furrendered that fortrefs to the British troops. -The flute of a fhepherd, heard at a diftance, in a fine fummer day, amidst a beautiful scene of groves, hills, and waters, will give rapture to the ear of the wanderer, though the tune, the inftrument, and the mufician, be fuch as he could not endure in any other place.-If a fong, or piece of mufic, fhould call up only a faint remembrance, that we were happy the last time we heard it, nothing more would be needful to make us listen to it again with peculiar fatisfaction. It is an amiable prejudice that people generally entertain in favour of their national mufic. This loweft degree of patriotifin is not without its merit: and that man must have a hard heart, or dull imagination, in whom, though endowed with musical fenfibility, no fweet emotions would arise, on hearing, in his riper years, or in a foreign land, those strains that were the delight of his childhood. What though they be inferior to the Italian? What though they be even irregular and rude? It is not their merit, which in the cafe fuppofed would interest a native, but the charming ideas they would recal to his mind:-ideas of innocence, fimplicity, and leifure, of romantic enterprise, and enthufiaftic attachment; and of fcenes, which, on recollection, we are inclined to think, that a brighter fun illuminated, a frether verdure crowned, and purer skies and happier happier climes confpired to beautify, than are now to be feen in the dreary paths of care and disappointment, into which men, yielding to the paffions peculiar to more advanced years, are tempted to wander.-There are couplets in Ogilvie's Tranflation of Virgil, which I could never read without emotions far more ardent than the merit of the numbers would justify. But it was that book which first taught me "the tale of Troy "divine," and first made me acquainted with poetical fentiments; and though I read it when almost an infant, it conveyed to my heart fome pleafing impreffions, that remain there unimpaired to this day. There is a dance in Switzerland, which the young fhepherds perform to a tune played on a fort of bag-pipe. The tune is called Rance des vaches; it is wild and irregular, but has nothing in its composition that could recommend it to our notice. But the Swiss are fo intoxicated with this tune, that if at any time they hear it, when abroad in fo reign fervice, they burst into tears; and often fall fick, and even die, of a paffionate defire to revifit their native country; for which reafon, in fome armies where they serve, the playing of this tune is prohibited *. This tune, having been the attendant of their childhood and early youth, recals * Rouffeau. Dictionaire de Mufique, art, Rance des vaches. to to their memory thofe regions of wild beauty and rude magnificence, thofe days of liberty and peace, thofe nights of festivity, thofe happy affemblies, thofe tender paffions, which formerly endeared to them their country, their homes, and their employments; and which, when compared with the scenes of uproar they are now engaged in, and the fervitude they now undergo, awaken fuch regret as entirely overpowers them. SECT. III. Conjectures on fome peculiarities of National Mufic. THere is a certain ftyle of melody peculiar to each mufical country, which the people of that country are apt to prefer to every other ftyle. That they should prefer their own, is not surprising; and that the melody of one people fhould differ from that of another, is not more surprising, perhaps, than that the language of one people fhould differ from that of another. But there is fomething not unworthy of notice in the particular expreffion and ftyle that characterise the mufic of one nation or province, and distinguish it from every other fort of mufic. Of this diverfity Scotland fupplies a ftriking example. The native melody of the highlands and western ifles is as different from that of the fouthern part of the kingdom, as the Irish or Erfe language is different from the English or Scotch. In the conclufion of a difcourfe on mufic as it relates to the mind, it will not perhaps be impertinent to offer a conjecture on the cause of these peculiarities; which, though it fhould not (and indeed I am fatisfied that it will not) fully account for any one of them, may however incline the reader to think that they are not unaccountable, and may alfo throw fome faint light on this part of philofophy. Every thought that partakes of the nature of paffion, has a correspondent expreffion in the look and gefture: and so strict is the union between the paffion and its outward fign, that, where the former is not in fome degree felt, the latter can never be perfectly natural, but, if affumed, becomes aukward mimickry, instead of that genuine imitation of nature, which draws forth the fympathy of the beholder. If, therefore, there be, in the circumstances of particular nations or perfons, any thing that gives a peculiarity to their paffions and thoughts, it feems reasonable to expect, that they will alfo have fomething peculiar in the expreffion of their countenance, and even in the form of their features. Caius Marius, Jugurtha, Tamerlane, and fome other great warriors, are celebrated for a peculiar ferocity of afpect, which they had VOL. II. Ꮓ no no doubt contracted from a perpetual and unrestrained exertion of fortitude, contempt, and other violent emotions. These produced in the face their correfpondent expreffions, which being often repeated, became at last as habitual to the features, as the fentiments they arose from were to the heart. Savages, whose thoughts are little inured to controul, have more of this fignificancy of look, than thofe men, who, being born and bred in civilized nations, are accustomed from their childhood to fupprefs every emotion that tends to interrupt the peace of fociety. And while the bloom of youth lafts, and the fmoothness of feature peculiar to that period, the human face is lefs marked with any strong character, than in old age: -a peevifh or furly ftripling may elude the eye of the phyfiognomift; but a wicked old man, whofe vifage does not betray the evil temperature of his heart, must have more cunning than it would be prudent for him to acknowledge. Even by the trade or profeffion the human countenance may be characterised. They who employ themfelves in the nicer mechanic arts, that require the earnest attention of the artist, do generally contract a fixednefs of feature fuited to that one uniform fentiment which engroffes them while at work. Whereas, other artists, whose work requires lefs attention, and who may ply their trade and amuse themselves with converfation at the fame time, have for the most part |