over our hearts through every various fashion of music, only to be understood by it.

But in all this the art has had a stated object to fulfil, and we have sought for definite causes to account for definite effects. Let us now turn to those pure musical ideas which give no account of their meaning or origin, and need not to do it-to that delicious German Ocean of the symphony and the sonata-to those songs without words which we find in every adagio and andante of Mozart and Beethoven—far more, we must say, than in those dreamy creations, beautiful as they are, expressly composed as such by Mendelssohn. These are the true independent forms of music, which adhere to no given subject, and require us to approach them in no particular frame of feeling, but rather show the essential capacities of the muse by having no object but her and her alone. We do not want to know what a composer thought of when he conceived a symphony. It pins us down to one train of pleasure-whereas, if he is allowed the free range of our fancy without any preconceived idea which he must satisfy, he gives us a hundred. There is a great pleasure in merely watching Beethoven's art of conversation-how he wanders and strays, Coleridge like, from the path, loses himself apparently in strange subjects and irrelevant ideas, till you wonder how he will ever find his way back to the original argument. There is a peculiar delight in letting the scenery of one of his symphonies merely pass before us, studying the dim Turner-like landscape from which objects and landmarks gradually emerge, feeling a

strange modulation passing over the scene like a heavy cloud, the distant sunlight melodies still keeping their places, and showing the breadth of the ground by the slow pace at which they shift towards us. There is an infinite interest in following the mere wayward mechanism of his ideas-how they dart up a flight of steps, like children on forbidden ground, each time gaining a step higher and each time flung back-how they run the gauntlet of the whole orchestra, chased farther and farther by each instrument in turn; are jostled, entangled, separated, and dispersed, and at length flung pitilessly beyond the confines of the musical scene. But wait one soft bassoon-link holds the cable, a timid clarionet fastens on, other voices beckon, more hands are held out, and in a moment the whole fleet of melody is brought back in triumph and received with huzzas. It is sufficiently amusing, too, to watch how he treats his instruments, how he at first gives them all fair play, then alternately seizes, torments, and disappoints them, till they wax impatient, and one peeps in here and another tries to get a footing there, and at first they are timid and then bold, and some grow fretful and others coquettish, and at length all deafen you with the clamour of their rival claims. There is varied pleasure in these and many other fantastic ideas which he conjures up-but there is quite as much in sitting a passive recipient and giving yourself no account of your enjoyment at all.

It is very interesting to know that in that magical symphony of C minor, where those three mysterious notes compose the ever-recurring theme, Beethoven

was possessed by the idea of "Fate knocking at the door," but we are not sure that we should wish to have that black figure with its skeleton-hand always filling up the foreground of our thoughts. We never enjoyed that symphony more, than once under the impression that it represented a military subject, and those inquiring notes seemed the outposts reconnoitring. The mere leading idea of the composer is often utterly incommensurate with the beauty of the composition. If, like the Frenchman, we ask Beethoven's Sonata in G, "Sonate, que veux-tu ?" it does not satisfy us to hear that it means a quarrel between husband and wife; that the plaintive, coquettish repartee of the passages is all recrimination and retort, and those naive three notes which end the last bar, the last word! No, pure wordless music has too mysterious and unlimited a range for us to know precisely what it means. The actual idea from which it may have sprung is like the single seed at the root of a luxuriant many-headed flower, curious when found, but worthless. The ideas of the composer, like himself, often disappoint us. Rameau declared that he could set a Dutch newspaper to music. Haydn cared not how commonplace the idea might be which was given him to compose to. It matters not whether the depths of musical inspiration be stirred by a common pebble or a precious jewel; at most, we can but judge of the gloom or sunshine that is reflected on their surface.

There is that in Beethoven's works which might well give credibility to the report of his being the son of Frederick the Great, and probably led to it.

This grand genius and crabbed eccentric man never loved or trusted. He shut himself up with his music to be out of the way of his fellow-creatures. His deafness only gave him the excuse of being more morose. We hear this to a certain degree in his music. His instruments speak, but they do not speak like men. We listen to their discourse with exquisite delight, but not with that high and complete sympathy which Mozart's wordless speech gives. High as he is above us, Mozart is still always what we want and what we expect. There is a sense and method in all he does, a system pursued, a dominion over himself, an adaptation to others, which our minds can comprehend. He is as intensely human in his instrumental as in his vocal music, and therefore always intelligible. Beethoven is perpetually taking us by surprise. We do not know that we have such sympathies till he appeals to them— he creates them first, and then satisfies them. keeps our fancy in a perpetual flutter of wonder and ecstasy, but he rarely speaks direct to the common humanity between us. More delicious musical odes than his Longing Waltz, Hope Waltz, and Sorrow Waltz there cannot be, but they were so named for him. It may be questioned whether he ever expressly thought of these subjects. We never feel that he inspires the highest idea of all-the idea of religion. His" Mount of Olives" is exquisite; we are grateful for it as it is, but it might have been composed for an emperor's name's-day, only Beethoven would never have done such a civil thing. His grand "Missa Solennis " is the most wonderful mov

He

ap

ing tableau of musical painting that was ever presented to outward ear and inward eye. Each part is propriate in expression. The "Kyrie Eleison is a sweet Babel of supplications; the "Gloria in Excelsis Deo" is a rapturous cry; the quartette "Et in terrâ pax-hominibus bonæ voluntatis "is meant for beings little lower than the angels; the "Credo " is the grand declamatory march of every voice in unison, tramping in one consent like the simultaneous steps of an approaching army; the "Ante omnia secula" is an awful self-sustainment of the music in regions separated in time and space from all we ever conceived in heaven or earth. Beethoven out-Beethovens himself in a sublimity of imagery no musician ever before attempted; but as to the pure religious feeling, we neither fall on our knees as with Mozart, nor rise on wings as with Handel.

Where will the flight of musical inspiration next soar? It has been cleverly said by Reichardt that Haydn built himself a lovely villa, Mozart erected a stately palace over it, but Beethoven raised a tower on the top of that, and whoever should venture to build higher would break his neck. There is no fear of such temerity at present. Weber, Spohr, and Mendelssohn have each added a porch in their various styles of beauty, but otherwise there are no signs of further structure. The music of the day has a beauty and tenderness of colouring which was never surpassed, but all distinction of form seems crumbling away. It is like fair visions in dreams, or studies of shifting clouds, or one of Tennyson's rhapsodies, the strain delicate, the touches brilliant, but the