Perier,-stood for three days in turns at a gate near the river, and taking all that could be found, poignarded them and flung them into the water with every sort of outrage. Men might be seen stabbing little infants, while the innocents smiled in their faces and played with their beards. Even children might be seen slaughtering children younger than themselves. Pierre Ramus, a man of learning, is torn out of his study, thrown out of the window, and his body, all broken and mangled, is dragged along in the mire by the younger scholars, incited to it by his rival, named Char pentier. Lambin, a royal lecturer, and a bigoted Catholic, dies of horror at the sight.”—Vol ii. p. 373. According to different historians, from 70,000 to 100,000 perished at this time; and Pope Gregory XIII. ordered thanksgivings for the victory of the faithful; and a medal was struck to commemorate the event, with the head of the pope on one side, and a representation of the massacre on the reverse. ences to contemporary writers, increases our information, and gives us an opportunity to acquire more by consulting the authorities, the style of the narrative is animated and the characters well sustained. History is improving where it is true, but private life and individual character have an interest beyond historical detail, and our author has happily combined both. We only hope that the promise in the advertisement may be realized, the history through the reign of Henry IV. and that we may soon have a continuation of to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. COMPRESSION IN ORATORY.-The following remarks from the Westminster Review have reference to an evil, which is the bane of our legislative assemblies and political meetings-longwindedness of our public speakers. Eloquence, we are persuaded, will never flourish in America or at home, so long as the public taste is infantile enough to measure the value of a speech by the hours it occupies, and to exalt copiousness and fertility to the absolute disregard of conciseness. The efficacy and value of compression can scarcely be overrated. The common air we beat aside with our breath, compressed, has the force of gunpowder, and will rend the solid rock; and so it is with language. A gentle stream of persuasives may flow through the mind and leave no sediment; let it come at a blow, as a cataract, and it sweeps all before it. It is by this magnificent compression that Cicero confounds Catiline, and Demosthenes overwhelms Eschines; by this that Mark Anthony, as Shakspeare makes him speak, carries the heart away with a bad cause; by this that Lady Macbeth makes us for a moment sympathize with murder. The lan We have thus endeavored to give a short sketch of the characters which influenced an important crisis in history; we recommend our readers, however, to judge for themselves. The book suggests many subjects for reflection, and gives many hints for the present time. There is still fierce confusion and civil war, and the foundations of the earth are out of course, and there is still the secret power of Romanism endeavoring to shape all changes to its own purpose, and employing every agent to fulfil the will of the Church, and bring all men into subjection to the spiritual power. The pope is shaken as a temporal prince, but as a spiritual power he is the same as ever. The individual pope, like an individual monarch, is often but a name, while the power resides in the body of his satellites, and is dispersed throughout the world, with every Roman Catholic priest as its sworn agent. Alva and Lorraine were only doing the work of the Church, and assisting her spiritual authority, when they led Catherine and Charles to believe that the extirpation of heresy was lawful and ex-guage of strong passion is always terse and pedient; and we believe there are thousands at this moment in the British Islands who would use the secular arm to carry out their own ends, if the power of the state were once in their possession. "Ranke's Lives of the Popes in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries," is a work of great research, and gives most valuable historical information. The notes are full, and contain long quotations from contemporary authorities; but the Reformation in France will be read as a book of amusement; and while the author, by long refer compressed; genuine conviction uses few words; there is something of artifice and dishonesty in a long speech. No argument is worth using, because none can make a deep impression, that does not bear to be stated in a single sentence. Our marshalling of speeches, essays and books, according to their length, deeming that a great work which covers a great space-this "inordinate appetite for printed paper," which devours so much and so indiscriminately that it has no leisure for fairly tasting anything,-is pernicious to all kinds of literature, but fatal to oratory. From the Quarterly Review. MUSIC. t 1.-Geschichte der Europäisch-Abendländischen oder unserer heutigen Musik, von dem ersten Jahrhundert des Christenthums bis auf unsre Zeit. Von R. Kiesewetter. Leipsig, 1846. 2.-The Quantity and Music of the Greek Chorus. Discovered by the Rev. W. W. Mosely, A.M., LL.D. Oxford, 1847. 3.-Mozart's Leben. Von A. Oulibichef, Ehrenmitglied der Philharmonischen. Gesellschaft in St. Petersburg. Stuttgart, 1847. 4.-The Life of Mozart, including his Correspondence. By Edward Holmes. 1845. of heaven to convey it to the organ by which it is admitted to the mind. But the offspring of the musician is born dumb-it reaches no car but his own, and that a mental one-it has to appeal to others to give it voice and being. Men and women, subject to all the caprices and corruptions of their kind-and those of the mere material musician are among the meanest in the world-wood and wire, and brass and catgut, liable to every variation of the atmosphere, are indispensable to its very existence; and thus the composer and his composition are separated by a medium which too often reflects dishonor, though falsely so, on the art itself. As Guido, in the prologue to his Antiphonarium, bitterly says of those who for centuries were the only instruments of music, namely singers, IN attempting to define the sister arts of Music and Painting, we would say, broadly, that the one is supplied from inward sentiments, the other from outward observation : therefore, that in presenting them to the comprehension and enjoyment of a race of beings compounded of body and spirit, the art consists in giving to music a form, and to painting a soul; that it is an argument both of our earthly and heavenly natures, that music must be materialized and painting spiritualized to fit them for our service, since only a higher order of beings can be supposed to partake of their ineffable beauties in their abstract essence, and converse with art as they do with truth, face to face. We mean no comparison of the relative value and beauty of these two arts, feeling sure that, however distinct their lines of light may appear to us here, they unite in one radiant point beyond our sight, though visible to true artist faith. Nor are we less assured that each art is equally favorable to that purity of life and high spiritual attainment to which all great poetic gifts are intended to contribute as a subordinate but still divine It is a strange thing, the subtle form and revelation; but inasmuch as the process of condition of music. When the composer has music is necessarily from within to without, conceived it in his mind, the music itself is as the very depth of its source requires it to not there;-when he has committed it to pass through so much of this earth before it paper, it is still not there;-when he has reaches the surface of our perceptions, music called together his orchestra and choristers is of all others that art which is more espe- from the north and the south, it is therecially placed at the mercy of mankind. The but gone again when they disperse. It has painter, when he has completed his picture, always, as it were, to put on mortality afresh. rests from his labor-it requires nothing fur- It is ever being born anew, but to die away ther at his hands. It stands there in silent and leave only dead notes and dumb instruindependence, needing nothing but the lightments behind. No wonder that there should Musicorum et Cantorum Nam qui facit quod non sapit, have been men of shallow reasoning powers or defective musical feelings, who in the fugitiveness of the form have seen only the frivolity of the thing, and tried to throw contempt upon it accordingly. But in truth such critics have hit upon the highest argument in favor of the art; for how deep, on the contrary, must be the foundations of that pleasure which has so precarious a form of outward expression;--how intensely must that enjoyment be interwoven with the Godlike elements of our being, in which mere outward sense has so fleeting a share! The very limitation of its material resources is the greatest proof of its spiritual powers. We feel its influence to be so heavenly, that, were it not for the grossness of our natures, we should take it in not by the small channel of the ear alone, but by every pore of our frames. What is the medium of communication when compared with the effect on our minds? It is as if we were mysteriously linked with some spirit from the other world, which can only put itself en rapport with us, as long as we are here, through a slight and evanescent vibration of the air, yet even that all-sufficient to show the intensity of the sympathy. "Whence art thou-from what causes dost thou spring, Oh Music! thou divine, mysterious thing?" We ask the question in vain, as we must ever do when we would follow paths which lose themselves in the depths of our being. We only know and only can know of music that its science is an instinct of our nature-its subjects the emotions of our hearts-that at every step we advance in its fundamental laws we are but deciphering what is written within us, not transcribing anything from without. We know that the law which requires that after three whole notes a half note must succeed, is part of ourselves-a necessity in our being-one of the signs that distinguish man from the brute, but which we shall never account for till we are able to account for all things. As to the hacaneyed doctrine that derives the origin of music from the outward sounds of nature, none but poets could have conceived it, or lovers be justified in repeating it. soever at the commencement. The savage has never been inspired by them: his music, when he has any, is a mere noise, not deducible by any stretch of the imagination from such sounds of nature. The national melodies of various countries give no evidence of any influence from without. A collection of native airs from different parts of the world will help us to no theory as to whether they have been composed in valleys or on plains, by resounding sea-shores or by roaring waterfalls. There is nothing in the music itself which tells of the natural sounds most common in the desolate steppes of Russia, the woody sierras of Spain, or the rocky glens of Scotland. What analogy there exists is solely with the inward character of the people themselves, and that too profound to be theorized upon. If we search the works of the earliest composers, we find not the slightest evidence of their having been inspired by any outward agencies. Not till the art stood upon its own independent foundations does it appear that any musician ever thought of turning such natural sounds to account; and-though with Beethoven's exquisite Pastoral Symphony ringing in our ears, with its plaintive clarionet cuckoo to contradict our words--we should say that no compositions could be of a high class in which such sounds were conspicuous. The connection between sound and numbers is a fact which at once invests music with the highest dignity. It is like adding to the superstructure of a delicate flower the roots of an oak of the forest. Far from being a frivolous art, meant only for the pastime of the senses in hours of idleness, it would seem to be of that importance to mankind that we are expressly furnished with a double means of testing its truth. The simple instinct of a correct ear and the closest calculations of a mathematical head give the same verdict. Science proves what the ear detects-the ear ratifies what science asserts-instinct and demonstration coalesce as they do with no other art-for though the same species of identity exists between the rules of perspective and the intuition of a correct eye, yet the science in this instance is neither so profound nor the instinct so acute. The mere fact that music and mathematics should be allied is a kind of phenomenon. One can hardly believe how Euclid and Jenny Lind should have any common bond of union; but deep in the secret caverns of the mind the materials from which both are supplied mingle Granting even that the singing of birds, the rippling of brooks, the murmuring of winds, might have suggested some ideas in the gradual development of the art, all history, as well as the evidence of common sense, proves that they gave no help what-in one common source, and the paths which have conducted a Galileo, a Kepler, and a | trouble of summoning them? For not even the exertion of our will is required: a thought-aye, less than a thought-the slightest breath of a hint is sufficient to set the exquisitely sensitive strings of musical memory vibrating; and often we know not what manner of an idea it is that has just fluttered across our minds, but for the melody, or fragment of a melody, it has awakened in its passage. By what especial favor is it that the ear is permitted a readier access to the cells of memory, and a steadier lodging when there, than any of the other organs? Pictures, poetry, thoughts, hatreds, loves, promises of course, are all more fleeting than tunes! These we may let lie buried for years-they never moulder in the grave they come back as fresh as ever, yet show secret associations of joy or sorrow they bring with them. There is no such a pitiless invoker of the ghosts of the past as one bar of a melody that has been connected with them. There is no such a sigh escapes from the heart as that which follows in the train of some musical reminiscence. But the natural history of music is full of wonders. Wherever we look into its inherent elements we are met by signs of precautionary care. It is as if the Giver of all good gifts had presided over the construction of this one with especial love, fencing it round with every possible natural security for its safe development, and planting them among those instincts we have least power to pervert. The sense of time is alone a marvellous guarantee-a conscience which no other art possesses in the same measure the order which is music's first law the pulse which regulates the health of the whole impalpable body-the first conditioning the depth at which they have lain by the of musical being-an invisible framework in which the slippery particles of sound are knit together for action-a natural regularity which we can only bear to hear transgressed from the pleasurable suspense in which the mind is kept for its return; for the suspensions in the musical world, unlike those in the moral, have the blessed property of never bringing disappointment in their train. How deep the sense of time implanted in the human breast, when the mere motion of a little bit of stick, and that not governed by any piece of nicely-constructed mechanism, but by the sole will of one capricious dandy, can supply it in ample abundance to an orchestra of five hundred performers! But the true timist is time all over-his outward man is one general conductor-eye, ear, or touch are alike susceptible to the electric fluid of true musical measure you may communicate it to him by the palms of his hands or the soles of his feet. One can hardly imagine a state of corporeal infirmity or mutilation which could render him insensible to this law. He may be blind or lame, he may be paralyzed from head to foot, or may have left half his limbs on the field of battle, it matters not-while he has sufficient body left to house his mind, the sense of time will not desert him. The readiness with which the memory lends itself to the service of music is another standing phenomenon peculiar to her. By what mysterious paradox does it come to pass that what the mind receives with the most passivity it is enabled to retain with the most fidelity-laying up the choicest morsels of musical entertainment in its storehouses, to be ready for spontaneous performance without our having so much as the With all this array of natural advantages science to endow her-instinct to regulate memory to help her-what is it after all that Music can do? Is the result proportionate to her means? Does she enlighten our views, or enlarge our understandings? Can she make us more intelligent or more prudent, or more practical or more moral? No, but she can make us more romantic; and that is what we want nowadays more than anything else. She can give us pleasures we cannot account for, and raise feelings we cannot reason upon she can transport us into a sphere where selfishness and worldliness have no part to play; her whole domain, in short, lies in that much abused land of romance-the only objection to which in real life is that mankind are too weak and too wicked to be trusted in it. This she offers unreservedly to our range with her attendant spirits, the feelings and the fancy, in every form of spiritual and earthly emotion, of fair or fantastic vision, stationed at the portals to beckon and welcome us in. But if she cannot captivate us by these means, she tries no other. She appeals neither to our reason, our principles, nor our honor. She can as little point a moral, as she can paint a picture. She can neither be witty, satirical, nor personal. There is no Hogarth in music. Punch can give her no place on his staff. She cannot reason, and she cannot preach; but, also, she cannot wound, and she cannot defile. She is the most innocent companion of the Loves and Graces; for real romance is always innocent. Music is not pure to the pure only, she is pure to all. We can only make her a means of harm when we add speech to sound. It is only by a marriage with words that she can become a minister of evil. An instrument which is music, and music alone, enjoys the glorious disability of expressing a single vicious idea, or of inspiring a single corrupt thought. It is an anomaly in human history how any form of religion can condemn an organ; for it could not say an impious thing if it would. "Every police director," as Hoffman says in his Phantasie Stücke, "may safely give his testimony to the utter innocuousness of a newly invented musical instrument, in all matters touching religion, the state, and public morals; and every music-master may unhesitatingly pledge his ·word to the parents of his pupils that his new sonata does not contain one reprehensible idea"-unless he have smuggled it into the dedication. Music never makes men think, and that way lies the mischief: she is the purest Sanscrit of the feelings. The very Fall seems to have spared her department. It is as if she had taken possession of the heart before it became desperately wicked, and had ever since kept her portion of it free from the curse, making it her glorious avocation upon earth to teach us nothing but the ever higher and higher enjoyment of an innocent pleasure. No means are disproportionate to this end. How fortunate that an art thus essentially incorrupt should reign over a greater number of hearts than any other. If poetry and painting have their thousands, music has her tens of thousands. Indeed we should hardly deem that man a responsible being whose heart had not some weak point by which the voice of the charmer could enter; for it enters his better part. Not that it is possible to form any theory of the class of minds most susceptible of her influence-facts stop and contradict us at every step. The question lies too close at the sanctuary of our being not to be overshadowed by its mystery. There are no given signs by which we can predicate that one man has music in his soul and another has not. Voltaire is commonly stated to have been a hater and despiser of the art of sweet sounds; but there is perhaps as much evidence against the assertion, as for it, in his works. Grétry says of him that he would sit with a discontented face whilst music was going on-which, con sidering what French music was in his time, might argue not a worse ear than his neighbors', but a better. But granting Voltaire had no musical sympathies in him, and it goes against our consciences to think he had, his friend and fellow-thinker, Frederic of Prussia, had them in a great degree; and a man as unlike both as this world could offer, the late Dr. Chalmers, had none at all-except of course that he liked a Scotch air, as all Scotchmen, by some merciful provision of nature, appear to do. Then it may seem natural to our preconceived ideas that such a mind as Horace Walpole's should have no capacity for musical pleasure; but by what possible analogy was it that Charles Lamb's should have just as little? How came it to pass that Rousseau, the worthless ancestor of all Radicals, was an enthusiastic and profound musician-while Dr. Johnson, the type of old Toryism, did not know one tune from another; or that Luther pronounced music to be one of the best gifts of Heaven, and encouraged the study of it by precept and example, while Calvin and Knox persecuted it as a snare of the Evil One, and conscientiously condemned it to perpetual degradation in their churches? All we can say is, that the majority pay her homage that it is one of her heavenly attributes to link those natures together whom nothing else can unite. Men of the most opposite characters and lives that history can produce fraternize in music. If Alfred loved her, so did Nero; if Coeur de Lion was a sweet musician, so was Charles IX.; if George III. delighted in all music, especially in that of a sacred character, so did Henry VIII.; if the hero of our own times, the motto of whose life has been duty, is musical both by nature and inheritance, his antagonist Napoleon at least hummed opera tunes. Oliver Cromwell bade a musician ask of him what favor he pleased. John Wesley remonstrated against leaving all the good tunes to the Devil. Every private family could quote some domestic torment and some domestic treasure, alike in nothing else but in the love for music. There is no forming any system of judgment. There is no looking round in a concert-room and saying in one's heart, these people are all of one way of thinking-they are all intelligent, or all humane, or all poetical. There is no broad mark: young and old, high and low-passionate and meek— wise and foolish-babies, idiots, insane people-all, more or less, like music. most there are some who are indifferent, or fancy themselves so, as much from want of At |