Mæcenas, it is said, was cured of perpetual watchfulness by the falling of water; and Pliny relates the story of a Roman nobleman who used to be lulled to sleep by the noise of rain. Without rural sounds, the Muses would scarcely patronize a country-life; and whatever the poets may say in praise of solitude, they always betray in their retreats a lurking partiality to the neighbourhood of some choice cascade or vocal grove. The poet who celebrated the glories of Grongar Hill, opens by an invitation to the "silent nymph" who lay

On the mountain's lonely van,

Beyond the noise of busy man.

The charms of the nymph do not appear to be of the lasting kind; and thus the poet, in the conclusion, acknowledges the superior influence of nature and noise :

Now, e'en now, my joys run high,

As on the mountain turf I lie,
While the wanton zephyr sings,
And in the vale perfumes his wings;
While the waters murmur deep,

While the shepherd charms his sheep,
While the birds unbounded fly,
And with music fill the sky;

Now, e'en now, my joys run high.

Cowper, however, carries the matter further than this. In his fine description of the effects of natural sounds, he says, that the "cawing rooks," the kites, the jay, the pie, and even the boding owl, have charms for him.

Every strong excitement impels us to make noise. Savages go to battle with loud shouts and outcries. The armies of civilized nations do the same, partly with the view of striking terror in their enemies; and artificial noise is employed to keep up the courage of the soldiers. The Bohemian warrior (Zisca) who left his skin for a drum, saying that the enemy would fly at the sound of it, is a good authority in favour of the virtues of noise. Cato the Elder boasted that he had gained more victories by the throats of his army than by their swords; and Cæsar mentions the shouts of his regiments as one of the things that rendered them superior to the troops of Pompey. Military men admit that the noise of the artillery does as much towards the victory as the shots themselves; and a certain captain was wont to call the mouth of a great gun hell-mouth, and said that he who trembled not when one of them thundered, feared neither God nor the devil. But so naturally agreeable is the sound of noise to the ear, that even its most terrific notes have a proportion of the pleasing in them. Every variety of noise has its votary, either from taste or from habit. Dr. John

son could not survive a year's exile from the noises of the metropolis: all his bliss was centered in the tempestuous confluence of Temple-bar, and he has been known to "expire" at the rattling of a coach in which he was driven furiously along. The Doctor's humour in this respect is quite irreconcilable with his indifference to the conjugal state.* Montaigne tells the story of a learned man who could not study conveniently except in the neighbourhood of noise. He never could be solitary by himself, and found it necessary to fix his retreat amidst the uproar of the servants'-hall. But it has been found that noise of whatever kind (the rudest has been generally preferred) is a specific against the approach of evil spirits. The waggoners of Spain look entirely to the grating of their axle-trees for protection against their airy opponents. A greased axle-tree, therefore, or one likely to work in peace and ease, might rot in neglect. The virtues of Adam's voice have been celebrated by a virgin saint of the 12th century (St. Hildegardis) in a Latin sermon preached at Mentz. She says that if it had remained the same, after his fall, that it was on his creation, the infirmity of human nature could not withstand it; and we are indebted to her for an account of the reasons that led the tempter to make his fatal experiment on our "general mother." Cum autem," she says, "deceptor audîsset quod homo tam sonore cantare cœpisset, exterritus est." No doubt, a noisy, storming manner carries vast authority with it. Lord Pembroke whispered it of Johnson, that his sayings would not appear half so extraordinary but for his bow-wow way. Fame herself, indeed, is represented by the poets to be a "noisy monster." Tragedywriters are very particularly beholden to noise. I have heard a stout stage-trumpeter put five or six of the Muses to the blush of a night; and the reign of many a worthy emperor has been prolonged for a week by a timely storm; but thunder is, perhaps, the safest antiseptic yet discovered.

Upon all other occasions dulness and noise maintain a strict enmity. "Giant Handel" introduced drums and cannons into his chorusses for the greater effect,—

To stir, to rouse, to shake the soul he comes,
And Jove's own thunders follow Mars's drums.

Dunciad.

And for his attachment to the cause of noise he was banished by the leaden queen to the Hibernian shore. Guilt has a similar antipathy to noise. Confessions of crimes have been ex

The reader is requested to bear in mind the answer which Socrates gave to one of his friends, when asked how he could endure the perpetual noise of his wife.

torted ere now by a sudden shock of noise. When Macbeth has effected the bloody deed, the least sound fills him with alarms. The knocking from without petrifies him with fear. "How is't with me," he says, "when every noise appals me?" When Lear hears the tempest rattling over his head, he in the most natural manner exclaims,

Tremble, thou wretch,

That hast within thee undivulged crimes,

Unwhipp'd of justice.

I cannot better conclude than by correcting a popular error respecting the comparative ages of Noise and Silence. This notion has been insidiously countenanced by Pope, in his Address to Silence, in imitation of Rochester. The following lines make out Silence to be senior to the creation:

Thine was the sway ere heaven was form'd, or earth,

Ere fruitful thought conceived creation's birth,

Or midwife word gave aid, and spoke the infant forth.

Milton, however, settles the matter otherwise, in his description of the appearance before creation :—

IT is not wonderful that men should be enthusiastic, for who can propose to himself an object worthy of his eager pursuit without ambition to attain it? The matter of surprise is, when a man of sound intellect and good principle can move through life without the apparent predominance of any one interest. There is such a wearisome dulness about ourselves when we cannot find any particular object upon which to exercise our various faculties-there is such a revolting from the idea of being nothing in the world—the burthen of thought on our minds, unrelieved by the active exertions of our bodies, does so heavily press

upon the animal spirits, that we had a thousand times rather see our fellow-creatures transformed into good-humoured pedants, each supremely intent upon one thing, however insignificant, than be surrounded by a crowd of beings who have not the fewer cares because they are almost without pleasures. The bustling housewife, her heart and soul intent upon pickles and preserves, Mrs. Battle devoted to her rubber at whist,-grammarians, intent upon the formation of past participles,-antiquarians, looking with ineffable disdain on the living, and for ever communing with the dead, entomologists, speculating on the wings of a fly, we like them all-they are all happy beings. Each loves at least one thing. There may be a vast difference in the comparative value of their several undertakings. The benevolent ardour of a Howard, the Christian fervour of a missionary, may wonderfully overshadow the value of such pursuits as we have mentioned; but still the principle of exertion, to whatever object directed, is to be hailed as an omen of goodgood to the individual himself, and, in general, eventually so to the community. Good-humour, that sweetener of our real cares, that best preventative against imaginary ones, is at least fostered by this active turn of mind; and that is but a short-sighted officiousness which would rob the bustler of his joys, in order to shew him their unreasonableness. Any thing-we repeat it -any thing is better than the dull, melancholy, morose apathy of human creatures, who are born and educated, and live and die without desiring or shunning one thing more than another, without love or hatred, without fear or hope. For this reason chiefly, when we review the character of the present age, we take heart and are comforted, amid the consciousness of finding much folly, in the belief that a great deal of powerful feeling is abroad, that sluggishness is not the reigning evil of our time ; but that we are on the whole an active, stirring, busy nation. Our ladies too have caught the spirit of the age. We meet them, not merely at balls, prettily equipped for the sprightly dance, nor in a morning weaving with indefatigable fingers their evening robe; but at our public meetings, at our committees, in our schools, and in our prisons, we find them occupying no subordinate station in the ranks of the busy labourers in the cause of humanity. It has been whispered that on such occasions they have of late years been, indeed, rather too active; and this is likely enough. But yet we cannot help believing, on our own principles, that the good-humour of their domestic circles is on the whole increased by the life and spirits which these exertions produce and promote. It is true, that the same period which produces a nation of great doers, will almost unavoidably bring forth a people of talkers. Energy of one sort calls out energy of another. High-sounding expressions, violent admira

tion and abuse of people and things, is inseparable from a state of strong mental and bodily excitement. Hence the sharpness of our controversies, the unreasonable warmth of our language on subjects purely literary, the vehemence of our passionate poetry. We have carried all these things a great deal too far; and people of the good old school look upon us sometimes with wonder and contempt. We appear in their eyes to be fighting with prodigious vehemence about straws. Looking forward, however, some twenty or thirty years, we see great reason to hope that we shall be much the better by and by, in spite of our present excesses. Things will be called by their right names, one time or other; and the sober severity of truth will adorn our characters, when some of the glow of enthusiasm in her cause has passed away. Even now, few of the members of contending literary parties dislike each other half so much as their words literally taken would imply; and few of the busy actors in political or religious matters appear, in their own private circles, such zealots as we are apt to fancy. When a man has gained reputation by ardour in one particular cause, we cannot give him credit for being ardent in any thing else; though in many cases mere accident has coupled his name with one pursuit, and he may have been all the while to the full as eager in quest of some other. At any rate there is no stagnation in a mind like this. It is carried away, indeed, rather too rapidly; but time, experience, and the inflexible application of its powers in that direction to which man's better wisdom points, will finally preserve it from destruction.

Even decidedly light, irreligious, volatile spirits are more hopeful subjects of speculation than the apathetic beings from whom no power can extract a tear of sympathy, or a burst of generous feeling. Quiet dulness often calls itself religious; but of conscience it has none. It keeps under regulation the already sober passions; but as to rousing the active principle within us, towards this it does nothing.

Religious principle is of little value indeed, if it merely keep us in the slavish fear of going notoriously wrong, without spurring us on to right action. It was not for an end so poor and circumscribed that the Divine Being created us, and stamped upon our minds his own image. It was not for this that he has called us to the hope of a better inheritance. It was to rouse us to act with him and for him; to translate us from the dominion of fear to the empire of hope; from passive submission to active service; from awe to love, and from death to life: up to this beautiful idea should we endeavour always to lift our minds. We may faint and fall short; but our motives and principles are stronger than ourselves.

We are getting out of our depth; and, having begun in a