duty, as to wake the inner life, and quicken the love and zeal for morality. He blamed Theodore for not referring more to the life of Christ, which is in itself the best teacher and inspiration to morality.

But he found a way to rise above this cold moral preaching, and to address the heart as well as the head, to quicken the Holy Spirit, as well as convince the critical understanding. In his early troubles and final regeneration, he is no unfit emblem of liberal Christianity among us.

He is an example too, and De Wette also is an example, of a philosophical mind going through all the mazes of speculation and doubt, and finally sitting at the feet of Jesus, and in humble faith, entering the kingdom of heaven like a little child. Be his course an encouragement to all, who share the trouble of his early doubts,-be his final faith and piety a rebuke to those timorous believers, who are ever ready to cry out anathema against those, who show a philosophical spirit of inquiry, and may chance to exhibit some doubts and errors upon the subject of Christianity.

There are among us Christians, who like Theodore became such through the path of free philosophical inquiry. There are others, who like John can submit to the authority of councils and creeds, and rest an unquestioning faith in the letter of the church standards. Well will it be for the latter, and well for the Church of our God, if these last will show to the former the mild and faithful spirit of the pious John, the truehearted friend of the skeptical Theodore. Instead of rebuking his friend's free inquiry and philosophical tendencies, this simple-hearted Christian readily saw the difference between his own and his friend's character, and encouraged him to follow out his inquiries, and cheered him with the trust, that truth and faith would one day dawn upon him, who in faith sought the truth, scorning alike servile deference to the bondage of creeds, and hypocritical fawning before the prejudices of society.

One day, after some warm discussions between them upon religious subjects, and John had shown much solicitude on account of his friend's wavering faith, he came to Theodore with brightened eyes and said;* "I have given up all anxiety on your account. Only be of good cheer. The Lord leads you

*Book I. ch. i.

a different way from me, the way of a severe trial, and will bring you to a happy issue. The Apostle says, 'There remain to us faith, hope, love, these three, but the greatest of them is love;' only abide in love, and faith and hope will return to you.'

"Love until death," replied Theodore, "fervent love for truth and virtue, for all that is good, great, and lovely."

May such spirit unite all the friends of the free faith, as it is in Jesus; and by whatever pathway, whether by unquestioning evangelical belief, or by earnest philosophical inquiry, may all confess one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism.

S. O.

ART. II. The Music of Nature; or, An Attempt to prove that what is passionate and pleasing in the Art of Singing, Speaking, and Performing upon Musical Instruments, is derived from the Sounds of the Animated World. With curious and interesting Illustrations. By WILLIAM GARDINER. Boston J. H. Wilkins & R. B. Carter. 1837. 8vo. pp. 505.

We have

THIS is almost the first specimen we have had of anything like the literature of music. It is a sign, too, of our increasing musical taste, which could justify so beautiful a reprint of so beautiful a work. It cannot but raise the popular idea of the power, the depth, and the resources of this noble art. rarely seen musicians with philosophy enough to analyze, or general culture enough to describe the wonders in which they live and move. But here is an approach at least, not wholly unsuccessful, to a power of translating music into words. And the secret of it is, the author's habitual intercourse alternately with nature, and with the concert room, the orchestra, the choir, and all the little worlds which Handel, Beethoven, Weber, have peopled with their thoughts. His ears are always open; he walks and listens and is constantly tracing correspondences between audible nature and his own favorite art. He detects in all the common sounds of life the elements, which he finds inwoven into the most subtle tissues of melody and harmony. Here then is quite a discovery; music may be described. This

most mysterious, vague, and evanescent form of beauty, this language of the heart, baffling all attempts of the understanding to hold it fast and define it, has yet in many respects a common origin with spoken language. Nameless itself, yet it may be resolved into its elementary phrases, which are idealized copies of sounds in nature, which we all have names for. Thus the outward form and feature of the thing, if not its essence, may be described; and this is as far as words can go in any case. Mr. Gardiner, in his beautiful descriptions of passages of music, proves two things: that in the world of sound, art and nature are full of correspondences, and that in both departments he has been a close observer. He has loved music with his whole soul, and nature has given him a copious vocabulary wherewith to make his love somewhat intelligible to others. How far this may be carried cannot be conjectured: far enough certainly to recall with tolerable distinctness the essential features of a composition which one has heard before, and to single out, and hold up to critical comparison, characteristic passages, or combinations of harmony. In this way it is opening the door to a new branch of literature, musical criticism, a thing alike needed for the cause of pure taste, and for the vindication to music of her true place among the sister spirits of the Beautiful, of her equal share in human culture. We hope the example of Mr. Gardiner will be followed, and that lovers of music will exercise themselves in this power of describing its marvellous effects, till it can be talked about enough to become a fair subject of criticism, till its origin, its nature, and its principles can be shown and settled, till it shall be rescued from its low name, as a sensual amusement of the ignorant, and raised to the dignity of an art, which learning and feeling, and the highest moral and intellectual refinement shall love, and cherish, and explore.

The manner in which this book is thrown together forbids an exhaustive criticism. It has no form nor progress; it is as miscellaneous, as nature is to the common eye. From its title we expect a formal dissertation on the origin of music in the sounds of the animated world. But its contents are a perfect medley of all matters relating to music, a musical Encyclopedia without the alphabetical order. It is rather a curious, than a philosophical book; and charms more by its various, lively observation, than by any depth or unity. It contains no theory of music, but thousands of curious facts and observa

tions to illustrate a theory, or draw a theory from. It is the more interesting, perhaps, for its very superficiality. It does not explain, it does not aspire to causes; but it cheerfully and industriously gathers together facts, and compares them, and traces resemblances and analogies between them. In this way it contributes something to what may be called the Natural History of music, the first step certainly towards a wellgrounded philosophy of music, which shall comprehend its unity and find its fundamental Idea.

We open the book and find chapters upon everything:descriptions of the vocal organs; the analysis of speech; the art of singing; critical notices of distinguished vocalists, interspersed with chapters explaining the little graces and artifices of music, such as the Slide, the Shake, the Appogiatura, the Sostenuto, &c.; the sounds of birds, insects, and animals, reduced to notation; historical descriptions of all the musical instruments, and of what they each contribute to the higher developments of music; brief elementary treatises on the science of harmony, and melody, and modulation; remarks on great composers and on the process of composition; speculations on the analogy between sounds and colors; descriptions of passages from the works of Haydn, Beethoven, &c; selections from the same for the piano, many of them truly gems; and a great variety of anecdotes, which run away from the subject so easily, as to betray the habitual story-teller. From all this confusion of data, the philosophical reader may draw his own conclusion; and certainly no one can be more likely to be drawn than that contained in the title of the book. The most striking feature in it is, the author's attentive familiarity with the sounds of nature. This it is, evidently, which has helped him to tell us all these things about music; and thus it may well be called the Music of Nature.

We value the book, then, for its descriptions of music, for the glimpse it affords us into the almost infinite resources of the Art, and for the physical explanation of many of its little arts of expression; we may add too, for the pleasant autobiography which it presents of a musical character, of one of the sunnier and more curious spirits, who live in the realm of sounds. But we cannot say, that the writer has shown us music in its highest, essential character, or has understood its true nature and purpose. He has hardly got farther than to regard it as an imitation of nature, and as one of the natural media of exVOL. XXV.—3D S. VOL. VII. NO. I.

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pression. What is its foundation in the eternal nature of the soul, what it ministers to the soul's culture, and how it is related to the other arts,—these are questions which we hope to hear answered, whenever the philosopher and the musician shall meet in one person. That this higher criticism of music has remained so unexplored, is owing perhaps to two causes. The first is in the essential nature of music. It has to do with feeling, emotion; and, as a general rule, they who feel most, reflect least; they who know its power, the genuine lovers of music, are men of sensibility and spontaneous life, little given to the analysis of their own mental states. It is a problem for another age, to reconcile the spontaneous with the reflective tendency in a life; and then perhaps we shall have a philosophy of music. The other cause is historical. Music, though called the first-born of the arts, attained its growth the last of all. Sculpture culminated in Greece; Painting in the middle age. But Music in the ancient time was but the handmaid of poetry; and whatever instrumental music there was, was merely an imitation of the voice, or a simple accompaniment to keep the voice up. Pure music, as such, that is, instrumental music, only became an independent art in the last century, in the hands of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, and finally of Beethoven, who carried it up into the infinite, bounding all human conception since his own. It is only in the realm of instrumental music that the true philosophy of music can be found; for that alone is music proper; the orchestra is its highest external development. We are as yet, then, in its infancy; and except among the Germans, little philosophy or higher criticism can be expected.

In this connexion we cannot refrain from using Mr. Gardiner's book for illustrations, while we attempt to give an idea, somewhat higher than the popular idea, of what music is. We start from the low popular view; and this must be our excuse for descending to the proof of what ought to be matter of feeling and above proof.

In the first place, the pleasure derived from music is more than a physical pleasure. It is more than an agreeable sensation ; it is not all over when the excited nerve has ceased to vibrate; it lives on in the mind; it becomes an idea there, a feeling. It is not without its lasting influence upon the heart, the imagination, the whole upward striving of the soul. Have we explained the beauty of Nature or Art, when we know all about the