certainly, on examination, find the majority on the other side, and the advocates for the preservation of the elevated character of church music few in comparison with those who see no impropriety in introducing languishing strains and operatic flourishes instead of what they call the dull, prosing, and inexpressive harmonies of the old anthem. It is argued by some that God is love, and that he never intended to be worshipped in austerity and gloom: but has it never entered into their heads that there is some difference between the music required for the celebration of the love of God and that employed by a lover to gain the favours of his mistress? Is there no difference between God's love and man's love? The former is the highest and noblest sentiment that enters the human breast, and as such should be expressed in the loftiest and sublimest music, and not in

'
"Light airs and recollected terms

Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times.”

To guide the student to the attainment of the elevation and sublimity so indispensable to music designed for divine worship, we cannot do better than conclude by a quotation from the Lectures on Painting, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, a work from the study of which the musician will derive almost equal benefit with the painter :"The modern who recommends himself as a standard may justly be suspected as ignorant of the true end, and unacquainted with the proper objects, of the art which he professes. To follow such a guide will not only retard the student but mislead him. On whom then shall he rely? or who shall shew him the path that leads to excellence? The answer is obvious: those great masters who have travelled the same road with success are the most likely to conduct others. The works of those who have stood the test of ages have a claim to that respect and veneration to which no modern can pretend. The duration and stability of their fame is sufficient to evince that it has not been suspended upon the slender thread of fashion and caprice, but bound to the heart by every tie of sympathetic approbation." "Let him, then, regard them as perfect and infallible; as subjects for his imitation, not his criticism.”

21

VOL. V.NO. XVIII.

ANECDOTES ELUCIDATORY OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE ERMINE WEASEL,

(MUSTELA ERMINEA, Linn.).

BY SIR OSWALD MOSLEY, BART., M.P., D.C.L.

PERHAPS you may consider the following facts not unworthy of a place in your interesting periodical, inasmuch as they tend to illustrate the peculiar habits of an animal which is commonly doomed to the most unrelenting destruction, although possessed of some redeeming qualities, the promulgation of which might, perhaps, entitle it to our protection.

During one of the severe winters with which we were visited some years ago, my attention was attracted towards certain patches of rough pasture, lately disclosed by the melting of the snow, beneath which they had long been concealed. I saw something approaching them, which, had it not been for its lively motions, I should scarcely have distinguished from the white scenery around. On drawing nearer, I discovered it to be an Ermine Weasel (Mustela erminea, Linn.), which had adopted its winter clothing. It was evidently in pursuit of prey, and the curiosity I felt to discover the object of its search, made me more cautious not to disturb its occupation. After losing sight of it a short time, I saw it emerging from a tuft of grass with a Field Mouse (Mus sylvaticus) in its mouth, and directing its course to a contiguous plantation. When arrived there, it quickly ascended a young Fir tree with its burden, and then as expeditiously descended without it. I continued to watch the motions of the little animal amongst the dead leaves, which lay in heaps around, until an opportunity of catching it unawares, whilst the head and fere parts were concealed amongst the leaves, presented itself, of which I did not fail to avail myself. In vain did my little captive bite and struggle; a strong pair of gloves and a firm grasp, effectually baffled all its attempts at escape; and after striking my victim several sharp blows on the head, I was fully persuaded that I had accomplished my purpose of putting an end to its existence. Whilst I continued to carry it in my hand, it had all the appearance of being quite dead, but no sooner had it touched the ground, upon which I soon after threw it, than the hypocritical little creature at once found its liveliness and strength restored, and immediately ran off with the greatest agility.

After I had recovered my surprise, I felt an anxiety to know what had become of the Mouse with which the Weasel had ascended the

Fir tree. On climbing up it (the tree was at least fifteen feet high) I observed a small bird's nest* towards the top, in which the Mouse had been safely deposited by its destroyer.

Upon another occasion I perceived an Ermine Weasel in such close pursuit of a Rat that I had time to get my gun, and at one shot killed them both.

Surely this species is capable of being tamed, and made practically useful to mankind; its propensities are the same as those of the Ferret Weasel (Mustela furo), and in its nature it is much more hardy and less liable to disease.

SOME REMARKS ON THE PHILOSOPHY AND OBSERVANCES OF SHAKSPEARE.

II. THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

Ir is fortunate that the duration of human productions does not depend upon individual consent, or there would soon be nothing left to abolish the appetites of mankind are so various and capricious, that unanimity of taste is as impossible as a verdict universally identical is impossible with fallibility; judgment must be fixed by majority; we, therefore, reject the peremptory opinion of Mr. Upton, who denies the right of Shakspeare to this play, and are content to be pleased in spite of criticism.

This play is altogether a love matter, it begins and ends with love, the whole business and process of it is love; Proteus, Valentine, Thurio, Silvia, Julia, all are in love. We feel it like an electric battery playing round our hearts, as though the poet had written it with a feather snatched from Cupid's wing.

The first scene is laid in Verona. The two friends discuss, wit

EDS.

Probably that of a Goldencrowned Kinglet (Regulus auricapillus. ).-—

tily enough, the difference of their fortunes. Proteus starts in love, a sort of tinder-box to beauty, who takes fire with the first ray of a bright eye. Valentine, as yet "fancy free," escapes Verona, ambi tious to see the "wonders of the world abroad." Proteus would disuade him:

"Val-Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus; Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits."

It is curious that Shakspeare should never have travelled, considering the naturally errant inclination which he so often exhibits, and the value which a local knowledge of those places connected with his plays might have given him; he has, of course, for want of this knowledge, made several geographical blunders, especially that well-known one of making Bohemia a sea-port-it might have been known to him. He must have studied with some eagerness to supply the deficiency of travel.

This first scene is full of verbal quibbles and puns. To condemn Shakspeare on the score of his puns and quibbles is common with those saturnine, self-important persons, whose dignity is superior to a smile. But is it not rather an excellence than a fault? being not only a peculiarity of the age in which he lived, but also common to every anterior and succeeding period? With the lower class of the present day, what is so frequent as those little jeu d'esprit, called puns, those diaphragmatic stimuli. The Elizabethan æra of Latin and love, was celebrated for that euphuistical style of conversation which was always oscillating between the sublime and the ridiculous, the sober and the silly, and which those " chartered libertines," the "fools" of that day, tended to increase by their ceaseless ribaldry and jests. An ancient rhetorician delivered a caution against dwelling too long on the excitation of pity, for "nothing," he said, "dries so soon as tears." I have often noticed that ridicule and risibility never appear so easily excited as on the most melancholy occasions. Shakspeare's plays are the phantasmagoric images of the world as it is a magnified, but yet a perfect, portraiture. Those who cry out against "plays on words," writes Schlegel, as an unnatural and affected invention, only betray their own ignorance: with children, as well as nations of the most simple manners, a great inclination to this is often displayed."

In Homer we find several examples; the Books of Moses, the oldest written memorial of the primitive world, are full of them; on the other hand, poets and orators, as Cicero, have delighted in them.

It has been thought injurious to the higher feelings to cross them with a lighter word; and hence Voltaire, that sardonic sceptic, observes that Hamlet "appears the work of a drunken savage.' ""* John of Gaunt, in Richard II., dies with a joke upon his lips. The old man is visited by Richard, who inquires

"What comfort man? How is't with aged Gaunt ?
Gaunt.-O, how that name befits my composition!
Old Gaunt, indeed; and gaunt in being old :
Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast!
And who abstains from meat that is not gaunt?
For sleeping England long time have I watched :
Watching breeds leanness; leanness is all gaunt :
The pleasures, that some fathers feed upon,
Is my strict fast-I mean, my children's looks;
And, therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt:
Gaunt am I for the grave; gaunt as a grave,

Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones."

Poor old duke! thy "half-jesting" upon death and grief would enforce more tears than the loudest lamentation; ridicule is disarmed at once by the voluntary contrasts of the poor old man: Such is the nature of life, and, in spite of all complaints, Shakspeare is right; amid the deepest scenes

"Yet so to temper passion that our ears

Take pleasure in their pain, and eyes in tears
Both smile and weep."

Goethe has ingeniously compared Shakspeare's characters to watches with crystalline plates and cases, which, while they point out the hours as correctly as other watches, enable us, at the same time, to perceive the inward springs by which all this is accomplished. Proteus, bantered by Valentine for the folly of his love, replies

"Yet writers say, 'As in the sweetest bud

The eating canker dwells, so eating love

Inhabits in the finest wits of all.""

This is true love is the idol set up, not in the plains of Dura, but, as the sun, over the whole world, by that sensitive, empty-purse race of Parnassus. Like that fabled eastern bird which is nourished only by its own song, love lives in every thought, in every inspira

* What better could we expect from a Thersities—a serpent, whose only weapon was his sting.