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3. Remarks on the Present State of Musical Instruction. By J. RELFE. Hatchard, London, 1819. pp. 84.

4. The Thorough Bass Primer. By J. F. BURROWES. 2d Edit. London, 1820.

AMONG all the tribes of inventors, Painters and Musicians are certainly the least scrupulous in breaking the Eighth Commandment; and it must be admitted, that they are less culpable than poets or historians. The painter who steals an idea from another man's picture, is, nevertheless, constrained to render it by the powers of his own pencil; and as ideas in music must necessarily be expressed by the same series of sounds, the musician also has his apology, when he pilfers from (or, as he would call it, imitates the style of ') another composer. But he need never imitate at the expense of candour; and should always satisfy his conscience by a reference to his original. Poets, too, in all ages, have been very much addicted to these petty larcenies. It is said, that Homer is the only poet who stole nothing--which probably only means, that we cannot not now detect his offences. Chaucer is very ready, on most occasions, to refer to his original; and yet he makes no acknowledgment of his Knight's Tale being a mere abridgment of the Theseida of Boccace; a poem very little known even in Italy. And Dr Percy, in his Reliques of Ancient Poetry (Vol. III. p. 50.), thinks, that the old ballad of the Marriage of Sir Gawaine, suggested the idea of his Wife of Bath's Tale. But Mr Tyrwhitt + has shown very clearly, that he founded it on a story of a much older date: indeed, we should rather suspect that Sir Gawaine is a pillage from Chaucer. Spencer, Milton, Shakespeare, and all who come after them, have borrowed without scruple-and, for the most part, without saying any thing about the matter. There is no denying that they have generally improved upon their originals; and their works have thriven wonderfully well under such a practice-which is more than can be always said in the case of stolen goods;-but still the system is not to be defended; and we should hold ourselves very negligent of our duty, were we to pass over a flagrant case of this description, without severe castigation.

*

It should seem, however, from the principal work before us, that the Historians of the Arts are sometimes disposed to use the same license with those whose deeds they relate.

*The only copy of the original edition ever known in England, was in the possession of Dr Askew. † Pages 93. and 107.

When we had opened Dr Busby's History of Music, and read as far as the fifth page of the Preface, we came to the following words. Though with two authors before me, respectable as those just mentioned (viz. Sir John Hawkins and Dr Burney), it was natural, if not indispensable, to make some use of the materials afforded by the ample latitude of their matter, and the general justness of their criticism, I have, I hope, been sparing in the appropriation of their ideas, scrupulous in the adoption of their language, and duly careful not to descend to servile imitation. But while every invasion of the property of Hawkins and of Burney, whether in their conceptions, or their expressions, is denied, it will not perhaps be improper or unnecessary to conciliate the reader's candour towards my occasional dissentions from their sentiments. The best apology, however, for differing from such precursors, will be deduced from the meditation which dictated, and the independence which emboldened, criticisms equally free and well considered.' Pref. pp. v, vi. Now, we had not proceeded further than the third or fourth chapter in the work, when an indistinct recollection came over us, that we had seen ideas very much the same, expressed in language very much the same, in a work not more rare or recondite, than a certain History of Music written by Dr Burney. Accordingly, we searched-and Lo! 'twas there!

As Dr Burney's work extends to four thick quarto volumes, and, as we trust, Dr Busby's is not in very extensive circulation, we shall, for the accommodation of our readers, present them with a sample, or rather key to his plagiarisms; while the extract we have already given from the preface is yet warm in their remembrance. Our limits will not allow us to give any thing like an account of the whole borrowings; for this would constrain us to transcribe nearly the whole of the Doctor's two volumes, with a corresponding quantity from Burney, and the other authors with whom he has made free;-But we shall bring sufficient evidence to prove, that, of all poachers upon other men's books, this is the most shameless. Chapters 1st, 2d, and 3d, of Busby, are taken from sections 2d, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th of Burney, the arrangement being varied. Compare Busby I. 44, 51, and Burney I. 109, 113, 122. Nearly the whole of page 49th is in pp. 117 & 118 of Burney; and page 50th is gleaned from 119, 120, and 121. The 52d page, with a very long note, are taken verbatim from pp. 124 & 125 of Burney, and so on to the end of the chapter. Occasionally we come to a passage which, at first sight, does not appear in Burney; but a little patient research soon discovers it. Thus, for example, the long note in page 59 had no corresponding part at page 143, from which the whole of the passage preceding the note is taken; but upon trying back, we found it in page 121-and had the

satisfaction to observe, that it had lost nothing by being transplanted.

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Of Chap. IV., from page 62 to 67 inclusive, is literally taken, word for word, from Burney, p. 166 to 169, and then from detached passages on to page 175;-both beginning with The Golden Legend,' and ending with baffled all their endeavours to stir it. The next ten pages are to be found in the remainder of this section in Burney, ending at the 186th page. At page 76, Dr Busby favours us with nearly four pages of commentary from his translation of Lucretius, which he says is his own. We have not had an opportunity of ascertaining the precise part of the book from which it is taken; but, as far as our memory serves us, we think we have seen the same ideas in Dr Beattie's excellent Essay on Poetry and Music. There are certain passages, however, which convince us that on this occasion the Doctor has not copied verbatim; as no one will suspect Beattie of such trash as the voluminous, pealing masses of plain harmony,' and the puissant majesty of the high wrought figure,'

sounds modulated into appreciable intervals, '—and science modulating her diagram of harmony,' p. 78. In fact, it is impossible not to detect Dr Busby's pilferings: he tacks them together in such a clumsy and unworkmanlike style, that his composition generally reminds us of a patchwork of gaudy-coloured shreds, sewed together with grey worsted thread. The remainder of Chap. IV., ending p. 83, is taken from p. 148 to 152-thus going backwards in Burney's work. Chap. V., p. 84 to 87, will be found at p. 191 to 194; from 87 to 101, is verbatim from p. 205 to 215, and again from 216 to 218. The rest of the chapter, which ends at p. 108, is composed of gleanings from pp. 225, 226, 228, 231, and 233. Chap. VI., as far as page 113, will be found in Burney, p. 273 et seq. At page 113, we are favoured with a translation of an epigram of Callimachus, enumerating the names and attributes of the Nine Muses in so many lines. This is taken from Burney, p. 293. But had Dr Busby ever seen the original, which is in the Anthologia, he would have discovered that the Greek epigram is in ten lines.

Pages 120, 121, and so on in regular order to 131, are in Burney at pages 318 to 320; 324 to 329; 332; 336 to 338; 345; 348; 352 and 353. Chapters VII. & VIII. are to be seen in Burney from p. 354 to 365; from p. 384 to 401; from p. 409 to 420. The major part of Chapter IX. viz. from page 169 to 186, is in Burney from p. 430 to 452. The remainder of the chapter we cannot find in Burney; but we will lay a wager with any Busby champion, that it will be found in Sir

John Hawkins's work. We have not the book by us at present, but shall take an early opportunity of searching it. Chap. X. is contained between p. 453 and p. 461, and also from p. 487 to 495. Chap. XI. on the Music of the Romans, is taken purely from the section in Dr Burney's History, which treats of the same subject:-and with this we arrive at the middle of Dr Busby's, and the end of Dr Burney's first volumes. It is quite unnecessary to give our readers the trouble of pursuing this tiresome enumeration of corresponding pages. If they will take our words for it, they will find that the same system of plunder is pursued throughout the Doctor's two volumes.

Chapter XV. is devoted to Haydn and Mozart; and is no thing more than an abridgement of the Lives of Haydn and Mozart;' as may be seen by comparing it with pages 23 to 308 of that work. Chapter XVI. On the Establishment of the Italian Opera in England, previous to the middle of the last century,' is every syllable contained in Burney, Vol. IV. page 198. et seq. Chap. XVII. is a continuation of the same subject, and is taken from the same source. Of the remaining three chapters, which conclude the volume, a considerable part is not in Burney; because they treat of composers and performers after the period at which his work closes: But we have no hesitation in believing, that Dr Busby has just as much share in their composition, as we have shown him to have in that of the preceding part of his History of Music.'

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Any thing like criticism on Dr Busby's Abridgment, is, of course, out of the question; as it does not come within our province to review books which were written 40 years ago: But as he has, once or twice in the course of his masquerade, shown his ears from under the lion's skin of Burney, we think it right to apprise our readers of the exposure, that none of them who may stumble on the sight, may be in danger of attributing these appendages to any but their rightful owner. but their rightful owner. We are glad, however, to have done with Dr Busby; * and we now proceed to the main object of this article.

* Since writing this article, we have examined Sir John Hawkins's " History of Music;' and we find, exactly as we had predicted, that the part of Dr Busby's first volume, from p. 186, which we could not discover in Burney, is taken from Sir J. Hawkins's work, Vol. II.Moreover, the whole of his 14th chapter, Vol. II., containing an account of the life of Handel, is taken from Sir J. H. Vol. V. p. 262 et seq., and again 358 et seq. Some parts also are to be found in a small work written by Dr Burney, entitled, a Sketch of the Life A a

VOL. XXXIII. NO. 66.

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Art. But digressions are in general inconvenient, and apt to become tiresome. We therefore determined, upon the first fair opportunity, to devote a little of our time to a subject which is certainly well deserving of attention. The early part of the History of Music is not the most interesting;-but if we are to give a connected view of the subject, the infancy of the art must not be passed over entirely without notice. We shall, however, be as sparing as possible,—and as tender of the reader's patience as we should be of our own. For the historical facts we have been chiefly indebted to Dr Burney:-And although we sometimes have the misfortune to differ from that learned author, we are yet sufficiently grateful to him for the assistance he has given us, in those parts of the subject which are the most obscure-from the difficulty of obtaining information, and the scarcity of materials connected with their history. We have also had an opportunity of seeing some scarce and curious tracts upon the subject of Music; of which we have not scrupled to make use-being careful always to acknowledge the sources of our information.

Among the ancients, it does not appear that any, except the Greeks and Romans, used symbols to express musical intervals or sounds. The old Greek scale consisted of four notes, (as the modern one is composed of eight); and five of these tetrachords, forming a double octave, completed their system of sounds. The characters by which they were denoted, were the letters of their alphabet; and as they did not resort to the simple contrivance of expressing the octave to any sound, by the same symbol, they were forced to use a different sign for every note; and as their alphabet did not afford a sufficient number of characters for this purpose, they multiplied it by inverting, doubling, or accenting the letters. Hence it has been conjectured by critics, that Accents were originally musical notes, set over the words, to regulate the inflexions of the voice. * This prodigious number of symbols, necessarily made the study of music an operation of no ordinary difficulty-and it was usual, in the course of education.

of Handel, with an Account of his Commemoration. '-Lond. 1785. Our readers will remember, that, in our examination of the book, we omitted to notice Chap. 14th.-We waited only till we had found the original.

*For a more particular discussion of this point, see West's Pindar, vol. II.

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