or twilight’s feeble star.
We feel, but who can analyze the flame
That wanders calmly from those realms afar?
Science may soar, but soon she finds a bar
Against her wing: and so she spends a life
Of sleepless doubt and agonizing strife,
Like some mad mind with its own self at war:
And many will repine, repine in vain,
And in their impious frenzy almost curse
This all-encircling, adamantine chain
That binds the portal of the Universe.
Not so the wize! for they delight to see
His might and glory in this mystery.
* * * * *
HARRY CAVENDISH.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “CRUIZING IN THE LAST WAR,” “THE REEFER OF ’76,” ETC.
ETC.
THE EXPEDITION.
It was a melancholy day when the body of the murdered Mr. Neville was
deposited in the burial ground of the port of ——; and if strangers
shed tears at his funeral what must have been the emotions of his
orphaned daughter! All that kindness could do, however, was done to
alleviate her grief; her friends crowded around her to offer
consolation; and even our hardy tars showed their sympathy for her by
more than one act. It was a fortunate occurrence that she had a near
relative in town, and in his family accordingly she took up her
residence, where she could indulge her sorrow on the bosoms of those who
were united to her by natural ties, and could sympathize with her the
more sincerely because they knew the worth of which she had been
deprived. It is one of the wisest dispensations of Providence that our
grief should be shared, and as it were soothed, by those we love.
The pirates had no sooner been committed to prison than endeavors were
made, on the part of the authorities, to ascertain the haunt of the
gang; for its depredations had been carried on during the past year to
an extent that left no doubt that the prisoners formed only a detachment
of a larger body, which, dividing into different parties, preyed on the
commerce of the surrounding islands, from as many different points.
Where the head-quarters of the pirates were held was however unknown; as
every attempt to discover them, or even to capture any of the gang had
hitherto proved abortive. The authorities were, therefore, anxious to
get one or more of the prisoners to reveal the retreat of their
messmates on a promise of pardon; but for some time their efforts were
unavailing, as each prisoner knew, that if any of the gang escaped, the
life of the traitor would not be worth a moment’s purchase. At length,
however, the temptations held out to two of the prisoners proved
irresistible, and they revealed the secret which the governor-general
was so anxious to know. The head-quarters of the pirates proved to be on
a small island, some leagues north of the spot where we captured the
prisoners. The place was said to be admirably fortified by nature, and
there was no doubt, from the prisoners’ confession, that art had been
called in to render the retreat impregnable.
The number of the pirates usually left behind to protect their
head-quarters was said to amount to a considerable force.
Notwithstanding these things, the governor-general resolved on sending a
secret expedition to carry the place and, if possible, make prisoners of
the whole nest of freebooters. As, however, the spies of the gang were
known to infest the town, it was necessary to carry on the preparations
for the expedition with the utmost caution, so that no intelligence of
the contemplated attack should reach the pirates to warn them of their
danger. While, therefore, the authorities were apparently occupied with
the approaching trial to the exclusion of everything else, they were, in
fact, secretly making the most active exertions to fit out an expedition
for the purpose of breaking up the haunts of the gang. Several vessels
were purchased, ostensibly for private purposes; and soldiers drafted
into them, under the cloud of night. The vessels then left the harbor,
cleared for various ports, with the understanding, however, that they
should all rendezvous on an appointed day at a cape a few leagues
distant from the retreat of the pirates. So adroitly was the affair
managed, that the various vessels composing the expedition left the port
unsuspected—even high officers of government who were not admitted to
the secret, regarding them merely as common merchant-men departing on
their several voyages. Indeed, had an attack been contemplated on a
hostile power the preparations could not have been more secret or
comprehensive. The almost incredible strength of the piratical force
rendered such preparations, however, not only desirable but necessary.
I was one among the few admitted to the secret, for the governor-general
did me the honor to consult me on several important particulars
respecting the expedition. Tired of the life of inactivity I was
leading, and anxious to see the end of the adventure, I offered to
accompany the enterprise as a volunteer—an offer which his excellency
gladly accepted.
We set sail in a trim little brig, disguised as a merchantman; but as
soon as morning dawned and we had gained an offing, we threw off our
disguise, and presented an armament of six guns on a side, with a
proportionable number of men. Our craft, indeed, was the heaviest one
belonging to the expedition, and all on board acquainted with her
destination were sanguine of success.
The wind proved favorable, and in less than forty-eight hours we made
Capo del Istri, where the four vessels composing the expedition were to
rendezvous. As we approached the promontory, we discovered one after
another of the little fleet, for as we had been the last to leave port,
our consorts had naturally first reached the rendezvous, and in a few
minutes we hove to in the centre of the squadron hoisting a signal for
the respective captains to come aboard, in order to consult respecting
the attack.
The den of the pirates was situated at the head of a narrow strait,
communicating with a lagoon of some extent, formed by the waters of a
river collecting in the hollow of three hills, before they discharged
themselves into the sea. Across the mouth of this lagoon was moored the
hull of a dismasted ship, in such a position that her broadside
commanded the entrance to the lake. Behind, the huts of the piratical
settlement stretched along the shore, while the various vessels of the
freebooters lay anchored in different positions in the lagoon. Such, at
least, we were told, was the appearance of the place when the pirates
were not absent on their expeditions.
Our plan of attack was soon arranged. It was determined to divide our
forces into two divisions, so that while one party should attack the
pirates in front the other should take a more circuitous path, and
penetrating by land to the back of the settlement, take the enemy in the
rear. As night was already closing in, it was determined to disembark
the latter party at once, so that it might proceed, under the guidance
of one of the prisoners, to the position behind the enemy, and reach
there, as near as possible, at the first dawn of day. It was arranged
that the attack by water should commence an hour or two before day. By
this means each party could reach its point of attack almost
simultaneously. The onset however was to be first made from the water
side, and the ambuscade in the rear of the foe was not to show itself
until the fight had made some progress on our side.
The men destined for the land service were accordingly mustered and set
ashore, under the guidance of one of the prisoners. We watched their
receding forms through the twilight until they were lost to view, when
we sought our hammocks for a few hours repose preparatory to what might
be our last conflict.
The night was yet young, however, when we entered the mouth of the
strait, and with a favorable breeze sailed along up towards the lagoon.
The shallowness of the water in the channel had compelled us to leave
our two larger craft behind and our forces were consequently crowded
into the remaining vessels. Neither of these carried a broadside of
weight sufficient to cope with that of the hull moored across the mouth
of the lagoon.
As we advanced up the strait a death-like stillness reigned on its
shadowy shores; and we had nearly reached the mouth of the lagoon before
any sign betokened that the pirates were aware of our approach. We could
just catch sight of the tall rakish masts of a schooner over the low
tree tops on the right, when a gun was heard in the direction of the
lagoon, whether accidently fired or not we could not tell. We listened
attentively for a repetition of the sound; but it came not. Could it
have been a careless discharge from our own friends in the rear of the
foe, or was it a warning fired by one of the pirates’ sentinels? Five or
ten minutes elapsed, however, and all was silent. Meantime our vessels,
with a wind free over the taffrail, were stealing almost noiselessly
along the smooth surface of the strait; while the men lying close at
their quarters, fully armed for the combat, breathlessly awaited the
moment of attack, the intenseness of their excitement increasing as the
period approached.