So Dunder O'Kelly set sail

From Ireland to better himself,
And climb'd up the Holyhead mail
To ease Johnny Bull of his pelf.
To follow of glory the path

And put British beef in his belly,
At Margate, at Brighton, at Bath,
He sported Sir Dunder O'Kelly.
Sir Dunder in dancing was skill'd,
And look'd very neat in his clothes,
But indeed all his beauty was kill'd
By a terrible wen on his nose.
This double appendage, alas!

He thought neither pretty nor proper,
Nature gave him one visage of brass,
And Bacchus two noses of copper.

He dived into Bath for a bride,

The ladies all check'd his advances, And vow'd they could never abide

Loose manners, and straiten'd finances.

One lady alone met his flame,

With a hop, and a jig, and a nod,

I ask'd a blind fidler her name,

And he answer'd me-" Moll in the Wad."

His looking-glass set the poor knight
Oft times in his bed-chamber raving,

His ugliness shewing at night,

And eke in the morning when shaving. He flung himself down on the floor,— Was ever unfortunate elf

So terribly haunted before

By a ghost in the shape of himself?

Resolved Charon's eddy to pass,

His pistol he primed, but-oh blunder !

He thought, if he shot at the glass,

'Twould blow out the brains of Sir Dunder.

So bang went the slugs at his head,
At once from this life to dissever;
He shot all the quicksilver dead,
But himself was as lively as ever.
Amazed at the hubbub was he,

And began, in the midst of the clatter,
All over to felo de se,

But found there was nothing the matter.

So, glad Charon's eddy to shun,

His sentiments thus he discloses

"Since two heads are better than one, Perhaps 'tis the same with two noses.'

To his own Tipperary poor Dun

From scenes of disturbance and bother, Trudged back, like the Prodigal Son,

And fell on the neck of his mother. At home he now follows the plough, And, whilst in his rustical courses He walks at their tails, you'll allow He never can frighten his horses.

ON MUSIC.

No. 5.-With reference to the principles of the Beautiful in that Art.

THE principles of the Beautiful in Music, so far as they apply to rhythm and Melody, have hitherto formed the exclusive object of our investigation. We now propose to direct our attention to Musical Harmony, and to ascertain how far that branch of the art is referable to the like principles, in what those principles consist, and how they are brought into action.

Harmony is the simultaneous exhibition of musical sounds, differing in pitch, but bearing a certain relation to each other. When such sounds are heard at the same time that a melody is proceeding, the melody is said to be accompanied by harmony.

The question whether harmony, in this sense, was known to the ancient Greeks, has long been a subject of the most animated discussions; and although these seem to have at length nearly subsided, persons are occasionally met with who, seduced by a few obscure passages in two or three Greek and Roman authors, maintain boldly that the ancients knew and practised harmony. But the arguments which may be brought forward against such an assertion are numerous and unanswerable. The reader, who wishes to form his own judgment, may consult Dr. Burney or Dr. Forkel's Histories of Music, in which, and above all in the latter, the question is fairly and amply discussed, and, we conceive, fully set at rest.

The proofs which Dr. Forkel has accumulated leave no doubt of the utter ignorance of the Greeks as to harmony. And if they were supposed to have been acquainted with it, it certainly is not to them that we are indebted for even a hint on the subject of that branch of the science. We owe them much in melody, but nothing on the score of harmony; the discovery of which, by Western Europe-by England, in all probability-can progressively be traced, from documentary evidence, up to its rude origin in the 10th century.

The word "discovery," after all, is perhaps too high-sounding a term to be applied to the slight and rude traces of the beginnings of a practice, which, during the progress of many centuries, expanded itself, gradually and slowly, into an extended science, resting upon fixed rules, and the successive developement of which affords matter of interest, even in a philosophical point of view. In this respect, and in many others, as we shall hereafter have occasion to remark, harmony may be compared to the art of colouring, which emerged from the uncouth attempts of adorning a simple outline with a daub of one pigment, rudely and whimsically applied. Between such a monochrome and the Venus of Titian, the distance is as immense, as between the "Descant" of Franco and the harmony in the finale of "Il Don Giovanni." Innumerable and arduous were the intermediate steps which led both the arts to the summit of their perfection. But there was this difference in favour of colouring-and the distinction holds good between painting and music altogether-that in the long career towards that perfection, man had the prototype of imitation, Nature, constantly before him; whereas the laws of harmony, although certainly founded in Nature, lay deeply hidden, and required long and strenuous efforts of the human intellect, to be explored and reduced into a system. Indeed

so laborious was the search, so uncertain and irregular its march, that harmony existed as a science, and was subjected to rule, before the fundamental and simple principle upon which it rests was discovered; a principle which shed light over the whole doctrine, and totally changed its aspect.

It would be foreign to our purpose to give a regular historical sketch, however concise, of the origin and progress of the science of harmony. We shall, therefore, content ourselves with observing, that, if the simultaneous exhibition of a melody in a lower and upper octave deserved the name of singing in parts, it not only existed with the Greeks in their antiphony, but must necessarily have prevailed with any nation that sang at all. Whenever a man and woman, or an adult and boy, intend singing in unison, their pitch will be found to be an octave asunder. In this there is no harmony, nor is it likely that such a circumstance would ever have led to it. Its first dawn is to be traced in the organ; an instrument which existed in a rude state, and rather as a rarity, among the Greeks and Romans at the beginning of the Christian era, was improved at Constantinople under the Greek Emperors, from thence found its way into Italy as early as the seventh or eighth century, and can be traced in a more perfect state in various cities of Western Europe in the time of Charlemagne. At that early period, already, the discovery had been made that the sound of the lower notes is rendered deeper, fuller, and stronger, by uniting with them their fifths and octaves. This triple sound, particularly the fifth, is distinctly heard in all bells of a deep note. Hence the organs in the ninth century were constructed upon that principle, which is still in force, with improvements, at the present day; and the simple sound g, for instance, was produced by the simultaneous intonation of three distinct pipes g, d, g, by means of one key*, and so the others. This contrivance upon the instrument was soon imitated by the voice, and it is asserted that St. Dunstan, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who died towards the end of the tenth century, introduced such a mode of singing in parts. At all events, the practice was common in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when a strain like the following:

at which the modern ear and eye revolts, was deemed orthodox and beautiful. This was called "organizing," organizare.

The bag-pipe and hurdy-gurdy, both instruments of very ancient origin, present similar indications of rude harmony. In the latter, one string, tuned in the tonic note, constantly covibrates with the melody; and in the bag-pipe, the tonic note and its fifth keep going in like manner while the melody is proceeding.

Thirds were subsequently introduced; and another mode of singing, called discantare, consisted in singing in unison, except at the conclusion of a period, or in some intermediate places, where the second singer fell in with a few thirds, according to certain rules; and much

* By "key," we here, of course, mean the French touche. It is to be regretted our Musical terminology does not furnish a less ambiguous word.

at the same time, or a little later, it was ventured to throw in now and then a dissonance.

In the period between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, the laws for the progression of chords were investigated and brought under some system, and the artifices of double counterpoint and the fugue were invented. These discoveries, and the whole science of harmony, were so much perfected in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, that composers made pieces of four and even more parts. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are conspicuous for the numerous compositions of a multiplied number of parts and of great ingenuity and artifice. Fugues with two and even three subjects were carried to great perfection; and Ludovico Viadana invented the rules of thoroughbass and the figuring of chords. Hitherto, however, artifice and scientific contrivances were more studied than melody. The head laboured more than the heart. It was only in the eighteenth century, that the paramount importance of melody was fully felt, that melody was zealously cultivated and brought into intimate union with harmony, and that the latter received new charms by variety of treatment and diversified accompaniment. Into this epoch likewise-just one hundred years ago-falls the important discovery of the musical system of Rameau, which, deducing the doctrine of chords from one simple and general principle, threw, as has already been stated, a great and unexpected light over the theory of harmony.

Great as was the advantage which musical science derived from Rameau's discovery, the benefit would have been incalculably increased, and the study of harmony infinitely simplified and facilitated, if, instead of retaining Viadana's awkward, complex, and perplexing doctrine of thorough-bass, and amalgamating it with his own simple and lucid system of hatmony, Rameau had gone one step farther, and devised a new system and notation of chords founded upon his own theory of harmony and fundamental bass. Various attempts have since been made to supply this desideratum, but they have failed of success, and the study of harmony, up to the present day, remains clogged and retarded by the obscure, ambiguous, and inadequate figuring of Viadana's uncouth and unsystematic doctrine of thoroughbass. Although this doctrine, in consequence of the great improvements in instrumental accompaniment, is hastening towards a natural dissolution, and the great composers of modern times would probably dispense with any other as readily as with Viadana's, a more philosophic system of chords might still be of great service in simplifying and facilitating the study of harmony. The elements of such a system, free from all figures, we have had in view for some time; but this is not the place for entering upon the subject.

On directing our thoughts to the subject of harmony, the following questions obtrude themselves :

1st. Is it necessary, that a melody should be supported by other sounds heard at the same time?

2d. If not necessary, is it desirable, and upon what grounds?

The first question admits of no doubt, in our opinion. We should answer it by a direct negative. The Greeks, whose music was highly cultivated, sang in unison; the same is the case with most of our congregations, even when unsupported by the chords of the organist.

Melodies in unison are not unfrequently resorted to by the greatest modern composers, in chorusses and on other occasions, with admirable effect; and the most philharmonic ear is at times deeply affected by a simple air, without any accompaniment, when sung with feeling and with correct intonation. The number of singers capable of producing such an effect is very limited. The late Mrs. Jordan and Mr. Incledon often enraptured an audience in this way, and Miss Stephens, likewise, is sometimes very impressive in unaccompanied songs. But there are other singers and singers of celebrity-(we need not name them) who are by no means successful in such solos. Want of strong feeling is of course one of the causes, and false intonation another. Few singers are quite true in this respect, and what is more, when the incorrectness is slight, few auditors are sensible of it. But although they do not perceive it, it is this minute deviation from the true pitch, which, without their knowing it, diminishes the gratification of the ear. Singers of this description derive great assistance from accompaniment, which tends to set right their intonation, or at all events cloaks the imperfection.

The question whether harmony be a desirable resource of music is one of greater moment, as it has excited doubts with men of cultivated intellect, and even with musical characters of some note, Rousseau among the rest. On the other hand, some have maintained that harmony is as desirable an aid to melody, as colouring is to a drawing in outline. Without going to the full length of the latter assertion, we cannot deny that the comparison is applicable in many respects; and were it not that we feared to exceed our limits, we could wish to draw the parallel in its various bearings. As it is, we consign the task to the reader's hands.

Harmony, in our opinion, constitutes a desirable and very important accessary to melody; but we are far from considering it as a principal, and melody only secondary, although it was generally held in that estimation up to the close of the seventeenth century, and there are persons at this time who give it precedence. The advantages derived from harmony are indisputable: it tends to fix definitively the musical sense of a melody, and presents an inexhaustible means of imparting variety, and additional force of expression. We may, without hesitation, assert, that harmony has been the principal means of raising music to a rank among the fine arts.

Whoever should doubt this, let him for a moment imagine an opera, such as "Il Don Giovanni," set to the best possible, but merely melodic music. No orchestra, except perhaps a few instruments, to follow the songs in constant unison, or to intervene episodically; no duetts, unless by two persons singing precisely the same tune; no terzetts, no finale, except with the same restriction. Who could endure long such a monotonous performance? But we feel aware that we are addressing readers fully convinced, and therefore proceed to the actual and direct. effects of harmony.

In order to give an instance of the office of harmony in fixing the musical import of a melody, let us take the following simple phrase,