were the spirit of the man who refused mustard with his pork-chops more extensively prevalent. I am a plain man, and country-born. Until some seven or eight years since, I never heard a stave of fashionable music-par excellence. I have, however, swallowed much of it since that period. I have admired, with a heart groaning under the influence of an "aching void." I have cried "Brava!" at the opera to the most highly sublimated touches of the artistes. I have shouted "Encore!" from the stage-box of the theatre, at a lofty flourish which "played round the head, but came not near the heart." I have often evinced my approbation by a smile so very equivocal, that had it been scanned by those whose presence evoked it, its source must surely have been detected. It would have been found to resemble that undefinable expression, which a modern facetious writer has described as mantling the face of an unhappy wight, from whom a friend suddenly claims an umbrella, which he trusted had been forgotten! But it passed as an indication of the warm delight of a true virtuoso. I have bent me, too, over fair forms at the piano-forte, and turned the leaves for the beautiful strummers, and stood back and listened to strains, which I pronounced angelic. But this game is at an end. I have gradually thrown off the yoke. My conversion was the work of time, it is true-but it came at last. How many times have I repaired to a soirée, with a fixed determination to blame, and remained to praise! And how often have I felt-as, with the sound of "sweet jargoning" in my ears, I passed into the street— that emotion which an ingenious French writer terms l'esprit des escaliers-that is, a sort of late remorse, which suggests to a man as he is going down stairs, the things he might have said, and which he ought to have said, in the salon. But there sits no fashionable incubus upon my breast, now. I have no sinister motive. No sweet,young creature is now concerned, be my taste never so gothic. I am old now," and, what is more, I am no longer singly wretched. The spirit of Octavian is upon me-and "I WILL speak!" I love music-melody-harmony: and I detest, equally with hundreds who profess to admire it, that unnatural combination of trilling, quavering, and shaking, which passes for all three of these attributes. Give me simple music, be it lively or sad. None of your delicate notes, split into hexagonals, for me! The first tune which ever fell upon my ear, was good old Windham; and, to this day, I would not exchange its solemn tones for all the inventions and improvements of modern sacred music. The splendid sinuosities, too, so much in vogue in foreign and English operas, sink into insignificance in comparison with the first public singing I ever heard. I except, of course, church music-for my father was the chorister of our church, and I used to sit in the gallery with him, in front of the minister, and hold his pine pitch-pipe, while he-standing up with his chosen band, whom he surveyed right and left, with impatient glances, until they "chorded,"-overshadowed me quite. I mean by public singing, therefore, the first theatre-singing I ever enjoyed. How well do I remember it! It was at the theatre of a country village-a rough, barn-like edifice, at which several stentor-lunged Thes pians, "from the New-York and Philadelphia Theatres," split the ears of the groundlings, and murdered Shakspeare's heroes, and the King's English. I had been gazing, with boyish interest and curiosity, at the play which had just concluded. The mottled, patched, yellowish-green curtain had descended upon the personages whose sorrows were my own, and I was gazing vacantly at the long row of tallow candles placed in holes bored for the purpose in the stage, and at the two violinists who composed the orchestra, and who were reconnoitering the house. Presently a small bell was rung, with a jerk. There was a flourish or two from the orchestra. Another tinkle of the bell-and up rose the faded drapery. An interval of a moment succeeded, during which half of a large mountain was removed from the scenery, and a piece of forest shoved up to the ambitious wood which had been aspiring to overtop the Alps. At length a young lady, whom I had just seen butchered in a most horrid manner by a villain, came from the side of the stage, with a smile-which, while it displayed her white teeth, wrought the rouge upon her face into very perceptible corrugations-and made a lowly courtesy. She walked with measured step, three or four times across the stage, before the flaring candles, smiling again, and hemming, to clear her voice. A perfect stillness prevailed." Awed consumption checked his chided cough,"-every urchin suspended his cat-call, and "the boldest held his breath for a time." Our vocalist looked at the leader of the orchestra and his fellow-fiddler, and commenced, in harmony with their instruments. How touching was that song! I shall never have my soul so enrapt again. That freshness of young admiration possessed my spirit, which can come but once. The air was" The Braes of Balquither,"-old as the hills, but, like all Scottish melodies, as lasting, too. It is rarely that you find man or woman, to whom the songs of Scotland are not grateful. The national and rustic airs of that country open pure fountains of enjoyment to all; and the universal attachment to them arises from their beautiful simplicity—their deep pathos-their unaffected, untrammeled melody. "What sweet tears dim the eyes, unshed What wild vows falter on the tongue, The romantic sway of the melodies of Scotland over her sons who are "far awa'," is no marvel. If they possess the power to thrill or to subdue the hearts of those who have never stepped upon the soil of that glorious country-glorious in scenery, in deeds of arms, and in mighty minds-is it surprising that they should exert a powerful influence over the native-born, who associate these airs with the purple heath, the blue loch, the hazy mountain-top, and the valley sleeping below? The association is touching, not alone because it awakens old recollections, but because the music is natural-it is the language of the heart. Affectation has not interpolated tortuous windings, and trills, to mar its beauty, and to clip the full, melodious notes of their fair proportions. Fashion-potent as it is-has not entirely removed the evidences of strong attachment to the simpler melodies. Witness the exhibition of popular emotion at our theatres. Even the unsurpassed notes of that "sweet Bird of Song," whose voice has but recently melted from among us, like the dying notes of an Æolian harp, which still linger and swell upon the ear-even her "difficult" music-given in tones which could atone for any vagary-was thrown into the shade, by the enthusiastic applause, poured from voice and hand, upon "Black-eyed Susan." A SINCLAIR may be applauded in the mazes of an opera-but does the house tremble with applause, or is the heart touched, as, when encored, he tenders his obeisance to an audience, entranced with the simple song of "John Anderson my Joe?" It is on occasions like these, that the heart always overleaps the boundaries of fashionable surveillance; and those who have heard at our theatres the unaffected English, Scottish, and Irish songs, from the lips of the WOODS, SINCLAIR, and Power, need no corroborative evidence of this assertion. Nor are these proofs alone to be met with at our theatres. Disguise it as he may, the most obstinate enthusiast of the opera, admires such melody more than the most arduous execution. It was but yesterday that I encountered a young friend-whose golden-headed cane, kid-gloved hands, and sonorous "Brava!" have disturbed quiet visitors at the opera, for half the season-following "furtively," as Mr. Cooper would say, after the footsteps of a blind fiddler, in an obscure street, who was slipping his unraised feet along the pavé-threading, indeed, his "difficult passages" through the town, but exhibiting none in the plaintive songs with which he was beguiling the listeners of their sixpences, and their tears. Five or six years since, there were in the United States three Swiss minstrels, who delighted the citizens of many country towns and villages, with their "untaught melody." It was too simple, doubtless, to attract the attention, or elicit the encouragement, of the fashionable cities. A friend has related to me a pleasing incident, connected with them. Strolling, one day, on aimless purpose, along our wharves, they were observed suddenly to stop-their eyes began to brighten-they looked at one another, and presently commenced humming a plaintive air. They wandered anxiously backwards and forwards, several times, by the throng of vessels, still continuing to sing. At length a Swiss was seen standing upon a ship's rail, beckoning vehemently, and swinging his red cap to his "brothers in a foreign land." Their recognition and embrace, like their music, came from the heart. They sat down under the awning of an adjoining steamer, and the afternoon was passed in reminiscences of the vater-land, and touching airs from the Ranz des Vaches. Those who heard them, felt that they were, in truth, songs of the heart and of the affections. If they did not contain "difficult passages," they charmed every listening ear, and awakened in the minds of the singers" pictures of Switzerland-of the blue lake, and the white torrent-the corn-field and the wood, with the village spire glittering in the sunshine the rolling mist on the side of the mountain, now disclosing and anon concealing, the dark brown chalets perched on high-the eternal snows above, and the sunny vineyards below ;"*-all connected with recollections of childhood departed-friends still cherished, if living, or regretted in the grave-of dangers escaped-of love rewarded-and, it may be, more deeply than all, the never forgotten hope "There to return, and die at home at last." Could the music of a modern opera have affected them thus, leaving out of view the natural associations? Never! Nor would the sympathies of the listening by-standers have been in like manner awakened by all the "highly finished performances" of the most refined schools. It is not a little dangerous for one who would not lose caste in society, to assert that he does not delight in that ill-assorted compound of strains into which modern music is cut up, and which is commonly represented by such pet phrases as "high execution," "difficult passages," etc. Hence, there abounds much forced admiration. I have somewhere read of a rich but penurious personage, who aspired to much taste, and who, to exhibit it, gave an entertainment of instrumental music. While the musicians were all at work, he seemed satisfied with the performances-but when one instrument was engaged upon a solo, he inquired, in a towering passion, why the others were remaining idle? "It is a pizicato, for one instrument," replied the operator. "I can't help that," exclaimed the virtuoso, who was determined to have the worth of his money-"Let the trumpets pizicato along with you!" This hopeful amateur has counterparts, both as regards taste and knowledge, in our own day. I have done. I have now eased my mind of a burden, and atoned for much past deception. I am free from the shackles, which I have worn too long. I would now as soon imitate the folly of a friend of mine, who, not to be singularly ungenteel, smacks his lips over Spanish olives, and retires to ease the qualms of his conscience and stomach at the same time, as I would be found lauding that as the perfection of melody which is not natural music-which has no heart, and, as the winemerchants say, "no body,"-however great the difficulty which may be manifested in its production. J. OLDSCHOOL.. Les Recherches sur les Ranz des Vaches, ou sur les Chansons Pastorales, des Bergers de la Suisse. Paris. EXCERPTA FROM THE COMMON PLACE BOOK OF A SEPTUAGENARIAN NUMBER THREE. XII. DON QUIXOTE. It is not generally known, that a long period intervened between the appearance of the first and second parts of Don Quixote. Cervantes, it is supposed, had no intention of continuing his work-but finding that some person had published a spurious second part, he felt indignant; set fairly to work, and produced the second part, which completes the story of his hero. When young, I read the spurious edition in French. D'Israeli, who has given us in the Curiosities of Literature some anecdotes of the author and his work, makes no mention of the spurious second part; and it is therefore presumable that he was ignorant of its existence. XIII. A SUCCESSFUL APPEAL. BELL, a Scotch bookseller in Philadelphia, who flourished during the revolutionary war, published a number of pamphlets, and some books, which he sold at exorbitant prices. A person came into his store one day, and asked for a pamphlet of less than one hundred pages, for which Bell asked a hard dollar; whereas a hard half a dollar would have been its full value. The person was surprised at the exorbitant demand, to which he made some objection. Bell took the pamphlet from the counter, and was about to place it on the shelf, saying, with a very pompous and significant air, "Sir, this book was made for gentlemen." This tickled the vanity of the purchaser, who, not to lose his claim to that proud title, threw down the dollar, and took up the pamphlet. XIV. " MANNER AND MATTER.' VIRGIL'S celebrated sentence, "Gratior est virtus veniens in corpore pulchro," applies to books as well as to human virtue and "the human face divine." There can be no doubt that a very elegant edition of a work will make incomparably more impression on the mind, than the same work, ill printed and on bad paper. The first time I ever was struck with this idea was at the sight of a splendid edition of that delightful work, the Economy of Human Life, adorned with elegant engraved vignettes and |