on eating and drinking, in that particular point of view in which they affect singing. No prudent man should sing on an empty stomach; for that is a laborious and a gainless occupation. Singers should live well: the best singers I have known in my time were all remarkably alert with a knife and fork; and I could indeed give very scientific reasons for the action of the lungs being thereby facilitated. Let the singer breakfast without fear; and if the time seems to pass but heavily, let him afterwards divert his leisure with a kind of rehearsal, for the memory is often most capricious on the subject of songs, and nothing has a more miserable effect than a song, like "Th' adventure of the bear and fiddle, Begun and broke of in the middle." In this pleasing occupation the hours will glide smoothly on till dinner time. Let the singer make a valiant dinner, but let him never forget, that if eating be vitally essential to singing, drinking drowns the voice altogether. Let him not listen to the advice of men who, secure in the notorious discordance of their own sounds, would tempt him on and on by their example, with hollow assurances that "he will sing the better for it." Let him believe me and confide in me when I assure him, that any thing beyond a very few glasses of wine is fatal to all the softer notes of the voice, and productive of a hoarseness and untunableness which will be death to his ambition: I mean after dinner, with a prospective view to singing in the drawing-room: for as regards the time intervening between supper and that oblivion which a good companion wishes to avoid, no rules are required. Let him remember also that tea may be as overwhelming to his voice as wine: I recommend one cup of coffee, but no tea: your great teadrinkers have a nervous tremulousness in their voices which I can detect through the whole of the first song. It is unfeeling to ask a gentleman to sing at an evening-party before the entrance of the refreshments, and yet more cruel to ask him to begin before their complete departure from the circle. Those who, with voices "unconscious of a song," wish their company to perform, should consider these things; they should regulate the heat of their rooms by Fahrenheit's thermometer; they should invite neither too many nor too few to give sound every advantage which the dimensions of the apartment are calculated to allow; they should have the instrument well tuned, carefully observing that it is not too loud, for nothing gives a singer more sincere distress than to find himself engaged in an unworthy competition with keys and wires. Considerable difference of opinion has long existed respecting the superior agreeableness of singing with music or without; it is a question which will probably long continue to divide, not the hearers only, but singers themselves. Music helps and shields even an indifferent voice, and one great advantage of singing to music is the necessity it involves for the singer to stand; for, although a sitting posture is insuperably pressing to the voice, and utterly destructive of expression, except where the singer accompanies himself; yet to what few dare attempt. stand up voluntarily, without music, is cannot bring myself to advise it: it has Altogether, I reason and sense on its side, but what are reason and sense in a wherein the foolish, who are ever the matter felicitous majority, may find subject for empty laughter the following morning! To sing well indeed without music requires a master; there must be no tricks in such a performance; no dropping of notes; no smothering of sounds; no evasion of difficult parts: all must be clear, fair, audible, and dexterous. On the whole, perhaps the most equitable conclusion we can come to is, that a good singer should be able to sing either with or without an accompaniment. In this department there is much yet to be done. I have often thought that if I could be taught the mere mechanical part of composition, I could devise such spirit-stirring accompaniments to some of my favourite songs, particularly to those of an heroic or patriotic cast, as would be productive of an effect altogether unknown to modern times. (New Mon. Sept.) THE MOORISH BRIDAL SONG.* THE citron groves their fruit and flowers were strewing, Of summer's gentlest wind, the branches wooing Through the leaves gleaming, midst the fountain-falls. A song of joy, a bridal song came swelling To blend with fragrance in those silent shades, And lights, and dancing steps, and gem-crown'd maids; "The Bride comes forth! her tears no more are falling To leave the chamber of her infant years, Kind voices from another home are calling, She comes like day-spring-she hath done with tears! "We haste! the chosen and the lovely bringing, Her beauty leaves us in its rosy years, Her sisters weep-but she hath done with tears! Know'st thou for whom they sang the bridal numbers ? *It is a custom among the Moors to sing the bridal song when the funeral of an unmarried woman is borne from her home. What though beneath thee man put forth Yet mourn I not thy parted sway, And triumphs that beneath thee sprang, Go, let oblivion's curtain fall In pitying pageants bring not back, Ev'n I am weary in yon skies My lips that speak thy dirge of death Their rounded gasp and gurgling breath Receive my parting ghost! This spirit shall return to Him That gave its heavenly spark ; And took the sting from Death! Go, Sup, while Mercy holds me up To drink this last and bitter cup Sept. 1823. (Lond. Mag. August.) POPULAR PREJUDICES AND SUPERSTITIOUS PECULIAR TO THE ESTHONIANS.. Births, Deaths, Baptisms, &c. PREG REGNANT Women, when they lay wood in a stove, take care not to put it in contrary to the direction of the branches; this would influence the manner in which the child will present itself at the birth. --- When two pregnant women sneeze at the same time, it is a sign that they will have girls; if the two husbands sneeze, it announces that they will have boys. Great care is taken not to tread on the feet of pregnant women, otherwise their children would have deformed feet and crooked legs. --- As soon as a woman after her lying in can sit at table, she is placed at the upper end, to procure the infant good treatment and distinction during its life. --- Nothing heavy must be placed on a child's head, which would in pede its growth. - The first thing a child lays hold of indicates his future inclinations; the parents therefore place within his reach such thing as they wish their children to be engaged with in future. --- When a child is born at the latter end of the week, it is a sign that he will marry late, or not at all. When the clergyman comes to visit as ick person, they remark wheth er his horse holds his head up, or the contrary; in the latter case they de-. spair of the recovery of the patient. - -A funeral must never pass through a field, even if it is fallow.. Many of the peasantry place near the deceased a brush, money, needles and thread, as so many necessary instruments to employ him in his long journey from this world to the other. On returning from a funeral, the hearse is not immediately brought under cover, but left for a time in the open air, that other members of the same family may not soon die. --- In some places food is put on the floor in a separate room, that the deceased may help himself. - - Others, holding a broom in their hands, evoke the souls of their deceased friends, and invite them to a feast; and when they suppose the defunct to have eaten sufficiently, the broom is broken in token of their dismissal, at the same time desiring them not to tread upon the rye as they go away. They have very particular ideas respecting the resurrection of the dead; some do not believe in it at all. --- As they think that on the day of judgment the churches will fall towards the north, they have great dislike to being buried on that side. At the christening of a child, they observe whether it holds its head up or hangs it down. The former indicates robust health and a long life; the last makes them fear an early death. --During the christening, the father of the child runs as fast as he can round the church, in order to secure to the infant the gift of agility and nimbleness. This custom is particularly in vogue among the inhabitants on the sea-coast, where this quality is more essentially necessary. --- They take great care not to have a christening soon after a funeral. --- The godfathers and godmothers do not look at each other during the ceremony; without this precaution, the infant baptized would be subject to troublesome diseases, and would have the alarming privilege of seeing spirits. Several parents fasten a ring to the child's linen, that he or she may marry early; others conceal money, bread, and garlic, in the child's garments, on the day of his christening. The two first ensure to him riches, and the last secures him from the power of witchcraft. - - - They despair of the life of the child if he goes to sleep during the christening. -The sponsors take care not to eat meat directly before the christening, that their godchild may not have the toothache, which otherwise would be perpetual. --- Parents who have had the misfortune to lose children in their infancy, often give to an infant the name of Adam or Eve, in the hope that the supernatural influence of these names will secure to the infant a long life. --They avoid having their children christened on a Friday; Thursday, on the contrary, is a fortunate day. Many of them firmly believe that a child christened on Friday will become good for nothing, and will perhaps even perish under the hands of the executioner. -- They have also a thousand strange and superstitions ideas relative to the Communion :-There are some who, after having taken the consecrated wafer, endeavour without being perceived, to take a part of it out of their mouth to use it for conjuring certain sorceries, and producing certain supernatural ef fects. --- On the day of the Communion it is almost a general custom to drink to excess, under the persuasion that it will add to the efficacy of the sacrament which they have received. - On the night after they have taken the Communion they sleep with a part of the clothes they had on, generally their stockings. On the same day they carefully avoid the use of tobacco, and do not go into the bath till many days after. When it thunders, many country people believe that it is God pursuing the devil, and they shut their doors and windows with the greatest care, lest the evil spirit should take refuge in their houses. --- Others place two knives in the window, with the points upwards, to keep off the lightning. These latter do not suspect that they are such good natural philosophers. They regard with religious awe places and things struck by lightning; above all, stones which it has broken to pieces. Where such fragments are found, they believe that it was there the evil spirit took refuge when the hand of God struck him. --- Many believe the rainbow to be the scythe which the thunder makes use of to pursue the evil genii. - - Some fancy they can attract the wind from a certain quarter by holding up a serpent or a hatchet; and in the latter case, by hissing towards the quarter of the horizon from which they desire the wind to come. --- On New Year's Eve, if any noise be heard in the house which they cannot easily account for they are firmly persuaded that one of the family will die in the course of the year. Of Unlucky Days, &c. The fishermen who dwell on the coast of the Baltic never use their nets between All Saint's and St. Martin's; they would then be certain of not taking any fish through the whole year: they never fish on Saint Blaise's day. On Ash Wednesday the women neither sew nor knit, fot fear of bringing misfortune upon the cattle. They contrive so as not to use fire on St. Lawrence's day; by taking this precaution, they think themselves secure against fire the rest of the year. This prejudice of lucky and unlucky days has existed at all times and in all nations; but if knowledge and civilization have not removed it, they have at least diminished its influence. In Livonia, however, the people are more than ever addicted to the most superstitious ideas on this subject. In a Riga Journal (Rigaische Stadblätter, No. 3657, anno 1822, edited by M. Sonntag,) there are several passages relative to a letter written from heaven, which is no other than a catalogue of lucky and unlucky days. This letter is in general circulation; every body carries it about him, and, though strict ly forbidden by the police, the copies are multiplied so profusely as to increase an evil, all attempts to destroy which have hitherto failed. Among the country people this idea is equiva lent to the doctrine of fatality; and if they commit faults, or even crimes, on the days which are marked as unlucky, they do not consider themselves as guilty, because they were pre-destined. The flight of certain birds, or the meeting of certain animals on their first going out in the morning, are in their minds good or bad omens. They do not hunt on St. Mark's or St. Catherine's day, on penalty of being unsuccessful all the rest of the year. --- Most of them are so prepossessed against Friday, that they never settle any important business, or conclude a bargain on that day; in some places they do not even dress their children. - - - They do not like visits on Thursdays, for it is a sign that they shall have troublesome guests the whole week. The care and preservation of their flocks are also a fruitful source of superstitious ideas. - - - In some districts when the shepherd brings back his flock from the pasture, in spring, for the first time, he is sprinkled with water from head to foot, in the persuasion that this makes the cattle thrive. The malignity of beasts of prey is believed to be prevented by designating them not by their proper names, but by some of their attributes. For example they call the fox hallkuhl (grey coat ;) the bear, layjatyk (broadfoot,) &c. &c. They also fancy that they 14 ATHENEUM VOL. 14. can oblige the wolf to take another direction by strewing salt in his way. The howling of wolves, especially at day-break, is considered a very bad omen, predicting famine or disease. In more ancient times it was imagined that these animals thus asked their god to give them food, which he threw to them out of the clouds. - When a wolf seizes any of their cattle, they fancy they can oblige him to quit his prey by dropping a piece of money, their pipe, hat, &c. They do not permit the hare to be often mentioned, for fear of drawing it into their fields. --- To make hens lay eggs, they beat them with an old broom. --- In families where the wife is the eldest child of her parents, it has been observed that they always sell the first calves, being convinced that if kept they would not thrive. --- To speak of insects or mischievous animals at meal-time is a sure way to make them more voracious. If a fire breaks out, they think to stop its fury by throwing a black hen into the flames. This idea, of an expiatory sacrifice offered to a malevolent or tutelary power, is a remnant of paganism. Various other traces of it are found among the Esthonians; for instance, at the beginning of their meals they purposely let fall a piece of new bread, or some drops of liquor from a bottle not yet begun, as an offering to the divinity. It is very offensive to the peasants for any one to look long into their wells; they think that it will cause the wells to dry up. When manure is carted into the fields, that which falls from the cart is not gathered up, lest mischievous insects and blights come upon the corn. When an old house is quitted for a new one, they are attentive in noting the first animal that dies. If it be an animal with hairy feet, some fowl, for instance, there is mourning in the house; it is a sign of misery and bad success in all their undertakings. These are the prevailing popular prejudices in the three Duchies; a great number of them, especially among the Esthonians, are connected with their ancient Mythology; others origi |