Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 333, July 1843

The instruction of the lower classes in vocal music, however beneficial and important as an element in civilization, or however advantageous as a means by which the general taste of the people may be elevated and refined, will not be found all-sufficient, in itself, to raise our musical reputation as a nation. Native music is at a low ebb at present; and, while musical entertainments are in such general request as almost to have excluded the "legitimate" drama from the stage, no attempt to introduce any English opera has been recently made. Into such oblivion or disrepute have English composers fallen, that some of the most eminent have actually left London. One well-known veteran now lives in honourable retirement in the Modern Athens. Another, once popular and admired, "disgusted with London and the profession," and "having given up all thoughts of again appearing before the London public as an operatic composer," is said to have migrated in the capacity of singing-master to a fashionable watering-place; while a third, once equally well known, has left the kingdom altogether, and has settled himself in Paris. The public ear has learned to appreciate music of a high class; and, judging from the past, the manager perhaps dare not incur the risk of bringing out a new native opera. It is certainly much to be regretted that the existing demand should not be supplied from native sources, and thus serve the purpose of national advancement in the art; but English music does not take. Does the fault rest with the public or with the musician? It is easy, and no doubt convenient, contemptuously to apply the epithet, "hacknied," to the operas recently adapted to the English stage; but how is it that the old "hacknied" music of the Italians should be preferred to the novelties of our native school? Here again the public taste has advanced too fast, and, owing to the inferiority of our home productions, the foreigner has gained possession of the market.2 Where is the remedy for this unfortunate state of things? Some master-mind, some musical Napoleon, may rise up and take the world by storm; but such an event is particularly unlikely now. The hour generally makes the man, and the necessities of the moment often call forth talents and energies, the existence of which was wholly unsuspected by their possessors. For aught we know, many a hero may be now among the ranks, and many a gallant officer now before the mast, undistinguished from lack of opportunity, unknown because circumstances have not developed his dormant powers. How then can the hour be hastened, and the opportunity of developing our musical powers be afforded? The answer is, by the establishment of a National Opera. It has been observed that every nation that has risen to musical greatness, possesses a musical opera. Even the French, who, according to Mr Hullah, "have the least possible claim to a high musical organization," have, nevertheless, long possessed a national opera, boasting the best orchestra in Europe, and producing masters whose works have been successfully transplanted, and singers who have met with universal admiration. At the present moment, Paris has two national musical theatres, the Académie Royale, and the Opera Comique: and the establishment of a third is said to be in contemplation. The possibility of forming such an establishment at the present time in England, may be reasonably called in question. The attempt made some ten years ago, though commended by the minister of the day, was signally abortive; and the subsequent endeavour of a popular musician to open a theatre for the performance of English operas, was equally futile and unsuccessful. One thing of primary importance—the patronage of the higher classes—was wanting to both these efforts. Were the stamp of fashion once impressed upon such an undertaking, success would be certain, did the fiat of the great world once go forth, the thing would be accomplished. The marvellous impulse recently given to musical instruction throughout the kingdom, shows the vast power, for good, possessed by the higher classes of aristocratic England. We have often lamented the apathy of the fashionable world on this subject, and we can entertain no hope of aristocratic support and encouragement for the English opera. There may, however, be some hope, though faint and distant, for our musicians. In consequence of a national musical education, a national opera may become a national want; and we can scarcely conceive it possible, that the wide diffusion of musical taste and knowledge should fail ultimately, to produce a large and never-failing demand for dramatic music. Then would our musicians have a wide, fair field for the development of their resources, success, the highest and most brilliant, would be within their reach, and would depend entirely on themselves. If, under such circumstances, the reputation of our country did not quickly rise, bright and resplendent in the musical horizon, our hopes of universal excellence would indeed be crushed for ever.

It might be long before we rivalled either of the great continental schools, each of which would doubtless long retain its ancient worshippers. Of these two schools, of a character and style so different, we confess a preference for the smooth, voluptuous, peaceful flow of the Italian, rather than the stern, but sublimer, beauty of the German. The one, like the soft and glowing landscape of its native land, refreshes the spirit, warms the heart, and kindles the affections; the latter, like the wild and often savage grandeur of the scenery of Switzerland, chills, while it awes and subdues the soul. There is a smiling kindliness about the former, which fascinates and attracts; the latter often pains and distracts, by an intense and varied action which admits of no repose. It is as the tranquil elegance of the Venus of the Tribune, or the calm dignity of the Apollo of the Vatican, contrasted with the nervous energy of the works of Buonarroti, or the sublime but fearful agony of the Laocoon.

The more enthusiastic admirers of the productions of the Germans, that race of musical Michael Angelos, often despise the lamer attributes of the music of the "sweet south." Such spirits delight in the storm and the whirlwind; peace and repose have probably no charms for them.

"Music was ordain'd, Was it not, to refresh the mind of man, After his studies, or his actual pain?"

Many fly to music to soothe and compose the mind, others seek it as a means of new and fresh excitement. Neither are now able, in the music of their country, to find all they seek. We are not, however, without hope for the future. Never till now has music formed an element in national education; and the movement now extending throughout the land, must of necessity be the means of elevating and refining the musical taste of our countrymen. Improvements, like those already manifest in the sister arts of painting and sculpture, may be now about to show themselves in music. Even our sons may wonder at the taste which could tolerate the music which their fathers had applauded and admired; and England, long pre-eminent in the useful arts and sciences, and the serious and more weighty affairs of life, may at length become equally distinguished in the fine arts, and all those lighter and more elegant pursuits, which, throughout the history of mankind, have ever formed the peculiar characteristics of a high degree of civilization and refinement.

PHILHELLENIC DRINKING-SONG

BY B. SIMMONS Come let us drink their memory, Those glorious Greeks of old— On shore and sea the Famed, the Free, The Beautiful—the Bold! The mind or mirth that lights each page, Or bowl by which we sit, Is sunfire pilfer'd from their age— Gems splinter'd from their wit. Then drink we to their memory, Those glorious Greeks of yore; Of great or true, we can but do What they have done before! We've had with THE GREAT KING to cope— What if the scene he saw— The modern Xerxes—from the slope Of crimson Quatre-bras, Was but the fruit we early won From tales of Grecian fields Such as the swords of Marathon Carved on the Median shields Oh, honour to those chainless Greeks, We drink them one and all, Who block'd that day Oppression's way As with a brazen wall! Theirs was the marble land where, woo'd By love-born Taste, the Gods Themselves the life of stone endured In more divine abodes Than blest their own Olympus bright; Then in supreme repose, Afar star glittering, high and white Athenè's shrine arose. So the days of Pericles The votive goblet fill— In fane or mart we but distort His grand achievements still! Fill to their Matrons' memory— The Fair who knew no fear— But gave the hero's shield to be His bulwark or his bier.3 We boast their dauntless blood——it fills That lion-woman's veins, Whose praise shall perish when thy hills, JELLALABAD, are plains! That LADY'S health! who doubts she heard Of Greece, and loved to hear? The wheat, two thousand years interr'd, Will still its harvest bear.4 The lore of Greece—the book still bright With Plato's precious thought— The Theban's harp—the judging-right Stagyra's sophist taught— Bard, Critic, Moralist to-day Can but their spirit speak, The self-same thoughts transfused. Away, We are not Gael but Greek. Then drink, and dream the red grape weeps Those dead but deathless lords, Whose influence in our bosom sleeps, Like music in the chords. Yet 'tis not in the chiming hour Of goblets, after all, That thoughts of old Hellenic Power Upon the heart should fall. Go home—and ponder o'er the hoard When night makes silent earth: The Gods the Roman most adored, He worshipp'd at the hearth. Then, drink and swear by Greece, that there Though Rhenish Huns may hive, In Britain we the liberty She loved will keep alive. CHORUS And thus we drink their memory Those glorious Greeks of old, On shore and sea the Famed and Free— The Beautiful—the Bold!

THE PRAIRIE AND THE SWAMP

AN ADVENTURE IN LOUISIANA

It was a sultry September afternoon in the year 18—. My friend Carleton and myself had been three days wandering about the prairies, and had nearly filled our tin boxes and other receptacles with specimens of rare and curious plants. But we had not escaped paying the penalty of our zeal as naturalists, in the shape of a perfect roasting from the sun, which had shot down its rays during the whole time of our ramble, with an ardour only to be appreciated by those who have visited the Louisianian prairies. What made matters worse our little store of wine had been early expended; some Taffia, with which we had replenished our flasks, had also disappeared; and the water we met with, besides being rare, contained so much vegetable and animal mater, as to be undrinkable unless qualified in some manner. In this dilemma, we came to a halt under a clump of hickory trees, and dispatched Martin, Carleton's Acadian servant, upon a voyage of discovery. He had assured us that we must erelong fall in with some party of Americans—or Cochon Yankees, as he called them—who, in spite of the hatred borne them by the Acadians and Creoles, were daily becoming more numerous in the country.

After waiting, in anxious expectation of Martin's return, for a full hour, during which the air seemed to get more and more sultry, my companion began to wax impatient. "What can the fellow be about?" cried he. "Give a blast on the horn," he added, handing me the instrument; "I cannot sound it myself, for my tongue cleaves to my palate from heat and drought."

I put the horn to my mouth, and gave a blast. But the tones emitted were not the clear echo-awakening sounds that cheer and strengthen the hunter. They were dull and short, as though the air had lost all elasticity and vibration, and by its weight crushed back the sounds into the horn. It was a warning of some inscrutable danger. We gazed around us, and saw that others were not wanting.

The spot where we had halted was on the edge of one of those pine forests that extend, almost without interruption, from the hills of the Côte Gelée to the Opelousa mountains, and of a vast prairie, sprinkled here and there with palmetto fields, clumps of trees, and broad patches of brushwood, which appeared mere dark specks on the immense extent of plain that lay before us, covered with grass of the brightest green, and so long, as to reach up to our horses' shoulders. To the right was a plantation of palmettos, half a mile wide, and bounded by a sort of creek or gully, the banks of which were covered with gigantic cypress-trees. Beyond this, more prairie and a wood of evergreen oak. To the east, an impenetrable thicket of magnolias, papaws, oak and bean trees—to the north, the pine wood before mentioned.

Such was the rich landscape we had been surrounded by a short hour before. But now, on looking around, we found the scene changed; and our horizon became far more limited by rising clouds of bluish grey vapour, which approached us rapidly from the wind quarter. Each moment this fog appeared to become thicker; the sun no longer dazzled our eyes when we gazed on it, but showed through the mist like a pale red moon; the outlines of the forest disappeared, veiled from our sight by masses of vapour; and the air, which, during the morning, had been light and elastic, although hot, became each moment heavier and more difficult to inhale. The part of the prairie that remained visible, presented the appearance of a narrow, misty valley, enclosed between two mighty ranges of grey mountains, which the fog represented. As we gazed around us and beheld these strange phenomena, our eyes met, and we read in each others countenance that embarrassment which the bravest and most light-hearted are apt to feel, when hemmed in by perils of which they cannot conjecture the nature.

"Fire off your gun," said I to Carleton. I started as I spoke at the alteration in my own voice. The gun went off, but the report was, as it were, stifled by the compressed atmosphere. It did not even alarm some water-fowl that were plashing and floundering in the creek a few hundred paces from us.

"Look at our horses!" exclaimed Carleton. "They are surely going mad." The animals were evidently uneasy at something. They pricked up their ears, turned half round, and gazed with startled eye behind them; then strained with their heads and necks in the opposite direction to the vapour, snorting violently, and at last trying to break away from the trees to which they were tied. A short time previously they had appeared much fatigued, but now they were all fire and impatience.

"It is impossible to remain here," said Carleton.

"But whither shall we go?"

"Wherever our horses choose to take us."

We untied the animals and sprang upon them. But scarcely were we in the saddle when they started off at a pace as frantic as if a pack of wolves had been at their heels; and taking the direction of the creek, which ran between the palmetto plantation and a cypress wood, continued along its banks at the same wild gallop. As we advanced, the creek began to widen; in place of palmettos, clumps of marsh reeds, and rushes showed themselves here and there. An unearthly stillness prevailed, only broken now and then by the cry of a wild-goose; and even that appeared strange and unnatural in its sound.

"What can be the meaning of this?" cried Carleton. "I am burning with heat, and yet I have not the slightest moisture on my skin. All these signs are incomprehensible. For God's sake, sound the horn again."

I did so, but this time the sound seemed to be forced back through the horn, and to die away upon my lips. The air was so hot and parching, that our horses' coats, which a short time previous had been dripping with sweat, were now perfectly dry, and the hair plastered upon them; the animals' tongues hung out of their mouths, and they seemed panting for cooler air. "Look yonder!" cried Carleton, and he pointed to the line of the horizon, which had hitherto been of grey, lead-coloured vapour. It was now becoming reddish in the south-west quarter, and the vapour had taken the appearance of smoke. At the same time we heard a sort of distant crackling, like a heavy running-fire of musketry, and which was repeated at short intervals. Each time it was heard, our horses appeared scared and trembling.

The creek was getting rapidly wider, and the ground so swampy that it was impossible to proceed further. Seeing this, we agreed to return to the prairie, and to try if it were not cooler among the palmettos. But when we came to the place where we had crossed the creek, our horses refused to take the leap again, and it was with the greatest difficulty we at length forced them over. All this time the redness in the horizon was getting brighter, and the atmosphere hotter and drier; the smoke had spread itself over prairie, forest, and plantations. We continued retracing our steps as well as we could to the spot where we had halted. "See there," said Carleton; "not half an hour ago those reeds were as fresh and green as if they had just sprung out of the earth, and now look at them—the leaves are hanging down, parched and curled up by the heat."

The whole prairie, the whole horizon to the south-west, was now one mass of dense smoke, through which the sun's disc looked scarcely brighter than a paper-lantern. Behind the thick curtain which thus concealed every thing from our view, we heard a loud hissing, like that of a multitude of snakes. The smoke was stifling and unbearable; our horses again turned panting round, and tore madly towards the creek. On reaching it we dismounted, but had the greatest difficulty to prevent them from leaping into the water. The streaks of red to our right became brighter and brighter, and gleamed through the huge, dark trunks of the cypress-trees. The crackling and hissing grew louder than ever. Suddenly the frightful truth flashed upon us, and at the very same moment Carleton and I exclaimed, "The prairie is on fire!"

As we uttered the words, there was a loud rustling behind us, and a herd of deer broke headlong through a thicket of tall reeds and bulrushes, and dashed up to their necks into the water. There they remained, not fifty paces from us, little more than their heads above the surface, gazing at us, as though imploring our help and compassion. We fancied we could see tears in the poor beasts' eyes.

We looked behind us. On came the pillars of flame, flickering and threatening through the smoke, licking up all before them; and, at times, a gust of so hot and blasting a wind as seemed to dry the very marrow in our bones. The roaring of the fire was now distinctly audible, mingled with hissing, whistling sounds, and cracking noises, as of mighty trees falling. Suddenly a bright flame shot up through the stifling smoke, and immediately afterwards a sea of fire burst upon our aching eyeballs. The whole palmetto field was in flames.

The heat was so great, that we every moment expected to see our clothes take fire. Our horses dragged us still nearer to the creek, sprang into the water, and drew us down the bank after them. Another rustling and noise in the thicket of reeds. A she-bear, with her cubs at her heels, came towards us; and at the same time a second herd of deer rushed into the water not twenty yards from where we were standing. We pointed our guns at the bears; they moved off towards the deer, who remained undisturbed at their approach; and there they stood, bears and deer, not five paces apart, but taking no more notice of each other than if they had been animals of the same species. More beasts now came flocking to the river. Deer, wolves, foxes, horses—all came in crowds to seek shelter in one element from the fury of another. Most of them, however, went further up the creek, where it took a north-easterly direction, and widened into a sort of lake. Those that had first arrived began to follow the new-comers, and we did the same.

Suddenly the baying of hounds was heard. "Hurra! there are dogs; men must be near." A volley from a dozen rifles was the answer to our explanation. The shots were fired not two hundred yards from us, yet we saw nothing of the persons who fired them. The wild beasts around us trembled and crouched before this new danger, but did not attempt to move a step. We ourselves were standing in the midst of them up to our waists in water. "Who goes there?" we shouted. Another volley, and this time not one hundred yards off. We saw the flashes of the pieces, and heard voices talking in a dialect compounded of French and Indian. We perceived that we had to do with Acadians. A third volley, and the bullets whistled about our ears. It was getting past a joke. "Halt!" shouted we, "stop firing till you see what you are firing at." There was a dead silence for a moment, then a burst of savage laughter. "Fire! fire!" cried two or three voices.

"If you fire," cried I, "look out for yourselves, for we shall do the same. Have a care what you are about."

"Morbleu! Sacre!" roared half a score of voices. "Who is that who dares to give us orders? Fire on the dogs!"

"If you do, we return it."

"Sacre!" screamed the savages. "They are gentlemen from the towns. Their speech betrays them. Shoot them—the dogs, the spies! What do they want in the prairie?"

"Your blood be on your own heads," cried I. And, with the feelings of desperate men, we levelled our guns in the direction in which we had seen the flashes of the last volley. At that moment—"Halt! What is here?" shouted a stentorian voice close to us.

"Stop firing, or you are dead men," cried five or six other voices.

"Sacre! ce sont des Americains," muttered the Acadians.

"Monsieur Carleton!" cried a voice.

"Here!" replied my friend. A boat shot out of the smoke, between us and our antagonists. Carleton's servant was in it. The next moment we were surrounded by a score of Acadians and half-a-dozen Americans.

It appeared that the Acadians, so soon as they perceived the prairie to be on fire, had got into boat and descended a creek that flowed into the Chicot creek, on which we now were. The beasts of the forest and prairie, flying to the water, found themselves inclosed in the angle formed by the two creeks, and their retreat being cut off by the fire, they fell an easy prey to the Acadians, wild, half savage fellows, who slaughtered them in a profusion and with a brutality that excited our disgust, a feeling which the Americans seemed to share.

"Well, stranger!" said one of the latter, an old man, to Carleton, "do you go with them Acadians or come with us?"

"Who are you, my friends?"

"Friends!" repeated the Yankee, shaking his head, "your friendships are soon made. Friends, indeed! We ain't that yet; but if you be minded to come with us, well and good."

"I met these American gentlemen," now put in Martin, "and when they heard that you had lost your way, and were out of provisions, they were so good as to come and seek you."

"You be'n't much used to the prairie, I reckon?" observed the American who had spoken before.

"No, indeed, my friend," said I.

"I told you a'ready," replied the man with some degree of pride, "we ain't your friends; but if you choose to accept American hospitality, you're welcome."

We glanced at the Acadians, who were still firing, and dragging the beasts they slaughtered into their boat and to the shore. They appeared perfect savages, and there was little temptation to seek guidance or assistance at their hands.