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latter of these preceptors in the formation of a complete musician, (among which are the mathematics, arithmetic, grammar, history, logic, rhetoric, and natural philosophy,) Dr. Busby, in a note, exclaims, "These are formidable exactions; and can be expected to be complied with only by those whose time fortune has made their own. The practical musician (of modern times), the whole of whose day is devoted to the avocation of teaching, returns home with a mind too exhausted to resign the hours of night to study. He regards, and justly regards, such a mass of intellectual attainments, or, indeed, any material portion of them, as no more acquirable by his little leisure, than a handsome fortune, by the humble drudgery of tuition." But as real genuis, and a mind properly elevated, are rare, so the remark is far from being of general application. We are apt to think, that true talent and a native nobleness of feeling will burst through all obstacles; and that the general paucity of information, in practical musicians, is rather to be imputed to the lax and idle habits into which they suffer a pleasurable profession to beguile their leisure, than to the absolute want of opportunity for mental improvement.

After treating of the Roman, Venetian, Neapolitan, and Florentine schools; among the supporters of which, of course, Palestrina is seen to form a conspicuous figure, the merits of the German theorists and composers of the same century (the sixteenth) are scrutinized and ascertained; as also those of the French and Spanish musicians. Of the celebrated Salinas, the account is too interesting, as an encouragement to the defective, not to tempt us to its transcription.

"This respectable speculatist was a native of Burgos. Blind from his infancy, his misfortune was counterbalanced by the double compensation of his having parents, who, for his future support, resorted to the cultivation of another sense, and his being blessed with a taste for the science of harmony. To sing and perform on the organ, he was early taught; and to the latter of these qualifications, was indebted for his opportunity of acquiring Latin. It happened, that while he was yet a boy, à female, celebrated for her knowledge in that language, and who was about to take the veil, was desirous to learn to play on the organ. Hearing of the skill of Salinas on that instrument, (for his progress had been very rapid,) she applied to him at his father's house for the purpose of becoming his pupil; and it was agreed that the lessons she received should be repaid by her Latin instructions. His knowledge of the Roman tongue begat a wish for the acquisition of the Grecian, as well as of the principles and precepts of philosophy and the arts; and induced his father to send him to Salamanca. His means proving unequal to his support at that university, his well known merit procured his introduction to Peter Sarmentus, Archbishop of Compostella, who received him with the kindness of a patron, and on being created a cardinal, carried his protegé with them to Rome.

"In that city, the young scholar and musician found all that his thirst of learning could crave. Conversation with men of letters, and the contents of ancient and scarce manuscripts, opened to his curiosity, and infused into his mind, those treasures he was so ardently seeking, and which alone could satisfy his avidity. In the study of Greek literature, especially that portion of it connected with the theory of music, he spent thirty years; and would probably have remained at Rome to the termination of his life, had not the death of his patrons, Cardinal Carpensis, Cardinal Burgos, and the Viceroy of Naples, induced, or compelled his return to Spain; where he was appointed public professor of music at Salamanca.' Vol. II. p. 134.

Passing the scientific and judicious reflections upon the high qualities of Orlando Gibbons, Dr. W. Child, Henry Lawes, (Milton's

friend and favourite,) Dr. John Wilson, Dr. Benjamin Rogers, Thomas Warwick, (one of the profoundest contrapuntists of his time,) and other English masters of the seventeenth century; we would notice that Dr. Busby enters much at large upon the consideration of the style of our dramatic and chamber music at that period. The nature and tendency of these are perspicuously and strikingly displayed, and the progress of their science in their separate departments, traced with method and clearness. Among the composers of this century, Matthew Locke, author of the singularly appropriate music to Macbeth, forms so distinguished a subject of our historian's observation, and is so forcibly delineated, in his personal as well as professional qualities, that we wish we could allow ourselves to copy the portrait he has so well drawn of that very eminent and truly original musician. But it is high time, that, referring our readers to the work itself, for the encomiums justly bestowed on this master, as also on Dr. John Blow, Michael Wise, Tudway, Turner, and other ornaments of the old English school, whose merits it so well distinguishes, and strongly pourtrays, we should hasten to the more brilliant portions of the history; and exhibit Dr. Busby in those striking colours which we find him so capable of assuming, when he deems his subject worthy of his best exertions. Of these excellent musicians, and those by whose conspicuous talents their own were succeeded, it will not be expected that we should reprint the lives, but the transcription of the passages or paragraphs that display the cast, and the strength, the beauty, and the vigour of their distinguishing attributes, is due to the taste and curiosity of our readers. Dr. Busby's enthusiastic admiration of his illustrious countryman, Purcell, too impatient to wait for gradual development, bursts forth in exordium, and serves as a presage of the spirit of eulogy in which he is about to descant on his subject.

"If, in the general history of a science, a single master, for the full estimation of his merits, can claim the devotion of an entire chapter, it is such a master as Purcell ; if any talents can sustain, and excuse the historian who, for the purpose of their just delineation, quits for a while the broad path of his progress, and descends into the limited track of a biographer, they are such talents as those of our English Orpheus. This musician shone not more by the greatness than the diversity, by the diversity than the orginality of his imagination; nor did the force of his fancy transcend the solidity of his judgment. His career was preceded by the transit of great and conspicucus lights; but his superior radiance eclipsed and survived their glories. We read, it is true, and read with pleasure, of Tallis, Gibbons, and Blow; but of Purcell we fondly discourse, pride ourselves in the brilliancy and the expanse of his genius, and are content to identify with his the musical pretensions of our country.' Vol. II. p. 249. The warmth and animation exhibited in this passage are well preserved in the following panegyric:

“Purcell, educated in the choir, was naturally addicted to church composition. His anthems, by consequence, were numerous. These proved so admirable in their kind, (and their very kind may almost be called his own,) that they were heard with delight, and universally sought. An imagination so prolific, a science so profound, and a judgment so sterling, were not disregarded by the stage, and the lovers of domestic music. He was solicited to embellish the drama and enliven the chamber with the rays of his genius; and in both their fervour was felt and applauded. His secular com

positions were so superior to those of his predecessors, that they seemed to breathe a new spirit, and utter a new language. The melodies of his songs uniformly demonstrate sentiments in union with the numbers they illustrate. The musician meets the poet with a kindred soul; invigorates, while he appropriates his pathos and his fire; infuses into the verse an added animation, and, as it were, revivifies the living." Vol. II. p. 252.

The high tint that enriches and illumines the succeeding quotations, is no less remarkable than the variety of conception which it is employed to develop.

"The genius of Purcell, expansive as splendid, embraced, with equal felicity, every species of composition. In the sphere of devotion, his figure, imitation, and plain counterpoint, displayed all, and more than all, the science of his profoundest predecessors in the church; and evinced a feeling and force of conception, which declared the warm vividity of his heart, and the ample resources of his mind. In adopting, he improved the new and more expressive style received from the Italians; and, in a degree, rendered it his own. No longer confining his sacred compoitions to the solitary accompaniment of the organ, he enriched and emblazoned his vocal scores with a variety of instrumental parts; produced by the accumulated mass and mixture of his harmony, and more poignant and significant melody, a grandeur, strength, and sweetness of effect, till then unknown in England. The theatrical orchestra, kindled by the fire of this composer, performed with new animation productions that disdained, or disregarded, the dull and ancient limits of instrumental execution; while the melody of the stage derived from his creative spirit a livelier, more intelligible, and more expressive character. In the several species of chamber music, he was so excellent, that it was no disgrace to his cotemporaries to be surpassed and eclipsed by his powers, in that department of composition. His sonatas, and his odes, his cantatas and his songs, his ballads and his catches, claimed for him, and obtained the admiration of the musical adept, and the applause of every hearer." Vol. II. p. 253,

After illustrating the beauties of his Te Deum, the Doctor resumes his praise.

"In this and other of his sacred compositions, Purcell did not merely make Pales trina his model, as Handel afterwards looked occasionally up to Purcell, but struggled with him for pre-eminence, and struggled triumphantly. More animated in his sensations, and more sublime in his ideas than the illustrious Italian, he surpassed him in grandeur of design, and energy of expression. Nothing (every judge of musical com position, and impartial critic will affirm,) can transcend the glorious effect of Purcell's. Te Deum; nothing in the disciple of Gondimel can compete with its loftiness, magnificence, and power of appeal, both to the ear and to the soul.

"Even had the genius of this extraordinary musician been limited to the church, still he would have stood unrivalled among his countrymen. How, then, shall we duly estimate the talents, that, with equal facility, accommodated themselves to the church and the stage, to the stage and the chamber? Contemplating the variety and extent, versatility and magnitude of his talents, I see the uncircumscribed range and imperious power of a Shakspearian mind; as far as performance can be compared with production, behold a Garrick, placed between Melpomene and Thalia, courted by each, and smiling upon both.”—Vol. II, p. 256,

Having detailed the general state of music, both vocal and instrumental, from the time of Purcell to the middle of the last century, in which review of its varieties and advances, the claims of the elegant Steffani, the spirited and tasteful Scarlatti, the chaste and melodious Corelli, the animated Vivaldi, the philosophical as well as musical Tartini, are admitted and extolled, the Doctor states the interesting particulars connected with the establishment of the opera and oratorio in Italy, describes the progress of the lyric drama at Venice, Naples

Rome, and in Germany and France; then, after giving somewhat more than sketches of the principal composers of the last century, among whom Marcello, Pergolese, Gluck, Doni, Picini, Galuppi, Bononcini, Geminiani, Giardini, Jomelli, Hasse, Bertoni, and Sacchini, who receive the honours due" to their distinguished pretensions, he collects and exerts his descriptive powers for the display of the mightiest of mighty musical geniuses-George Frederic Handel.

In the life of this sovereign of musicians both ancient and modern, our historian, as in the account of Purcell, quitting the beaten track of former biographers, has alike indulged the warmth of his admiration and the dictates of his fancy. His eulogy is not more just, than the colours in which he conveys it are bright and glowing. In the introductory paragraph of this chapter, (for as to the merits of our English Orpheus, so to the German Timotheus, an entire chapter is dedicated,) Dr. Busby expresses his doubt, whether the sober tints of historical painting can do justice to the diversity and splendour of Handel's genius; and if it be allowed that the passage we are about to cite is free from the fiction, it will not be denied that it sparkles with the graces of poetry.

"As a man, Handel may justly be ranked with the moral and the pious; as a scholar, with the general class of the well-educated; but as a musician, he is above all rank; for no one ranks with him. His ideas never had any alliance with tameness or inanity; his invention appears to have been always ready, rich, and wonderfully accommodating to the subject in hand, whether it were gay or serious, cheerful or solemn, light or grand. He wrote quickly; but the motion of his pen could rarely keep pace with the rapidity of his imagination; and most of his finest thoughts were the birth of a moment. For the most part he is very original; and where he shines the brightest, the lustre is uniformly his own; yet whatever he appropriates he improves. It has been said of him as of Cicero, that whatever he touched he turned to gold; but it might with more correctness be affirmed, that his judgment rejected what was not origi nally gold, and that the gold he borrowed he refined. In some composers we find sweetness, in others grace; in these tenderness, in those dignity: here we feel the sentiment and force of character proper to the theatre, there are struck with the grandeur and the solemnity claimed by the service of the church: but in Handel we discover all these properties; and, what indisputably entitles him to pre-eminence over all other musicians, ancient and modern, is the truth, that while he equals them in every style but one, in that one he transcends them all. His mellifluous softness, and dignified mirth, fire, energy, and purity of pathos, have been approached by various masters; but to his sublimity no one has been able to soar. While I listen to his "Allelujah Chorus" in the Messiah, his "Horse and his Rider" in Israel in Egypt, or the nobler portions of his Dettingen Te Deum, the massy grandeur appeals not only to my ear, but to my soul: It seems even to excite another sense; I see the glory that is celebrated, and am profane enough to extend its image to the composer."-Vol. II. p. 384–386.

As a proof, however, that Dr. Busby, though an ardent, is not an implicit admirer of this great man, we extract the ensuing paragraph.

"If Handel is ever beneath himself, it is when he descends to minute or verbal imitation; when, neglecting the sentiment for the sake of the word, he wastes his strength upon detached ideas, and endeavours to copy objects with sounds, instead of pointing his powers at the affections and susceptibilities of the heart. Yet it must be confessed, that sometimes while his carelessness neglected, his lax judgment even opposed the sentiment. In the Messiah, we hear a Christian choir lamenting that they have gone astray, in a strain, the vivacity of which would well express the sense of the liveliest chorus of

the priests of Dagon; and in Alexander's Feast, Thais is described lighting another Troy by the slow and graceful movement of a minuet,”—Vol. II. p. 386.

The notice of these particular defects, and the petty imitation of the leaping of frogs, by the hopping of broken passages, and of the motion and buzzing of a swarm of flies, by the rapid and contrary direction of the first and second violins, in Joshua and Israel in Egypt, is given in the true spirit of criticism. It is succeeded by the resumption of the most encomiastic language, directed to "the original and diversified "beauty of this unrivalled master's concertos for various instruments: "the dense harmony, deep science, and felicitous involutions of his "harpsichord lessons; the examples of every species of operatical me"rit, accumulated in his Italian dramas; the voluminous assemblage "of grandeur, enlivened by brilliancy, in his oratorios; and the so"lemn sublimity predominant in his ecclesiastical compositions." On these high qualities of Handel's music, the Doctor dwells with equal accuracy, force, and happiness; but fervid as the praise he bestows on the object, we had almost said, of his idolatry, he reserves a sufficiency of his fire to illumine his portraits of Haydn and Mozart; the first of whom he pronounces the father of the present highly improved state of instrumental composition, while the stamen of the second only required to be exempt from the disappointing blast of an early mortality, to be as productive as it was rich and florescent. "To pass," says Dr. Busby, "from the contemplation of talents and science simi"lar to those of Haydn, to a review of the powers, natural and ac"quired, of a composer like Mozart, is to experience the pleasure of "that transition, which carries the delighted observer from one ena"melled lawn to another; or to a garden, in which the flowers, "though not precisely of the same genus as those of the first, nor "so disposed as to present to the dazzled eye the same earthly con"stellations, equally emulate the sidereal brightness, and seem but to display the beauty of another hemisphere." These hemispheres, according to our historian, were, indeed, essentially distinct. The shining progeny of Mozart, though not more brilliant, were less uniform than those of Haydn. But our readers will view, with a satisfaction equal to that which we have experienced, the whole-length portraits of these musical ornaments of our own times, as drawn by Dr. Busby's scientific and masterly pencil.

"Powerful and commanding as was the genius of Haydn in the province of instrumental compostion-splendid and original as were his conceptions-judicious as we find their general arrangement-grand and varied as the effect he uniformly produces-nature had not crowned her gifts with that exalted, glowing, and intense feeling, which, not satisfied with sounds alone, pants for the riches of applied sentiment, and seeks them in the treasury of the poetic muse. He was not a great vocal composer. His Armida, La vera Costanza, and The Speziole, saved from the conflagration of the archives of Eisenstädt, which destroyed his other operas, serve to inform us of the superiority of his' contemporaries, Sacchini, Cimarosa, Zingarelli, and Mozart, in theatrical compositions; and no critic will compare his masses and oratorios with even the least excellent of the sacred music of his great predecessor and countryman. If, however, nature withheld from the native of Rohrau those exquisite sensations which delight in song, and which only song can express, it was that she might be the kinder to the world of music. Pergolese and Leo, Scarlatti and Gluck, Porpora and Piccini, had almost