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sheep's head with the wool on, and, as a side dish, the trotters of the same animal unsinged however, we made up with a magnum of claret, which was cheap and excellent."

GARDINER ON SCOTTISH MUSIC. "The Scotch talk much about their music, and consider themselves a musical people. If they assume this on the ground of their national airs being composed by Scotchmen, they will have more to prove

than can be demonstrated. I have repeatedly asked, Who are their composers? When did they live? I never had a satisfactory reply. As a people they have no pretensions to rank as musicians. Their

puritanical religion forbids the introduction of instruments into their places of worship, and their sacred music, or psalm singing, is of the lowest order.* On my first visit to the Scottish capital, I attended the High Church, where Lord Moira was in his regal pew, representing the King. The psalm was given out line by line, and the coarse manner in which the tune was

bawled by every one, to me was highly offensive, not having the least resemblance to any thing that can be called music. In return for my scepticism, I have been asked-Then who are the authors of our music? Probably your invaders: some of your airs are as old as the Romans, and still retain the features of their imperfect scale. The ancient dress of the kilt, or skirted frock, is derived from the same people; and the bagpipe Burney traces in the Grecian sculpture in Rome. These tunes unquestionably have been improved, through subsequent ages; and during the reign of Mary received the polish of her chief musician Rizzio and his companions.

As instances we merely refer to pages 117, 337, 497, and 558, for those who have received this polish. Independent of these circumstances, the Highlands of

Scotland, like all other mountainous countries, as Ireland and Wales, retain their natural germs of melody, which the shepherd throws out from his voice. This has no more claim to be called music, than the spontaneous voices of animals or notes of birds. From these hints, a composer will form an elaborate music; he derives a

melody from nature, which by his imagination and science, he renders perfect. Music of this description Scotland has not; she has not a written scrap in the whole country."

But enough of such nonsense. We are fully confirmed by this book of Mr Gardiner's, in the opinion which we have entertained, that there is nothing so silly in the world as a silly musical amateur-unless it be a silly connoisseur in painting. These creatures disfigure and degrade the arts to which they attach themselves, by the senseless slang which is always on their lips, while to them the noblest and most intellectual music is but a tinkling cymbal, and the most divine painting but a tissue of tints and trickery.

We must observe, further, that we have always had a favourable opinion of the commercial character. Many happy hours have we passed in the commercial room of most of the great inns on the road, and Tomkins and his fellows have gratefully acknowledged the justice we have ever done them. We cannot, however, shut our eyes to their defects. Immoderate pretension is the badge of all their tribe, as much as the bag they carry. Whether it appear in boasting of conquests over chambermaids' hearts, which were never achieved, or in assuming familiarity with persons or pursuits entirely innocent of the impeachment, the bagman is always less to be trusted in his account of himself than in his eulogium particularly conspicuous in Mr Gardion his goods. This family feature is ner's Recollections. He talks of every thing, of which he knows nothing; and, so far as music is concerned, has all his life been vending an article of the most flimsy and fallacious fabric. We must dismiss him, by observing that, hosier as he is, we have never, in our experience, met with any individual with so much cry and so little wool, as the author of Music and Friends.

My friend, James Taylor, Esq. Philadelphia, says—“ When my father resided at Perth, 1750, the stock of psalm tunes sung in the Established Churches was only seven, all common metre. These were regularly sung every Sunday, and in the same order, with out regard to the sentiment or character of the psalm, i. e. whether joyful or plaintive, for that was a matter not even thought of, and indeed, under existing circumstances, often remediless. The introduction of a new tune was a memorable event; and those in quick or treble time were regarded as profane, as ill as sang-singing in the kirk.' A certain worthy, who only swore profanely six days in the week, but who, on Sunday, was regularly sanctimonious, was so much shocked when St Matthew's was sung, that he used to run out of the church, lest he should incur sin, by appearing to countenance—the deil's tune.'" Their order of notes was a succession, nearly the same as that of the black keys of the piano forte."

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EMILY VON ROSENTHAL-HOW SHE WAS SPIRITED AWAY.

CHAPTER I.

"ADVENTURES, sir ?" said my opposite neighbour, in the Rocket light coach-"take my word for it they are as plentiful as ever. We have become wise, thoughtful, ingenious, money-making, utilitarial, and political-our eyes have become blind to the romance that still lies every where around us our hearts seared with the red-hot iron of a detestable philosophy, which interdicts fancy and imagination as subversive of truth-good heavens as if man were already converted into Babbage's machine, and had no higher occupation than the evolution of arithmetical results. Millions of spiritual creatures walk the air,' but they are of too refined and etherial a nature for our gross perceptions; millions of fine adventureswild, chivalrous, romantic-are within our reach, but of too high and purified a kind for our dull and every-day faculties. What do you mean by an adventure, sir?"

The person who poured out this torrent of words had got in at the White Horse Cellar, a thin, intelligent looking man, of from forty to fifty years of age, and his address had been excited by some casual observation I had made about the lack of adventure in a journey to Portsmouth at the present time, compared to the stirring days of Smollett and Fielding.

"An adventure ?" I answered "why, an attack by highwaymen being benighted on our way-or even upset in a ditch."

"The days of highwaymen," answered my neighbour, "are indeed past they went out at the same time, perhaps, with those of chivalry; good lamps and macadamized roads preserve us from being benighted on our journey; and the carefulness and skill of my friend Falconer save us from any danger of a ditch; but, after all, these are but external adventuresthe husk, as it were, in which adventures are contained, not the adventures themselves-there must be something more to constitute an adventure than mere robbery, or darkness, or sprawling in a ditch-there must be

character, individuality, perhaps romance. What sort of an adventure would a robbery be without a Captain Weasle?"

"Well, sir," I said; " but you will grant that the incidents I mentioned are more likely to call forth those peculiarities than merely sweeping along behind four fine horses on a road as smooth as a bowling-green." "There's the very thing," replied the stranger; "it is this sweeping along, and these fine roads, that have centupled the materials for adventure

under the word adventure, comprising not merely accidents and assaults, but any thing that calls forth one's surprise by its oddness-and that, I take it, is the widest sense adventure can be taken in. What do you think, sir, of tipping the son of a marquis with a half-crown at the end of a stage, or blowing up a duke for not attending to your luggage? Such things never happened in the slowwaggon days of Roderick Random."

"No, but merely being a spectator of such an event as one of the nobility in the driving-box, does not constitute an adventure-you are but an indifferent party."

"That's what I complain of, People, I have said before, are so taken up with this world's cold realities,' that they remain indifferent parties to any thing that does not actually touch themselves. But, if you gave a little play to your fancy, you would soon find that you are actually performing an adventure when you are driven by a right honourable whip. You wonder what circumstances led to such a fall; what train of mishaps and miseries ended at last in ruffianizing the mind and manners of an English noble. You talk of it when you get home, you boast of it once or twice a-week after dinner for the rest of your lifetime, and by that simple coming in contact with the patrician Jehu, you feel as if you had a share in his history; nay, you almost become ennobled yourself in contemplating his degradation; you begin to have a sort of distant relationship to his distinguished ancestors; when you read of

the achievements of any of those wor. thies, you say, ah, yes, very great man-I recollect his grandson drove me to Brighton, and a very good driver he was.''

"But these things are reflections," I said, "not adventures."

"Not at all-the adventure consists in your having met with an incident which would have set the hairs of your -grandfather's wig on end with horror and disgust, and the relation of which will have, I sincerely hope, the same effect on your grandson's natural locks. I appeal to the gentleman on my left, if, indeed, we have not set him to sleep. Will you decide between us, sir?"

The person thus addressed lifted aside the silk handkerchief he had hitherto kept over his face, and presented a visage of such preternatural ugli ness, that I started at the sudden disclosure. A lady at my side shrieked, and clung to my arm. The hideous apparition smiled in a manner which, of course, added to his grimness, and showed a row of teeth, of extraordinary length, which had evidently been sharpened to a point by a file or some other instrument. Deep lines were cut in every variety of square and circle, on every portion of his face; in short, he was the most complete specimen of the art of tatooing I had ever seen.

"I can scarcely decide," he said, in very good English," as in fact I have not been attending to the conversation. I am an Englishman, born in Derbyshire; I bore a lieutenant's commission at the battle of Waterloo; I am now king of six brave and powerful nations, and have been paying a visit to your sovereign Victoria. If she would give me leave to settle the French Canadians, I and my brave people would eat them up in a week."

The lady again screamed. "The gentleman's a hannibal," she said "I knowed it from the shape of his teeth."

The Indian King laughed.

My friend looked at me triumphantly." Smooth roads and pleasant coaches, you see, are not so barren of adventure as you supposed. You don't deny, I hope, that this is equal to an upset?"

"I don't know, sir," I replied. "George Psalmanazor lived in the days of the heavy flies."

"He was a quack and a humbug, and besides, you never would have met him travelling in one of those

conveyances. It would not in the least degree increase the strangenesr of this discovery though Falconer was to tumble us all into a ditch."

"It might increase it very painfully to him," said the tatooed monarch, with a demoniacal opening of his jaws, and an audible grinding of his pin-pointed teeth," for I would have his scalp at my belt in the turn of a wrist."

"They would hang you," said my friend.

"I am sacred, not only as a king but as an ambassador. Grotius and Puffendorf are precise upon that point."

"But you forfeit such sacredness by outraging the laws."

"Not at all," replied the King: "I was in an attorney's-office before I got my commission, and know some. thing of law. I give up the ambassador, but in my character of king I maintain I am inviolable."

"What! if you commit a murder?"

"Yes-my sister Christina put Monaldeschi to death at Fontainbleau, and no notice was taken."

"He was her own servant, and not a subject of France-and, according to Christina's account, was tried for a state crime by a court which would have been considered legal in Sweden, found guilty, and executed according to law."

"It was merely as a crowned head that the French lawyers passed it sub silentio, as we used to say in old Sweatem's office. A sovereign regnant carries his own laws with him wherever he goes. I may scalp any man in my own dominions, without assigning any reason (and that, by a regularly published law, and not merely from the absence of any law); and, therefore, I conclude under that law I should be able to plead a justification."

"I hope you won't try it," replied my friend, "for Falconer is a great friend of mine. But we have left the subject we started with; and now I think you will confess that there are more adventures within our reach at the present time, if we only choose to look for them, than when roads were bad and robbers plentiful. Can you imagine a stranger incident than meeting a king of the American Indians, quoting Grotius and Puffendorf,

and recalling the experiences of an attorney's office?"

"But you forget," I rejoined, "one great source of adventure possessed by our ancestors, which our modern enquiries have dried up: I mean superstition.

nor

We have no haunted chambers in way-side inns clanking of chains; nor spectres looking in upon us from high gallowstrees upon the blasted heath.""

"My dear sir, you are wofully mistaken in taking for granted the death of superstition, merely because she is buried. If we had courage to confess it, we should find that her subjects were as numerous as ever, and her power as great. Even at St John's, my own college, sir-we perfectly well know the library is haunted. I myself, sir, when I was an under-graduate, had rooms just below it, and have heard most distinctly the roll of some hard substance from one end of the long gallery to the other—and after a pause the substance, whatever it was, has been trundled back again, and the game has gone on; and as a proof to you of the liveliness of superstition at that period, which is not a very remote one, I may tell you that those rooms are often unoccupied from their haunted reputation, and that there is not a scout-I may almost say not a member of the college, who has not some vague fear of entering the library, or who is altogether sure that the popular account of the legend is not the correct one, namely, that the rolling sound-bump-bumpalong the floor, is caused by the devil playing at bowls with the head of Archbishop Laud."

"I never heard the like in my born days," said the lady at my right hand, with a sort of tremor in her voice,

that showed she was not of one of the unbelievers :-" I wouldn't go into that room for to be made Queen of England.'

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"There, sir!" cried my friend in triumph-" this sensible lady bears witness to the truth of what I say. Depend upon it, we are not one of us deprived of the happy power of thinking each strange tale devoutly true, if we could only tear off for a while the mummy-folds of interest, pride, rationality, and scepticism, in which we have wrapt ourselves. For my own part, I make it a rule to believe every thing. The experimental is as real to me as a tree or a stone-but, indeed, what right have we to call any thing supernatural, till we have found how far the natural extends? The combinations of chemistry are more supernatural than a ghost-yet we believe them."

"But we know their causes."

"No, sir; we only see the effects of certain mixtures, and from the uniformity of the effect, we argue to a cause but the cause itself is inexpli

cable. So perhaps is the cause of a ghost; but its existence may be as real, notwithstanding, as the stream we are crossing at this moment. Two gases in composition produce waterwhy may not two other gases produce a spectre?"

"Seeing is believing," I said. "I have seen, sir," replied my friend

"A ghost, sir?" enquired the lady, with her eyes distended with expectation.

"A spectre, madam," he replied, with a good-humoured smile; "but here we are at Guildford, and I will tell you the story when we have changed horses."

CHAPTER II.

"SHORTLY after leaving college, I travelled for some years, and when I had grown tired of chasing my own shadow from Rome to Naples, from Paris to Vienna, I betook me, in a fit of repentance for time lost and money wasted, to the calm and sedate Uni. versity of Heidelberg. It is certain. ly not very easy to find what is called gentlemanly society in those abodes of learning, where beer and tobacco dispute the pre-eminence with verbal

scholarship and cloudy metaphysics; but, in finding one person about my own age, who had a soul above brown stout and meerschaums, I considered myself very fortunate. He was a fine, high-spirited youth, of noble family, and of what in that country passes for a large fortune. His name Charles, or Karl von Hontheim; and before I had been a month matriculated, we both felt as if we had known each other all our lives. There is

was

nothing so surprising among the Germans as the way in which they go through that procès monstre, which we call falling in love. Instead of a quiet, pleasant sort of feeling, such as we experience it here, going on from simple flirtation through a season or two's quadrilles, to a positive predilection, and finally to an offer of marriage love in the heart of a German is a smouldering volcano or embryo earthquake. It seems to be his point of honour to feel as miserable as possible; and my friend Karl was, according to his own showing, the most wretched of men. The account of his woes was this :-- A certain Emily von Rosenthal-one-half of whose attraction I firmly believe consisted in the prettiness of her name-was the daughter of an old baron who lived in complete seclusion in one of the most out-of-theway districts of the Odenwald. Karl had become acquainted with her during her stay with an old relation one of the Empress' maids of honour at Schonbrunn-and seemed to have made so good use of his time and opportunities, that nothing was wanting but the consent of the old baron; Emily herself being nearly as romantic as my friend. But many things told against his chance with the secluded proprietor of Rosenthal. In the first place, he had a prejudice against the locality where the acquaintance had commenced; in the next place, he was sometimes in his own mind determined on marrying his daughter to a gentleman whose principal recommendation was that he was his neighbour, and would, therefore, not carry her far out of his reach; and, in the last place, he was not by any means anxious to marry her at all, as, besides losing her society, he foresaw there might be sundry inconveniences attending the event in the shape of settlements and portions; and, therefore, on the whole, balancing between marrying her to the Baron von Erbach and not marrying her at all,-the latter alternative was decidedly the favourite. But Emily, on parting with Karl, had given him to understand that she was very miserable at the thoughts of immurement in the old chateau of Rosenthal; and, accordingly, out of mere sympathy, he felt inconsolably wretched in his suite of rooms at Heidelberg. No wonder, indeed, that Emily was in doleful

And

dumps at the expectation of all that awaited her at home. You were none of you perhaps ever inside of an old German castle; but you will have a very good idea of it if you will transplant the jail of your nearest county town into a wild region among hills and woods-convert its court-yard and cells into long corridors, place some few articles of furniture, of a coarse and strong kind, in one or two of the rooms, and imagine the whole building very much in want of a county rate to keep it in habitable repair. This, at least, is a very close description of the residence of the beautiful Emily. Then, instead of the pleasing society of an enterprising housebreaker, or gentlemanly turnkey, think of being doomed to see no visage, from one year's end to another, except that of her father, or the modest and undecided Baron von Erbach. Solitary confinement would have been a milder sentence. then, if she moved into the village, as by courtesy a few straggling huts were called, her situation was not much improved. The schoolmaster had not visited the Odenwald, and I should imagine has scarcely yet opened his primer among that benighted and simple peasantry. Not the worse, perhaps, for them; but still to a young lady who had spent half a-year at Vienna-been presented at court, and had danced with all the whiskered pandours and the fierce hussars that shine forth in the refulgence of pearl jackets and diamond pantaloons, the change was "very tolerable," as Dogberry says, "and not to be endured." The unsophisticated natives of the village had no higher idea of a grandee than was offered them in the person of the baron himself; and they had a far higher reverence for the Wild Huntsman of their own forest, than for the Kaisar and all his court. But you ask who was the Wild Huntsman ?

Thereby hangs a tale; and I give you my word of honour it is impossible for any incident to be better authenticated by the evidence both of eye-witnesses and ear-witnesses, than the repeated appearance of a certain form or shape, which, among the country people, bore the name of the Wilde Yager, or Wild Huntsman. I have conversed with many-hundreds I was going to say—but many dozens of people certainly, who have assured

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