MUSIC has its foundation in nature. Regarding it as simple harmony, it is not altogether fanciful to conclude, that there is music in all the works of God. The whole creation is a unit, made up of an infinite variety of parts. Hence we call it the universe. The parts which compose it, from the smallest atom to the largest world, are adapted and proportioned to each other with mathematical exactness. This law of proportions exists in sounds addressed to the ear, no less than in the magnitudes and motions of visible things. In pursuance of it, one may compose a tune with as much scientific exactness as he can calculate aa eclipse or construct a railroad.

On this law of proportions the science of music is founded; and because it is a universal law, extending through all nature-at least as far as the laws of nature have been investigated-some learned men have maintained, that the motions of the heavenly bodies may be expressed in numbers, corresponding to those which express the harmony of musical sounds, and that thus there is a "music of the spheres," inaudible, indeed, to us, but heard in heaven, to the praise of God An idea like this seems to have been entertained by inspired minds. Isaiah says,

"The mountains and the hill shall break forth before you into singing,

And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands."

Praise the Lord from the earth,
Ye dragons, and all deeps!
Fire and hail, snow and vapors,
Stormy wind fulfilling his word!
Mountains, and all hills,
Fruitful trees, and all cedars!
Beasts, and all cattle,

Creeping things, and flying fowl!"

These are specimens of the manner in which inspired worshipers were accustomed to conceive of the harmony of the universe, as uttering, in music, the language of praise to Jehovah. The revealed idea, in these passages, would seem to justify the conception of old Pythagoras, and of the immortal Kepler, in his "Harmonices Mundi," and to intimate that there are numbers and musical intervals in the motions and distances of worlds and systems, by which all nature is vocal with music, and suns and stars are

"Forever singing, as they shine,
The hand that made us is divine."

But however this may be, it is beyond all question, that the foundation of the science of music exists in the laws of nature. It is equally clear, that the art of music has its origin in the nature of man. Certain tones of the voice are the natural expressions of pleasure and pain These are the germs from which music has grown up to be a universal language of emotion. There is, in our nature, an intimate connection between the emotions of the soul and the sense of hearing. Objects of sight address themselves more especially to the understanding; but feeling expresses itself most readily in tones addressed to the ear. Joy, fear, anger, desire, and all the passions, have each a peculiar tone, which is understood by every human being. These tones, prolonged, and divided, and varied, and intermingled, and associated with rhythm, or poetic measure, constitute music or song, in which thousands may join in uttering the same tones, and expressing the same feelings.

It is certain, also, that the love of music, or of the excitement which it produces, is one of the most universal principles of the human soul. It pervades all tribes, all ages, all classes of human