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a rational and manly esteem for each. We ought not to expect from one art, those effects which another alone is, perhaps, calculated to produce; nor does it in the least follow, because we may believe poetry to possess the most perfect means of moving our passions, that we should not entertain for the other arts respectively, a very warm, though at the same time a judicious and discriminating, admiration.

The art which must be placed next in rank to painting, undoubtedly is, sculpture. It is an art of much more simplicity and uniformity than painting. It cannot with propriety, or a good effect, be applied to many subjects. The objects of its pursuit may be comprised in two words, form and character; and while painting has many styles and various manners, sculpture may be said to possess but one. It must be free from all the petty arts of ornament and picturesque contrast, producing its effect solely by presenting in one form a combination of excellencies, separated in nature; but when seen combined, impress us with exalted ideas of beauty and character.

There are many interesting subjects of enquiry connected with this art, but upon the present occasion, I can hardly afford space to refer to them. If the excellence of art, be a just imitation of nature, why is it that sculpture receives no improvement from color, by which nature would certainly be more closely and effectually imitated? It is because sculpture makes it her duty to afford pleasure of a higher kind; the delight resulting from the contemplation of perfect beauty, or an imaginative concentration of those forms and proportions to which we attach by association, nobleness, and other exalted and agrecable qualities of mind. This is, in truth, an intellectual pleasure, while a mere imitation of nature being addressed only to our senses, would be an inferior art, though perhaps more captivating to ignorance and levity.

We are sure from experience, that beauty of form alone, without the assistance of any other quality, claims our esteem and admiration. As a proof of the high value we set on mere excellence of form, we may produce the greatest part of the works of Michael Angelo, both in painting and sculpture, as well as most of the antique statues, which receive the very highest esteem, chiefly for this concentration of excellencies in one ideal figure, this perfection of abstract form.

Having thus slightly touched upon this branch of our subject, I must for the present leave it; a full enquiry, however interesting in itself, would prove much too extensive for the present lecture, an omission which, wearied as I am afraid you already are, will less stand in need of apology.

There is, however, another art, which perhaps is more generally pleasing than either of those I have mentioned, and it would certainly leave those critical notices of the arts very imperfect, if I were altogether to omit any mention of it-I allude to music. This is the allowed and orthodox theme for glowing and flowery, as well as unmeaning, talk. What poet has failed to celebrate the charms of music; its powers of kindling the latent fires of the breast, and moving the passions, at one time inspiring nobleness of sentiment, at another

exalted courage, extending its influence even to the brute creation, refining their manners, and softening their tempers? No power, in a word, has been denied to music from the wonder-working Orpheus and Timotheus of old, the latter of whom, as Dryden tells us,

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"Ere heavenly bellows learned to blow,

"Could swell the soul to rage, and kindle soft desire."

But let us leave the poets, who are not supposed to deal in a strictly examined philosophy, and ask what really are the powers and operations of music on the mind? A philosophical writer (Usher) thus expresses himself on music: "It is a language of delightful sensa"tions, that is far more eloquent than words, and it breathes to the ear the clearest intimations; we feel plainly, that music touches and gently agitates the agreeable and sublime passions; that it wraps us "in melancholy, that it dissolves and inflames, that it melts us in ten"derness, and rouses to rage."

For my part, I must own, after some investigation, that I cannot entertain any such belief of its powers and influence. Being a great lover of music, and somewhat of a practical musician, I have been very slow in coming to the opinion to which I have been forced; that music has not of itself any thing of a mental nature, and that its pleasures are almost entirely of a sensual and mechanical character. It is, in short, very little more dignified in its nature, than the corporeal pleasures of delicious flavors or agreeable perfumes. I honestly believe that no music which was ever composed, from the simplest melody, to a symphony of Beethoven, was ever more capable of conveying distinct ideas, or impressing uniform emotions, than any other physical and corporeal gratification. Not more capable of originating ideas than the flavor of French wines, or the delightful odour of Stringer's distilled lavender water.

These are strong remarks, and I am very far from wishing to deal in paradox, or in propositions that are merely startling; particularly when I remember how much merited odium I am likely to bring on myself, if I fail in some degree to explain and justify my meaning.

Now, if music deserve to be ranked with poetry and painting, it must be because of its power in operating on our minds and passions, in conveying ennobling and gratifying impressions and ideas, which originate in the minds of the poet and artist. And this chiefly by reference to human conduct, and the actions of intelligent beings. But how is this to be performed by sound of any kind, or by any succession or combination of tones, whether proceeding from catgut, wind, or wire?

The truth is, that sounds can represent nothing but sounds, and the natural sounds which music is allowed to imitate, are but very few and unimportant. A musician can certainly, by direct imitation of natural tones, associate in our minds those notes with certain classes of objects, but no emotion and sentiment of the mind unaccompanied by peculiarity of sound, can ever be brought to recollection by any instrumental music

whatever. The musician's art extends no further than to remind us of any simple and natural sound, by similar inflections of tone. We may, for example, be reminded of the song of birds, and through them of coolness and quiet of their natural haunts in the groves; but to convey any notions of any one passion of the mind, of fear, honor, fraud, or courage, or indeed of any social feeling by musical combinations, is a thing distant, and, as I believe, impossible.

If, then, music is incapable of conveying any moral sentiment, if no precise idea that may be formed in the mind of the composer can be conveyed in a certain image to the mind of the hearer, it leaves us nothing in the delights of music, but agreeable corporeal and sensual excitations. I allude of course to merely instrumental music; its association with poetry, may render it much more exalted by so noble and dignifying an alliance.

But I think I hear some lover of music exclaim, Music convey no moral feeling! How do you explain the notorious and striking examples of association, connected with certain kinds of music, the love of home and of country, which may be excited by a musical air? How can poetry or painting do more than produce such noble and passionate emotions of the soul?

These are very just and pertinent questions, but admit, I think, of a very simple explanation. All the associations of music with any moral sentiment, are the effect of an accidental, not of a general, association. If the patriotism of an Englishman be greatly inflamed by one or more familiar and national airs, let it be remembered, the same air can convey no such sentiment to any man but an English man; to any one not of the same nation, or not possessing the same peculiarity of association, his emotions are unintelligible, and the air altogether unmeaning and uninteresting. Now, contrast this with the effects produced by poetry or sculpture. Let the poet relate an act of heroic bravery, or the sculptor create some ideal form of beautiful proportion, the interest of each being founded on the immutable nature of man, his unchanging forms and passions, these will be intelligible to all men of whatever nation or degree of civilization. A savage may be delighted with the Iliad as soon as he can comprehend the events, because heroism and danger naturally affect the minds of every human being, because every man from his inherent nature must sympathize with such sentiments common in a degree to all. But nothing of this general nature at all applies to musical expression. No one would be affected by a national air so locally powerful; no one, for instance, could ever be properly moved by the combined beauty and loyalty of the air of God save the King, like him who had become acquainted with its peculiar and local associations, and especially with those convivial libations, its inseparable and recommendatory accompaniments. None, in a word, so properly estimate the value of loyal music, as he who has taken for his motto, "Siccis omnia nam dura Deus proposuit."

Reverse the illustration, and let a refined and perfectly civilized man hear the most simple and inartificial poetry imaginable, the

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courage of rude warriors, and the dangers of savage life, will he not be affected, will not his sympathy be deeply excited? But what ideas will strange and savage music convey to him? That which moves those to whom it is familiar by its accidental associations, may leave him in doubt, whether it describe love or anger; doubtful, if it refer to the dangers of war, or the solemnities of religion.

This is the amount of the whole; poetry and painting may, and do, convey ideas, with which every sentient and reasonable being can sympathize; while no music is capable of any thing greater than an accidental association, a virtue and accomplishment which any thing inanimate, a stock or a stone, may possess. There may be, however, as I have hinted, a great variety of agreeable emotions produced from the associations of music, the tunes of former years, the peculiarity of place; but these are clearly quite accidental effects, sentiments which arise from peculiar, not from generally operating,

causes.

I am, however, not altogether unwilling to admit, as the extent of the power of music, that it may quicken our sensibility, and give a direction to it, that it may both prepare the mind for being affected, and determine it to one set of affections more than another, to melancholy for instance, rather than merriment, composure than agitation, devotion than levity, and their contraries. These dispositions of the mind, once created, and no precise idea forced on the attention, every one fills up the vacuity by general and personal associations. Ideas arise more or less distinct, which harmonize with, and are in fact, the results of our own individual experience and knowledge. This is the true secret of the great popularity of instrumental music. To enjoy poetry and painting, we must sympathize with the author's or artist's meaning; we must perceive the intended effect and failing to grasp the author's peculiar train of thought, or the production ceases to please or interest. At an instrumental concert, these general affections of the mind may receive a particular direction in all, but each is left to supply the associations to his own peculiar taste, which the mind of every one individually affords from its own stock of ideas, large or small, appropriate or contradictory, as it may happen.

Thus in a slow movement of music, the general effect may certainly be of a pensive and melancholy character, but the thoughts which arise vary in all; one may recur to the measure, as descriptive of disappointed love, another of devotional piety, and a third of the approaching shades of evening, and the solemn effects of darkness and night. Pleasure, in all these cases, will be afforded, and not the less, because these quickly passing thoughts may be very slightly traced and undefined in their outline; obscurity, in more instances than this, gratifies us, by giving us greater room for the exercise of our excited imaginations.

But I cannot venture to trespass one moment more on your patience by any further illustration. I would put the intellectual nature of music on this ground. Did any composer ever intend to

express any fixed ideas in his composition? If any had that design, did they ever succeed? I believe not. We may put it to the proof, and ask of any number of lovers of instrumental music, what ideas a certain composition brought to mind; and I venture to say, no two shall ever agree in their representations. Nothing can more clearly show the equivocal nature of the mental operation of music; its effects on the mind are, in a word, characterized by nothing but wildness, uncertainty, and caprice.

But it is now time I should bring my remarks to a conclusion. In drawing the original outline for this lecture, I had intended, with the inexperience of a young traveller, to have journeyed over a much larger space. I proposed to myself to follow out the questions which may naturally arise at this stage of our enquiry. If the excellence of the fine arts depends on acquired associations, which must be subject to change, to fashion, to the mutations of national manners and habits of thought, how is it that Homer and Virgil, who were the idols of Athens and Rome centuries ago, should, amidst every kind of change, have preserved their value, and now continue the delight of Paris and London? Upon what principle have many painters wrought, who, without any extraordinary interest of subject, have rivetted the applause and emulation of succeeding generations of men? What, are these presiding principles of general and abstract nature to which I have referred in the case of sculpture, and the exact attention to which seems the only road to greatness in poets and painters, the only single and simple path to immortality?

These, and similar questions, I intended to have investigated, however humbly, in the present lecture; but I soon found the pleasing prospect, which I had surveyed at a distance, to be more intricate, the roads to be more embarrassed and extended, than I had at all contemplated; and I am obliged to content myself with having performed only half the distance I had intended to traverse. On some future occasion, however, if the society should deem the subject agreeable, I shall be happy, with all humility, to lay before it some further thoughts in continuation of the present enquiry; a subject, the interest and importance of which, I hope, will not be judged of only from the present very imperfect mode of conducting it.

In the mean while, there arise in my mind one or two obvious thoughts which may serve as an application of the whole-a kind of moral addressed particularly to the members of our association, or the members of similar societies who may happen to be present. We have seen, that it is only to a mind already stored and furnished that any thing can convey sentiments of beauty and delight; we clearly perceive that poets may imagine and painters execute, but that we must have a knowledge, an acquired knowledge I may add, which forms the materials upon which they are to operate. It seems plain, in short, that it requires a similar proportion of feeling in the mind of the connoisseur, as in that of the artist; and that to judge of, or receive pleasure from, the arts, we must be wise as well as sensitive

men. \

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