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of Leeds. On the right, lay the Albion Hotel, our quarters; I had a shrewd suspicion that our steed's lay on the left. Anticipating a fearful struggle, I gradually eased out the nigh rein as we approached the critical corner and tightened my pull on the off one corresponding ly. Peters, who saw what was passing in my mind, just at the decisive moment, seized my wrist with one of his hands and the rein with the other; so that our combined energies were directing the vehicle eastward. All this, it is hardly necessary," &c., "passed in a less time," &c., &c., as Mr. James would say.

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"A body acted upon by two forces will proceed in a line between them," (vide Whistle's Mechanical Algebra, some page or other.) Agreeably to this fundamental law, horse and buggy continued a straight-forward course, which there was nothing to prevent their doing indefinitely except a few houses. One half-second more, and we should have been in a linen-draper's shop when as if restored to partial sanity rowdy brought up with miraculous suddenness. The velocity which had been regularly distributed through his limbs, was in stantly transferred, as by magic, to his hind quarters. Elevating his heels to an extent that was more amusing to those around, than comfortable to those

behind him, he broke one trace and both shafts, and entirely dissipated the dashboard. "Factoque hic fine quieret," like Pious Eneas.

I shied the reins right and left over the horse's neck, and jumped out on the causeway (Americanice side-walk.) "Where ye goaing " quo' Peters. "I'm going up to the Albion; you may do as you like.”

"And leave the horse standing here?" In reply, I expressed a wish that the animal might stand there as long as was convenient to him, and undergo a much more unpleasant operation afterwards. Having thus relieved my injured feelings, I was proceeding to crowd all sail for the Albion, when a stout lad came to the rescue.

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Pleaze, zur, Oi knows tauld

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Received payment." "Dear droive, rayther!" "Wait a minute, Fred, my boy, till you see the other side of the ledger. Waiter! Pen, ink and paper!"

The stationary was brought. "What be that you're wroitin', Carl?"

"Read it, Fred;" and Peters read.

"Leeds, July 2, 1843. Ralph Styles, to Carl Benson, Dr. to Surgeon's bill for damages inflicted by his horse, £3 3

Per Contra,

By bill delivered,

Balance due Mr. Benson.

2 10 0

£0 13 0

Rec'd payment.”

My Pylades looked half a dozen notes of interrogation. I rose and limped

across the room.

"What is the matter wi' you?" "Am I very lame, Fred?"

"Awful!"

"That'll do then." I inquired of the porter Mr. Styles' locality, and having ascertained that it was not farther off than a cripple might manage to hobble, gradually worked my way thither. In a small office sat a large man of the ordinary Yorkshire type. "Zurvant, zur," said he, as I entered with an emphatic limp, and a ferocious aspect.

"Are you Mr. Ralph Styles? Because, if you are, here's your bill—and here's mine."

"Aw! you be the chap that had my O horse yesterday, be you "

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"Has the beaves, has he? I'm glad of it, (crescendo,) I hope he'll get the bots and a few more nice little complaints. I wish that horse was dead!" And down came my fist on the desk, nearly knocking the inkstand up into Mr. Style's nose. "O-oh! my leg, again!" and I stooped down to rub the member in question. "Zure, zur, I hope ye be na vera mooch hoort." Styles looked rather alarmed.

"I am very much hurt; shan't be able to attend to business properly for three months, However, I won't say anything about that, but if you don't pay my doctor's bill, I'll have satisfaction of youif there's any law in the land, that is. I'll teach you to give two quiet young gentlemen such a horse as that." And very quiet this young gentleman looked. "Now, zur, Oi wants to do what's faier mysel, I does, but you caun't expect me in faierness to pay your doctor's bill. But Oi'll tell you what Oi will do. Pay me hauf o' moy bill and we'll be quits." "Ah, you mean to say that you'll take off half of your bill, if I take off half of mine, which leaves"

"Na, Oi did na zay that, zur, Oi'll tawk off hauf o' moine and zay nothink about yourn, ye know."

"H-em-em!" I leaned on the desk a

few seconds in a thoughtful attitude. “I don't want to go to law about a trifle. You mean to say that you'll take off half of your bill and receipt it in full, if I say nothing about mine?"

"Zactly zo, zur."

"Here it is then!" and I planked a sovereign and two half crowns, while Mr. S. on his part made his original performance complete by adding to it the magic words "Ralph Styles." And never had two words a more magic effect, for no sooner was the exchange made, and the important scrap of paper safely pocketed, than I cut an exuberant pigeonwing, and followed it up by shooting across the little room at one glisade.

"It's astonishing how much better my leg feels," and I let off a few more capers. Styles looked on with a very puzzled expression. "Oi doan't understand this," said he at length, " pray, zur, be ye hurt, or be ye not?"

"I'm not hurt," said I, "thank Providence, and no thanks to your horse. But let this be a warning to you how you put that brute before a Christian again, or there'll be manslaughter some day."

The Yorkshireman was utterly dumbfounded. My coolness had stumped him completely. For at least three minutes he gazed at me, open-eyed and openmouthed Then broke forth, spite of himself, this most unwilling and mortifying confession, "Well, I be done!" And so is CARL BENSON.

MUSIC IN NEW YORK.

SINCE the arrival of OLE BULL, three seasons ago, our city has been favored with a continuous succession of distinguished solo players, and their concerts have become one of the chief sources of entertainment, and topics of conversation, with the most respectable portion of our public. Though the fortunate Norseman has returned, laden with spoil, like a Viking from a successful expedition, to his land of mist and snow, the Tabernacle still resounds with the thunders of the "Lion Pianist," or echoes to the arpeggios of SIVORI, or the neat cantabile of BURKE; its stage, guiltless of carpet, knows yet the fragrance of rich bouquets, and its dingy ceiling trembles nightly with the roar of enthusiastic approbation. Our newspapers, too, discuss the merits

of these players, and extol their skill with an earnestness displayed on no other subject connected with art; and our tea-tables and parlors are fertile in opinions and criticisms respecting them, of the most learned, profound, and at the same time brilliant, character imaginable.

Partly, perhaps, from the contagion of so much critical conversation, but chiefly because the subject seemed one of so general an interest, we have for some time anticipated that it would fall within our province to notice it; and, at length, after the last concert of SIVORI, we sat down intending to write a critique which should convey, at large, our views of the merits of these musical miracle workers. But, on consideration, this appeared a less easy matter than we had supposed,

The first principles of the musical art are as yet so imperfectly understood among us that we could only speak ex cathedra in questions arising from it, or with reference to truths unknown, and, to most persons, incomprehensible. We have, therefore, concluded to take advantage of the interest excited by the performances of OLE BULL, VIEUXTEMPS, SIVORI, DE MEYER, and the rest, and present our readers with an essay on music generally, by way of preface to a few observations upon these soloists. Our mode of treating the subject will be seen to be somewhat novel; we are not so sanguine as to write in the hope of popularizing music: we simply wish to clarify the minds of those, already, to some extent, musicians, by bringing out into strong relief, those principles which they frequently apply without being conscious of their existence, and thus adding a reason to their faith. In short, to those who will follow us patiently through, we have the temerity to promise to develop to their apprehension, as we go on, a new and clear view of our subject; to lead them up, as it were, by a very easy, though narrow and overgrown pathway, to the summit of a height, whence they may survey the whole domain of this beautiful art at their leisure.

1. We begin by announcing this not very startling proposition, viz.: There is no music in a single sound, whatever may be its quality or character, whether it be high or low, soft or loud, pleasing or unpleasing to the ear. That is to say, there is no one sound in all the infinite variety of nature, which, taken apart and by itself, makes music. It follows, or rather is included in this, that there is no sound used in music, which, heard quite separate, and out of all connection with others, would produce music; it might be clear, rich, and of good substance-a firm, full, beautiful sound; we might trace a resemblance in it to some one heard before, and so be affected by it, (of which anon); but, otherwise, it could convey to the mind nothing but the idea or image of itself that pure, sensuous impression, by which we should recognize it if repeated. For instance, let one go into a large orchestra where the instruments, all tuned, are lying around, like sleeping spirits, and let him sound first a note of a violin, then of a clarionet, then of a horn, then of a contrabass; or let him sit before a large organ, pull out one stop after another, and sound it

"from its lowest note to the top of its compass," so long as he confines himself to producing one single, continuous note at a time, he makes no music. Each separate note, when they are thus taken one by one, is musical, it is true; but certainly is not what we could call, except in the loosest conversational sense of the word, "music." Some of them have a very marked and peculiar characterfor instance, the notes of the trumpet and piccolo; yet they are no more music than those highly poetic compound words, "air-shattering" and "ear-piercing," created in the glow of the imagination, are poetry; indeed, they bear much the same relation to a passage in a symphony, that those compounds do to passages in which they occur; there being this difference, that the words mean something-they express qualities; whereas the sounds only paint images of themselves on the brain.

2. The same observations will apply to any combinations of single sounds. There is no chord or harmony that is music where it is neither preceded nor followed by other sounds or harmonies, and is not itself reiterated. Not itself reiterated, we say, as we might have observed with respect to single sounds in the last paragraph; for the reiteration of either a single sound, or chord, introduces the element of rhythm, which, being, as it were, the substratum, or frame-work, of music, shapes the sound or chord into a musical, though monotonous figure. But, taken quite alone, chords and harmonies, like single sounds, are only qualities, adjectives, abstract things-meanings, we were about to add--to prolong the analogy with words, but they mean nothing; they only make ideas. Thus, let any one picture to himself a common chord: there it is an idea, indescribable, of fullness and completeness, existing in the memory, isolated from all expression; fancy a seventh added: that is another idea, also indescribable, distinct from the former, an idea of incompleteness, a suspense tending to a resolution, upwards or downwards, according to the kind of seventh we fancy. Each of these chords exists in the mind of any musician, and of most hearers, as well defined as if it were a visible body;-the difference between them is as perceivable as that between the tones of two voices or instruments, yet it is totally unlike that, being a difference arising from combination, and not affected by quality. They may

be conceived of apart from pitch: thus we say-a chord of the seventh, a common chord, etc., using the names in a general sense, as we say a walk, a house. What we intend (to be more particular), is, that they are things, of which, though we never saw one, and cannot touch one, we have heard so many, that we can distinguish them without an effort, and have given them generic titles. The vibrations of air which make them being material, they, the relations of combined sounds, as well as sounds themselves, are as much objects as waves of water; and have as many varieties, from the long swell of organ diapasons, to the swift and turbulent sea of the full orchestra.

3. As neither single sounds nor harmonies are, by themselves, music, so, also, are not, and for the same reason, accidental successions of such sounds and harmonies; i. e., successions regulated by no purpose, and governed by no laws-mere solfaing, or sounding whatever notes come first. To take the best instance of such succession that we can think of, the Eolian Harp: the tones are of the sweetest quality, and there is an unending flow of perpetually changing harmonies, according as the varying force of the current of air, in which the instrument is placed, divides the strings into double, triple, or more, vibrating portions; or, at intervals, blows the sound quite out, and then lets it steal in from some remote quarter, with those perfect crescendos and "dying falls," which art can only rudely imitate. Yet there is no music, in the strict sense of the word: all is confused, wild, indistinct, having neither beginning nor ending, the mere sport of the airy element, playing among strings that answer to its invisible pressure, and give back unconscious sighings. Óccasionally, as we listen, we hear scraps of broken melodies,—so our fancy beguiles us, little, streaming adagios, that seem like dirges for fairy funerals; but, as we strive to catch them, the imperfect speakers will not stay-all is mere delightful incoherence. So, in looking at the clouds in a summer afternoon, we see lofty mountains change to palaces and castles, and cold ice-fields suddenly become warm and ruddy, as if they were lakes of molten gold; and, as in those Æolic breathings, we hear sounds, in quality and shading, more perfect than art can make them, so, then, we see colors which the pencil of Claude could never copy.

It is a little remarkable that when so much is said respecting "the Music of Nature," we should hear so little of "the Painting of Nature." For she is just as much a painter as she is a musician. Under her "sovereign vital lamp, Day, and the sweet approach of even, and

morn,

the human face divine," and all the changing glories of the seasons, return to us with the returning year, and with them also return all their innumerable voices; the whole earth is at the same time, in one sense, a great picture gallery and concert chamber, wherein the eye is never tired with seeing, or the ear with hearing, and, in another sense, it is neither, for it furnishes us with no ideal picture or musical piece. True, the water is a mirror, we find sometimes impressions of fern leaves on rocks, the dry branches of forest trees, as they creak in the wind, not seldom give out notes that, like those of the Eolian harp, might be phrases in tunes; but we have no landscapes, cartoons, symphonies, or oratorios.

It would be thought a curious notion if some writer on painting were to set to work to collect specimens of all the fossil impressions, all the rare devices that iron paints the minerals with, all the frost pictures on windows, and every such work of Nature's pencil, not forgetting the stone in the British Museum which shows in its fracture a perfect likeness of Chaucer, and have them all engraved in a book, with resemblant leaves, trees, colors, portraits, and the like, selected from the works of the great masters of painting, for the purpose of showing how they copied nature, and in what way the art of painting might be said to be founded in nature; yet this has been attempted in music, in the book entitled, "The Music of Nature;" and such is the general indistinctness of the prevailing ideas of music, in this country at least, that though the book has been more popular than almost any other relating to music that we can think of, being very readable, notwithstanding its manifest inferiority in every respect, no one has ever thought of laughing at the absurdity of its design.

It is in the hope of substituting some more clear views in the place of this indistinctness, which we should perhaps err in attributing more to Mr. Gardiner's book than to the natural aversion of the human mind to reflection, that we have

undertaken the present discussion. As we read the lives of the great composers and study their immortal works, we find in their notions of their art no misapprehension nor any such indistinctness, and we cannot but think that the first purpose of one who writes, ever so little upon music, now, should be to spread a knowledge of the true philosophy of it, and to clarify the minds of that large portion of our public who take pleasure in musical studies, so that they shall know what is the true office of music, and what to admire in it, without being blinded by that easily besetting sin, in all matters of taste, of affectation. But this is digressing.

4. We must be careful to distinguish also the impressions we receive from music per se, from those which are the effect of association of ideas. Not only single sounds, chords, and incoherent or accidental successions of them become linked, in our memories, with other impressions, but true musical forms also, and these last the more frequently, since they are more striking than other sounds, and less easily forgotten. And these ideas of sounds and forms are commingled with other ideas in all sorts of incongruous ways, so that by such associations they lose entirely their original character, and become merely mediums, through which we may be reminded of almost anything.

If a bird that had been taught to sing a piece of an air should happily get free, and afterwards hear the air whistled by some boy, rambling through the woods, we at once conceive, knowing how we ourselves should be affected, that though the air might be one of the gayest hornpipes ever heard, it would not sound very pleasant to him; whereas, if he should by chance hear, through his cage wires, any of the wild or melancholy cries of the forest, where he once flew about in freedom, we can easily fancy they would seem to him delightful music, and the contrast of his former situation, in which he minded only his own amusement, with his present one, he being now kept imprisoned to amuse other people, would render him exceedingly downcast in his mind, and quite unhappy.

"There is in souls a sympathy with

sounds,

And as the mind is pitched the ear is pleased

With melting airs or martial, brisk or grave;

Some chord, in unison with what we hear,
Is touched within us, and the heart re-
plies.

How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet, now dying all away,
Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on!
Now pealing loud again, and louder still,
With easy force it opens all the cells
Where memory slept. Wherever I have

heard

A kindred melody, the scene recurs,
And with it all its pleasures and its pains.
Such comprehensive views the spirit
takes,

That in a few short moments I retrace
(As in a map the voyager his course)
The windings of my way through many
years."-The Task.

He ap

A good instance of the power of association where musicial ideas are concerned, occurs to us, all the circumstances of which happen to lie within our own knowledge. Our friend Q., while at college in a neighboring city, one summer caught a cold in swimming, which brought on an abcess in his ear. plied leeches, warm water, &c., to no purpose; the pain increased, drove away sleep in spite of laudanum, which only makes him more wakeful; finally, after a week the most anguishing he ever experienced, and when he had begun to have suicidal suggestions, the imposthume reached its culminating point, and he was relieved. While the crisis was approaching, and he was suffering such intolerable agony, the pitch of the afflicted ear gradually rose nearly half a note above that of its fellow, producing at every noise, the most horrible jar and discord in his head. Just at this time a military company from Boston came to the city, with the Brass Band, then newwould hear it spite of the pain and the ly formed, in full numbers; our friend discord, and the consequence was, such an uproar as has given him a prejudice against all brass bands ever since. He remembers distinctly the tune they played, an air from the opening chorus in La it in two senses; if he thinks of the Sonnambula; even to this day he hears band, it disgusts him, if he forces himself to consider it as of itself, it is pretty and lively, and he likes it, but not so much as he does many others. This tune is also connected in his memory with the novel of Sir Andrew Wylie, which he tried to read at that time, as an opiate; they recriprocally remind him of each other; the novel he can never see

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