MUSIC AND CONCERTS.

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him three hours in succession? But why not?-if mere loudness is so expressive and pleasing. We might have a platoon of soldiers to fire blank cartridges before us all the evening. It would be a great noise, and give us a great idea-of something or other. And that, I fancy, is all the idea that most persons get from most of these deafening chorusses. The aspect of an assembly, stunned, drowned, dumbfounded, with this visitation-of the elements (of sound)-sufficiently shows, that they have found the pleasure they sought very trying to bear. But when the soft solo or duet pours in its sweet melody, how does every heart thrill, and every eye kindle and melt! It is a trembling snatch of pleasure, however, held in instant dread of the thundering wave that is coming. I am ignorant and have not inquired; but perhaps that is the very design of the chorus to enhance the effect of real music!

Save that which is imported-when shall we have real music in America? It is scarcely too much to say, that nineteen twentieths of all the instruction and expense bestowed upon the art among us, is thrown away. Not one young girl in fifty, I am afraid, who is taught music, is ever taught or lead to pour her soul into her song; and what music can there be without that? If music

is a cultivation of the fingers only, not of the soul -if it is not at once the instrument and offspring of intellectual and moral refinement, it is nothing worth. I may be told that many of the best performers have been low-minded and vicious persons. There may have been that unfortunate contrariety, too often seen, between their practice and their sentiments. But it will not do, I think, to say that the highest efforts of music may be reached without a high susceptibility of this nature.

Germany has laid the only sufficient basis for a national taste and talent in this art, by introducing its rudiments into the system of popular education. Would that some of those many idle and weary half hours now passed in our common schools, might be employed in singing the sweet old ballads of England and holy Psalms. What a beautiful form of worship would it be for a school of little children!

Kenilworth Castle-a very majestic ruin; the whole not in such good preservation as Conway or Caernarvon; but particular parts, ranges, and windows, much more perfect. It is curious that Leicester's part, the latest built, is in the most ruinous condition. The lake is drained, and the towers of the gateway, by which Elizabeth entered on the great occasion of her celebrated visit

to the Earl of Leicester, are fallen. It was not the principal gate of entrance; but was chosen that she might pass by the lake and receive the homage of the fantastic water gods. This lake was on the west side a small stream now flows through its bed-and with that to diversify the scenery, it must, in that quarter, have presented a noble landscape. The park was formerly twenty miles round; but is now pasture and ploughed fields.

The walls of the buildings left standing are very lofty; but the ivy creeps to the very top, surmounts the loftiest towers, and spreads its living screen and soft curtaining over the richly carved windows. The banqueting hall was eighty-four feet long by forty-eight broad, and its windows twenty-seven feet high. Alas! the feast and the song are gone; the gathering of nobles and the flourish of trumpets are here no more; but instead of them, I heard a single bugle horn at a distance that came softly up among the crumbling walls and mouldering arches, as if to wail over their desolations; and here and there, in the courtyards, I saw picnic parties, carelessly seated on the grass, as if in mockery of the proud and guarded festivities and grandeurs of former days. I thought with myself, that they must be more familiar with the

spot than I was, to be able to sit down, and "eat, drink, and be merry."

Warwick Castle, the seat of the Earl of Warwick, is, in its appearance from the inner courtyard, far the most majestic, magnificent castle I have seen; altogether more imposing and impressive. Its range of building, its noble towers, and one of them particularly-rising amid imbowering cedars and banks of ivy--must be seen, to be felt or understood. The walks, and grounds, and woods beyond, are in keeping with all the rest; not looking as if everything was handled, and shaped, and trimmed, and shaven down, with elaborate art; but full of nature's beauty, with just enough of man's taste and management to open that beauty to the eye. The celebrated marble vase dug up from the villa of Adrian, is in the greenhouse amid the grounds.

The interior of the palace corresponds very well with the character of the whole establishment; a very grand hall of entrance, paved with marble, and hung round with ancient armour of the Warwick family; the rooms all supplied with very rich. and massive furniture, and especially with many tables, stands, &c., of every form and fashion, in the style of work called pietra dura, i. e. a kind of coarse mosaic work, or inlaying of variegated

marbles. A great number of really fine portraits -several Vandykes, some Murillos; and one Raphael-portrait of a lady--very Madonnalike and beautiful; some lions of Rubens; and a Henry VIII. of Holbein.

At the Lodge we were shown Guy of Warwick's porridge pot, about as large as a common potash kettle; and his hook, a sort of pitchfork, to dinner from the caldron; also, his twohanded sword; his walking stick, big enough for Polyphemus; the armour of his horse-breastplate, headpiece or helmet, &c., &c.

fish up

STRATFORD CN AVON. Shakspeare's house and tomb; and the site of the house (his own house) in which he died.

I have a strange feeling about Shakspeare, that I never heard anybody express. Though he is seated, by the admiration of mankind, upon an inaccessible height, yet there never was a being among the great men of the world, whom I have felt, if he were living, that I could so easily approach, and so familiarly converse with. He impresses me with awe, he fills me with a sort of astonishment, when I read him; yet he draws my love and confidence in such a way, that it seems to me I should not have feared him at all; but could have met him at the corner of the street, or