The Spondee is a doubtful English foot, and may, in general, be musically expressed in the same manner as the Trochee, names. Our readers will dispense with similar graphic illustrations for the Dactyl, the Anapest, Bacchius, and a variety of other feet of hard Ours is a mere cursory glance at the subject, to pave the way for remarks more immediately appertaining to our purpose. In the above examples, too, we have contented ourselves with two or three varieties in the musical exhibition of the feet, whereas they might have been expressed in a vast number of different ways, which must be left to the reader's ingenuity. This great diversity again affords an infinite source of variety to the composer; and as a matter of curiosity in this respect, we beg to refer to a publication of one song, set to music by nine different composers*. Besides the metrical arrangements of a composition purely instru mental, the absolute time for its performance is a matter of important consideration. In our subsequent remarks on vocal music we shall have a more appropriate opportunity of saying a few words on the proper choice of time with regard to the sentiment of the text. At present we suppose the time to have been fixed upon by the author, and the question to be--how to indicate that time at the head of his composition. For this purpose the Italian words Adagio, Allegro, Presto, &c. are utterly insufficient. They are but vague and relative. Fortunately all doubts and uncertainties in this respect have been set at rest by a late and most valuable invention. We allude to Mælzel's Metronome, which furnishes a fixed and unerring standard of musical time for all countries and all ages shone upon by the solar disk: for the standard assumed upon Mælzel's scale is founded upon Solar time, inasmuch as his scale is graduated according to a varied number of pendular vibrations per minute, from 50 to 160. The invention is sufficiently known to exempt us from any farther explanation; most of the great composers in Europe have for some years marked their works by it; it will ever form an epoch in the annals of Music. What renders Mælzel's labour a permanent, we might almost say an eternal benefit, to the art, is the circumstance, that the Tempo metronomically marked upon a composition will in all ages be the means of finding out the proper time, even if all metronomes shall ha mark simply directs how ma to a minute. 5th. The fifth law to be gards its rhythmical arra * The publication in questi Co's. erished, for the metronomical ts, or quavers, are to go ction of melody reion into phrases, Boosey and periods, &c. bearing among each other due proportion and symmetry. On this important subject we have already fully treated by anticipation. We therefore proceed forthwith to the sixth and last general rule. 6th. This rule regards Harmony, or the support of melody by a simultaneous accompaniment of parts, i. e. of other sounds in harmonic relation with the melodic notes. The rule itself demands that the melody be so constituted as to be readily susceptible of a good, a varied, and an appropriate harmonic accompaniment. In the melopoiea of the ancient Greeks, who were ignorant of harmony in its modern sense, such a law could of course not have existed. It is equally unknown in the musical code of the modern Greeks, the Chinese, and other anharmonic nations; it is even but imperfectly applicable to many old national Scotch airs. Hence the attempts to harmonize the latter, in spite of the ingenuity exercised, have never been completely successful, and at all events have conferred no advantage on the melody itself. We are far from presuming to give any directions for devising a melody susceptible of good harmonic support. We not only confess our inability to furnish such instruction, but state our belief that any precepts of this kind would be of very little service. One thing, however, appears to us essentially requisite in the production of harmonic melody. The melody and its harmony, if both are to be good, must be twin-sisters, of simultaneous conception. The chords which are to accompany the air must vibrate in our mind at the very moment of its springing into life; they must celebrate the birth of the heavenly offspring by a peal of cheering harmony. The melodic author must think harmoniously; common chords, and sevenths, with all their inversions, must ring through his mind's ear; his sensorium must be a full orchestra. Whosoever cannot conjure into his imagination such a band of invisible assistants, or whenever the spell disappoints the bard, at other times successful, let him desist from any attempt at composition. If we did not apprehend a smile from our readers, we should be tempted to give here a recipe for producing at will this sort of harmonic inspiration. Indeed we can scarcely resist, even at the risk of moving, perhaps, their risible faculties. The result of the experiment may, for aught we know, prove different in other individuals; with us it has never yet failed. The simple fact is, that the moment we enter a carriage and drive over the stones through a populous part of the town, musical ideas of the most novel and interesting nature crowd upon our mind involuntarily, not only in the shape of mere plain melody, but with an accompaniment of the richest and most varied harmony. To this singular, but invariable, result we have applied our reasoning faculties, with a view to account for the acoustic phenomenon. Having farther observed that an old hackney-coach is particularly well calculated for the experiment, and the harmonic inspirations, far from being confined to one every possible tonic, in the vicinity, inst" for keys of the mo ner following. wood, of var he greatest facility through hicle and perhaps of others d's ear appropriate chords began to theorize in man pieces of iron, metal, and **Viriliter loquentes. construction of a coach, it seemed to us natural enough that each of them singly would emit not only its own appreciable musical sound, but in many cases the respective harmonics of that sound. The motion of the vehicle causes the simultaneous vibration of all these sounds collectively. Here, we own, the train of our logic struck upon a difficulty: How, did we ask ourselves, can the ear be deemed capable of discriminating and extracting, ad libitum, from this chaotic compound of "sweet sounds," just those which may suit its purpose, and not be disturbed and utterly put out of countenance by the immense mass of compound remaining pro tempore unappropriated? Our logic, with the assistance of a little compliment to our musicality, proved a match for this dilemma. It was conceded that in an ordinary musical subject, the above objection would be fatal; but the fact being within our ears, nothing was more clear than that the hypermusical construction of our frame would enable us, and others equally happily organized, to discriminate, however unconsciously, the very elements of the musical chaos; in the same manner as an experienced gastronome, on partaking of a rich ragout, would readily discriminate the taste of the truffles, shallots, pommes d'amour, and of every other individual ingredient; or a great composer on hearing a symphony, individualize the march of the flutes or the bassoons, at the same time that he seizes the undiminished effect of the aggregate of the performance. SONNET OF VINCENZO FILICAJA ON THE SEASONS. "Così con saggio avviso il giorno e l'ore." THUS with a still but stern solemnity Time bids us seize the hours that glide away, The pomp of woods-the gloom of hills on high, Bears, or from distant realms brings back the day- THE BORE'S BOX. AN ADVERTISEMENT. GRATEFUL for a past season of unexampled patronage, and fully satisfied, thus far, with a present one, the proprietor of the King's Theatre in the Haymarket requests the attention of the nobility and gentry to a candid and concise statement of facts. It has come to the knowledge of the proprietor, in the course of his Shakspeare sales in his other profession, that "the course of true love never did run smooth" and some of his enemies have charged him with allowing five more pebbles to be cast into the Cytherean current. It is necessary therefore that, toward his own justification, he should go somewhat into detail. It is known to grammarians that there are three degrees of comparison, the positive, the comparative, and the superlative: it is known to householders that there are three floors to let,-the ground, the first, and the second and it is also known to subscribers to the Opera that there are three tiers of boxes for the accommodation of people of distinction. Of the tiers above these, it is unnecessary to speak. Like the attics of other residences, there are people who inhabit them but where they come from, heaven above (toward which they aspire) only knows. It is exclusively of the three degrees of fashionable comparison in his Haymarket edifice that the proprietor feels himself now called upon to speak. The second-floor tier is, as his patronesses are aware, chiefly taken by ladies whose ancestors, coming in with the Norman conquest, brought with them the Norman nose. This feature, accompanied, as it usually is, with dark eyes and arched brows, produces good stage effect at a distance. Here, too, ladies, who have weathered Cape Forty, find a genial harbour; as middle age, well lighted and rouged, is at a distance not distinguishable from youth-a proposition as plain as the nose on Signor Di Giovanni's face. The first-floor tier is, in the opinion of most people, the best in the house. Here beauty exhibits itself in full blaze, and whilst, in apparent unconsciousness, it gracefully adjusts the green silk shade that interrupts the rays of the stage lights, exults in the number of human hearts which it transfixes in the pit below. The female frequenters of this tier have also the inestimable advantage of attracting that mass of puppyism which barks in the train of the goddesses of midnight, inasmuch as the said mass may, from this open plain, exhibit its own visage, while it affects to fawn upon its tutelary deity. But if the mere multitude of fashion give the palm to this tier, the race of prudent wives and mothers decidedly prefer the ground-floor tier, which sinks to a level with the pit. This, like the ground-floor of a set of chambers in the Temple, is, the proprietor confidently assures the public, the real place for doing business. Here a young lady, in quest of an establishment, talks to her swain in Fop's Alley almost face to face. Here, between opera and ballet, she stops the whole procession of beaux, to assure him whom she accosts that it is a very cold night, that Madame Ronzi di Begnis is highly attractive in La Donna del Lago, and that Alfred le Grand must have cost a great deal of money in getting up. Here, in short, while the single lady may flirt in front in desirable publicity, the married one may flirt in the rear in desirable privacy. Upon this rock the proprietor builds his bank. The great object of going to the opera, whether in Naples, Paris, or London, being to see and be seen, to talk and be talked to; the proprietor has, by means of swing doors and stuff-curtains, sought to put these objects within the reach of the meanest capacity. May he venture respectfully to hint, that the privilege of talking ought to be used in a more diminuendo note than it lately has been? The proprietor is aware that, at an oratorio, such doings have been tolerated time out of mind. As an instance, he respectfully mentions Handel's chorus, "Unto us a son is born," where the unexpected halt of the voices and instruments after the word "wonderful," is sure to catch the whole house in a clack. This may do very well at so trivial a treat as an oratorio; but at an Italian opera ladies and gentlemen should conduct themselves with more decorum. The practice, too, implies remissness in the study of Rossini, and is apt to compromise the proprietor with his performers behind the curtain; of the female branch of whom the proprietor will merely hint, that, in angling for an Italian, he has not unfrequently caught a Tartar. Vain, however, are all the efforts of the proprietor, if he is not seconded by the co-operation of a candid and enlightened public. It is worse than useless to leave box-doors openable from behind, if the most nauseous society be allowed to intrude itself. Better lock every box till the conclusion of the ballet, like pews in a Presbyterian Meeting-house, or marshal the sexes separately, as is done in Cathedrals. The proprietor employs very sober and decent door-keepers; but their eyes cannot dive into pockets. How can they, by the mere outside, distinguish coppersmiths from county members-poets from peers-men of rank from rank weeds-nine thousand a-year, a barouche, and Berkeley-square, from half-pay, a ricketty dennett, and lodgings in Maddox-street? Where cases are very flagrant, however, the proprietor can and ought to interfere; and this brings him to the chief object of the present advertisement. He alludes, in the opening part of the present address, to a charge made against him, namely, that of allowing" five more pebbles to be cast into the Cytherean current." The phrase is metaphorical: it means, as it has been whispered to the proprietor, that he has permitted five especial Bores (called by the French, Messieurs Trops,) to intrude themselves, as in and out visitors, on the three principal tiers of boxes, in such a way as to injure the fair trader, by marring the lawful love-making of the establishment. Having, as hereafter mentioned, provided a situation for these gentlemen elsewhere, the proprietor feels the less delicacy in publishing a description of their names and persons, that his doorkeepers may know, and knowing, hand them to their proper places. The first of these Bores, commonly called Frank Fidget, is under the influence of the dæmon of locomotion. He will open and shut a box-door ten times in as many minutes, heedless of North winds and open corridors. He would make a capital mandarin to a chimney-piece: his head is never quiet, and unluckily the worst feature in it, his tongue, moves in quicker time than his head. He is the best wonderer going. He wonders what o'clock it is now? where VOL. VII. NO. XXIX. 2 F |