The only fault I find in our present practice is the making use of Italian recitativo with English words. To go to the bottom of this matter, I must observe that the tone or, as the French call it, the accent of every nation in their ordinary speech is altogether different from that of every other people; as we may see even in the Welsh and Scotch, who border so near upon us. By the tone or accent I do not mean the pronunciation of each particular word, but the sound of the whole sentence. Thus it is very common for an English gentleman, when he hears a French tragedy, to complain that the actors all of them speak in a tone, and therefore he very wisely prefers his own countrymen, not considering that a foreigner complains of the same tone in an English actor. For this reason, the recitative music in every language should be as different as the tone or accent of each language; for otherwise what may properly express a passion in one language will not do it in another. Every one who has been long in Italy knows very well that the cadences in the recitativo bear a remote affinity to the tone of their voices in ordinary conversation, or, to speak more properly, are only the accents of their language made more musical and tuneful. Thus the notes of interrogation or admiration in the Italian music, if one may so call them, which resemble their accents in discourse on such occasions, are not unlike the ordinary tones of an English voice when we are angry; insomuch that I have often seen position: Experience hath taught us,' said the Gentleman's Magazine for Jan. 1691-92, 'that our English genius will not relish that perpetual singing.' our audiences extremely mistaken as to what has been doing upon the stage, and expecting to see the hero knock down his messenger when he has been asking him a question; or fancying that he quarrels with his friend, when he only bids him good-morrow. For this reason the Italian artists cannot agree with our English musicians in admiring Purcell's compositions, and thinking his tunes so wonderfully adapted to his words, because both nations do not always express the same passions by the same. sounds. I am therefore humbly of opinion, that an English composer should not follow the Italian recitative too servilely, but make use of many gentle deviations from it in compliance with his own native language. He may copy out of it all the lulling softness and 'dying falls,' as Shakespeare calls them,' but should still remember that he ought to accommodate himself to an English audience, and by humouring the tone of our voices in ordinary conversation, have the same regard to the accent of his own language as those persons had to theirs whom he professes to imitate. It is observed, that several of the singingbirds of our own country learn to sweeten their voices, and mellow the harshness of their natural notes, by practising under those that come from warmer climates. In the same manner I would allow the Italian opera to lend our English music as much as may grace and soften it, but never entirely to annihilate and destroy it. Let the infusion be as strong as you please, but still let the subject matter of it be English. A composer should fit his music to the genius of the people, and consider that the delicacy of hearing 1 Twelfth Night,' Act i. sc. I. and taste of harmony has been formed upon those sounds which every country abounds with: in short, that music is of a relative nature, and what is harmony to one ear may be dissonance to another. The same observations which I have made upon the recitative part of music, may be applied to all our songs and airs in general. Signior Baptist Lully1 acted like a man of sense in this particular. He found the French music extremely defective, and very often barbarous : however, knowing the genius of the people, the humour of their language, and the prejudiced ears he had to deal with, he did not pretend to extirpate the French music, and plant the Italian in its stead; but only to cultivate and civilise it with innumerable graces and modulations which he borrowed from the Italian. By this means the French music is now perfect in its kind; and when you say it is not so good as the Italian, you only mean that it does not please you so well, for there is scarce a Frenchman who would not wonder to hear you give the Italian such a preference. The music of the French is indeed very properly adapted to their pronunciation and accent, as their whole opera wonderfully favours the genius of such a gay airy people. The chorus in which that opera abounds, gives the parterre frequent opportunities of joining in consort with the stage. This inclination of the audience to sing along with the actors so prevails with them, that I have sometimes known the performer on the stage do no more in a celebrated song than the clerk of a parish church, who serves only to raise the psalm, and is afterwards drowned 1 The Florentine musician, John Baptist Lulli (died 1687), was superintendent of music to Lewis XIV., and composed, among other things, the incidental music for Molière's comedies. in the music of the congregation. Every actor that comes on the stage is a beau. The queens and heroines are so painted that they appear as ruddy and cherry-cheeked as milkmaids. The shepherds are all embroidered, and acquit themselves in a ball better than our English dancing-masters. I have seen a couple of rivers appear in red stockings; and Alpheus, instead of having his head covered with sedge and bulrushes, making love in a fair fullbottomed periwig and a plume of feathers, but with a voice so full of shakes and quavers that I should have thought the murmurs of a country brook the much more agreeable music. I remember the last opera I saw in that merry nation was 'The Rape of Proserpine,' where Pluto, to make the more tempting figure, puts himself in a French equipage, and brings Ascalaphus along with him as his valet-de-chambre. This is what we call folly and impertinence, but what the French look upon as gay and polite. I shall add no more to what I have here offered, than that music, architecture, and painting, as well as poetry and oratory, are to deduce their laws and rules from the general sense and taste of mankind, and not from the principles of those arts themselves; or in other words, the taste is not to conform to the art, but the art to the taste. Music is not designed to please only chromatic ears, but all that are capable of distinguishing harsh from disagreeable notes. A man of an ordinary ear is a judge whether a passion is expressed in proper sounds, and whether the melody of those sounds be more or less pleasing. C. No. 30. Wednesday, April 4, 1711 O [STEELE. Si, Mimnermus uti censet, sine amore jocisque —HOR., i Ep. vi. 65. NE common calamity makes men extremely affect each other, though they differ in every other particular. The passion of love is the most general concern among men; and I am glad to hear by my last advices from Oxford, that there are a set of sighers in that university, who have erected themselves into a society in honour of that tender passion. These gentlemen are of that sort of inamoratos, who are not so very much lost to common sense, but that they understand the folly they are guilty of; and for that reason separate themselves from all other company, because they will enjoy the pleasure of talking incoherently, without being ridiculous to any but each other. When a man comes into the club, he is not obliged to make any introduction to his discourse, but at once, as he is seating himself in his chair, speaks in the thread of his own thoughts, 'She gave me a very obliging glance,' 'She never looked so well in her life as this evening,' or the like reflection, without regard to any other member of the society; for in this assembly they do not meet to talk to each other, but every man claims the full liberty of talking to himself. Instead of snuff-boxes and canes, which are usual helps to discourse with other young fellows, these have each some piece of ribbon, a broken fan, or an old girdle, which they play with while they talk of |