of the Court. M. Vacher has published several compositions for the violin.

Alexander Jean Boucher, born at Paris in 1770, shewed in his earliest childhood great talents for music, and above all for the violin. He became the pupil of M. Navvigille, and at fourteen was the sole support of his family. At seventeen he went into Spain, and being presented to Charles IV. that monarch appointed him to the office of solo player to his chapel and chamber music. Here Boucher profited by the advice of Boccherini, who dedí. cated one of his compositions to him. Being obliged to leave Spain, on account of his health, Boucher visited France, in 1803. He performed at the concerts of Mesdames Grassini and Giacomelli, and completely bore away the palm. He was surnamed "L'Alexandre des Violons," though his enemies said he was only the Charles 12th. In 1817 M. Boucher had returned to his first

protector, Charles 4th.* Mr. Boucher made no pupils, and pub

lished but one concerto for the violin at Brussels.

We have now brought the history of the French school of the violin up to our own times. The present illustrious heads of the conservatory at Paris, Messrs. Rode, Baillot, and Kreutzer, possess talents that still uphold its celebrity, and for their histories we shall refer our readers to Vol. 6, page 527.

* On a vu M. Boucher devancer Charles IV. au palais de Fontainebleau, et son protecteur le serrer dans ses bras, en lui disant: Je n'ai pas cru les mechans qui voulaient me persuader que tu m'avais oublié. Tu ne me quitteras plus ; ton bon cœur m'est connù.

ONE of the most philosophical works upon the musical drama is

a treatise entitled "Le Rivolusioni del Teatro Musicale Italiano dalla sua origine fino al presente." It is written in Italian, by Stefano Arteaga, a Spaniard and an ex-Jesuit. To considerable learning and an acquaintance with his subject Arteaga added a fine taste and a spirit of enquiry that could not be satisfied without endeavouring to trace effects up to their causes. He has therefore interspersed many profound remarks with the facts he relates, in pursuing the rise, progress, and decline of the musical drama, and rendered what others would have treated merely as an historical relation, an elegant and instructive work of criticism. The first chapter of his second volume has the following title:— "The Golden Age of Italian Music-The Progress of MelodyEminent Italian Composers-Celebrated Vocal and Instrumental Schools, with their several Characteristics."-This chapter appears to us to contain so much interesting matter that we have translated it entire, and we only regret our inability to transfuse the brilliant style of the original into an English version.

Notwithstanding its defects the opera on the whole pleased the Italians by its novelty, and because they had no better spectacle. Having lost all remembrance of their ancient theatre, and only seeing tragedies and comedies full of absurdities on the modern stage, it was natural for them to turn to the melo-drame, in which they found an ample compensation. If it did not interest the heart, the eye at least was satisfied, and if the spectators did not feel terror and pity they were wrapt in an extacy of admiration, which emotion taking the place of every other, rendered a spectacle valuable that was opposed in every way to good sense. Its defects were considered as so many beauties, and the display of superb machinery was thought a great merit in the composition, whilst it destroyed the effects of both music and poetry. It was not remembered, as has been observed by a great genius, that these apparent riches were in truth but proofs of poverty, as flowers which bloom before their season generally indicate the sterility of the soil from which they spring.

However it could not but happen that occasionally from amongst the corruptions of art by which the music and poetry were obscured, some passage from an instrument or a beautiful idea in the poetry touched the feelings.

This was the moment for the revolution. The poets began to discover that they could interest the affections instead of the eyes, and the musicians perceived that the power of their art principally rested in melody, although it had for its foundation chords and the laws of harmony.

It is in fact melody that gives to music the power of imitating nature, and of expressing, by the varied succession of sounds, the several accents of passion. It is melody, which moving now rapidly, now slowly, now in broken measure, draws tears of grief, quickens the pulses in joy, makes us sink with distress, and excites the affections of hope, fear, courage, or melancholy. It is melody, that by recalling the ideas which the representation of physical objects would awaken in us, can paint the murmur of a gently gliding rivulet, or the rush of a mountain torrent; the terror of a tempest and the soft sighs of a gentle breeze, the howls of the Furies or the smiles of the Graces, the majesty and silence of night or the gaiety of noon enlivened by the rays of a bright sun. Melody is the only part of music that produces moral effects in the heart of man, and gives to sounds that powerful energy which is admired in the works of great masters. This can only be done by considering musical inflexions as so many means of expressing our feelings and ideas; hence it will arise that by remembering objects which these sounds present to our imaginations, we find ourselves agitated by the same feelings as the actual presence of these objects would have occasioned. Finally melody is that which may be said to subjugate the universe to the empire of the ear, as painting and poetry do the eye and imagination.

This however cannot be effected by harmony alone, for consisting principally of sounds of equal duration, it is well adapted to form an agreeable accompaniment, which delights the ear, but it cannot raise itself to the privilege of imitating nature, with which the union of chords has too distant a relation. Neither can it have any considerable effect on the passions, which is the true end of dramatic music. In the same manner a pure and exact discourse might be written according to the simple rules of gram

mar, but this alone would never be sufficient to form an eloquent writer. Strength of argument, forcible demonstration, the excitation of the passions-in a word, the art of persuading, although it cannot be obtained without observing the rules of syntax, yet does not so entirely depend on them as to render an adherence to these laws, the only thing requisite to form an orator. Rhetoric, by disposing at will of rules and words, and using them as the vehicles of thought, communicates to them that expression, which in the hands of a mere grammarian they never would have possessed. Now as melody is to music what rhetoric is to language, so harmony is to sound what syntax is to discourse. Harmony may assist in producing musical expression, now arranging sounds by certain rules, as grammar disposes words, now uniting their progression by the laws of modulation as orthography marks the periods, now perfecting the intonation by means of the intervals, as syntax renders speech more intelligible by the just arrangement of words, now subjecting defective accent to the general theory of sounds, as grammar reduces to certain rules the anomalies of nouns and verbs. So long however as the composer confines himself within these limits, music would have no life, no spirit the spontaneous and natural accents of passion would be converted into an harmonious interval, which, from being the child of art, would produce no effect upon the heart, which cannot be touched by abstract proportions, or mere numerical computations. So taken, the various and multiplied inflections of which the language of passion is susceptible, would be reduced to a very small number; the eloquence of music would be impoverished, by the exclusion of many sounds the more fitted to act upon the mind from not being comprehended within the arbitrary system of harmony, and by curtailing those that remained of the most powerful part of expression, which is that of being able in a degree to address the mind in a determinate language, and of representing to it some definite object. Nevertheless, when I hear music, consisting of intervals, consonances, proportions, concords, and relations, where its power is reduced to tickle the nerves of the auditors, with certain methodical and insignificant vibrations, I applaud the science of the musician, admire the sonorous algebra as I admire the calculations of Kilatti and of Euler, I enjoy the same pleasure as in hearing the warb

ling of a canary, but I resemble those old men described by Homer, who formed the council of Priam, and who admired the beauty of Helen without being affected by it, because I do not discover in it that principle of imitation which is the foundation of all the fine arts. I find no relation between the harmonious sounds and my affections, nor are my heart or soul moved by those sudden and forcible effects which every man of feeling has a right to expect from such an art. As a mass of various colours in a picture produces no effect without that design which constitutes the vital spirit of painting, so the combination of sounds is incapable of interest without melody. The images of our passions and of the objects which awaken them, the train of our ideas and feelings, recalled to mind by the song or symphony, present the only means to soften or to rouse us, and to render the language of music warm breathing and energetic. This is the reason why the spectator remains cold and indifferent to the sight of a wood or a desert delineated even by an able pencil, but let his ear be gratified by a voice singing in these solitudes, and he remains no longer passive. The leaves of the trees, the pale azure of the horizon, the points of the broken rocks, the distance and chiaro oscuro of the valleys delight his eye, but they speak not to the mind. Let a single voice steal upon the silence of the lonely vale, and it tells to the listener that there dwells a social Being, his companion in grief and joy, a creature formed like himself by nature to inhale the breath of life, and to enjoy the blessings of the universe. Thus began to think the Italian composers; whether it was from reflection that they made the interesting discovery, or from that innate love of the beautiful which creates taste and is generated by instinct, or whether it arose from the perpetual and unalterable oscillation by which the faculties belonging to the imagination and sensibility pass from the lowest state to mediocrity, and from mediocrity to the highest to fall again, certain it is that the heart re-acquired its rights, of which it had been deprived by the senses, and that music, from a mere combination of sounds, became an imitative art, capable of expressing all the passions and representing every object. The first though slight change originated with the Ecclesiastics. Arazio Benevoli,* Autore Maria Abbettini,+ Francesco Foggia, Pietro Picerti, and the highly renowned Cestit Idem, page 210.

* See vol. 6, page 213. + Idem.