in proportions scarcely less regular. The loftiest and the last grain of sand is alone and above the rest, but there is a connection intimate and complete from this grain, down to the low and broad stratum at the bottom. Without such an arrangement of parts in society, and in the intellect which regulates the advances of art, the communicating contact would be broken. There would be at some point an impassable void, and the progress of civilization would be stopped. But we perceive the continual diffusion of knowledge, and from this law of nature, in regard to mind, criticism gathers one of its most necessary and useful canons-viz. to consider every production, with relation to the state of the art at the time such production appears.

MR. BISHOP, whose works are to be the subject of our present discussion, comes late into the arena of public competition; and it seemed to us, that we could place him fairly by no other method than by a complete and cautious examination of the compositions of all the writers of eminence who have gone before him in the department to which he more particularly belongs, namely, that of the stage. The quality and quantity of this gentleman's productions, entitle him to a degree of respect that will not be found to appertain to many of his predecessors-and if he has been exceeded by some, and by some who are still living to enjoy their well-deserved honours, there is yet no one who at the present day fills so large a portion of the field of public vision as himself. In the course of our investigation, we have been forcibly struck with the justice of the general observations with which we commence our article. Since the earliest age of the English opera, the ascent to our present position rises with so gradual and easy a slope, that after MATTHEW Lock, we confess we are little able to discover or to indicate, at any particular moment, any sudden or important rise. Perhaps we ought to premise, that we have not strictly confined our examination to English composers; nor would such a course have been sufficient to our purposes, since the Italian (and in an early stage of opera writing, the French) musicians were accessible to, and were studied by our countrymen. The intercourse between the professors of the several countries of Europe has always been preserved; and if

COPERARIO, who was the master of Charles the First, is amongst the first examples. He was an Englishman who, after visiting Italy, returned to his own country, and changed his name from Cooper to Coperario.

England has been slower in the adoption and the circulation of musical taste among every class of her subjects than Italy, it will be found to be owing to other causes than a want of knowledge or of genius in her native and her naturalized musicians. We build our assertion rather upon individual excellence than upon numerical amount. But we think our method of examination has been just; because, if we can shew that the improvements of our foreign preceptors were in all cases immediately sought and attained by our countrymen, and if we can prove by instances, that we have in some points preceded them, which we think is the fact in the nervous expression of LoсK and PURCELL, we must seek the causes of the national indisposition to receive the new discoveries, and to enjoy the new delight, in other sources than want of talent, industry, or acquisition in the professors of the science.

Though DR. BURNEY considers Eurydice to have been the first opera ever performed in public, the primary attempts at dramatic music were probably made at an earlier period. Eurydice was produced on the occasion of the marriage of Henry IV. of France, to Mary di Medicis, and acted at Florence in 1600. OTTAVIO RINUCCINI was the author, JACOPO PERI and GIULIO CACCINI the composers. The band consisted of a harpsichord, a chitarone or large guitar, a viol di gamba, and a large lute. These instruments were played behind the scenes. We may conceive that this was a very rude attempt, and the opera music or canto parlante, as it was then called, at this time of day excites no other emotion than curiosity. The specimens preserved, bear a nearer resemblance to the melody of a chaunt than to any thing else, and they are so far below this now refined species of composition, that they are greatly exalted by the comparison with modern chaunts. There is not the slightest resemblance to air. From this commencement, however, operas soon grew to be more frequent, and by degrees, more popular and more musical. It was not till about the middle of the century, that the learning and contrivance of the old composers gave way to simplicity, to melody, and fine air, and what in one emphatic term we now call EXPRESSION. The words then first imparted a colour to the music, and grace and propriety were studied. DR.

*

* They were generally performed in the palaces of Princes, at the celebration of marriages, or on some public occasion of joy and festivity. DR. BURNEY.

BURNEY relates, that the "grave recitative began first to be interrupted with that ornamented sort of stanza called ARIA," in the opera of Giasone, set by CAVALLI in 1649. But it was not till till about thirty years after, that music received its great improvement in Italy, by the works of CARISSSIMI, LUIGI, CESTI, and STRADELLA. In those of the former, it is the opinion of the same learned critic, that "there are more traits of fine melody than in any writer of the 17th century."

Although we are now examining the rise and progress of dramatic composition, we cannot throw out of our view the general advancement of music, for as in the early stage of the science the style of the church was in a manner translated to the theatre, so the theatre ultimately reciprocated variety and ornament with the different branches that grew out of the parent trunk. Such would be the natural consequence of composers addressing their talents and attention to different departments. From the beginning of the next century a succession of genius continued to arise, and gave to music, of every sort, the solidity and the polish that we now enjoy.*— The stage affording the fullest scope for the employment of whatever discoveries were made in the language of musical expression, very naturally became the richest depository of art. It has gone on up to the present day to attract the greatest share of ability, and to employ all the powers both of theory and of practice in its service. Italy took and has kept the lead, although the progress of society has at length enabled other countries of Europe to make almost equally rapid advances. Having thus given an outline, which though faint, may be sufficient to direct those who wish to examine into the matter more deeply, whence and where to trace the course of the great stream of musical instruction, we shall come to the more immediate object of enquiry, THE MUSICAL DRAMA OF OUR OWN

COUNTRY.

And here, as it is not our purpose, to give a history of the English opera, but merely to follow and compare the improvements of succeeding times, we shall content ourselves with referring our readers

SCARLATTI, GASPARINI, LOTTI, PERGOLESI, MARCELLO, HASSE, PORPORA BONOMI, and HANDEL, appeared to instruct and to delight mankind. Of ALESSANDRO SCARLATTI, who flourished about 1704, DR. BURNEY says, that his genius was truly creative, and I find part of his property among the stolen goods of all the best composers of the first forty or fifty years of the present century."

66

for a more minute account to SIR JOHN HAWKINS' and DR. BURNEY'S Histories.

The earliest writer for the stage to whom we turn is HENRY LAWES, who, in 1637, set the songs in MILTON's Comus. The dramatic efforts of this composer (who also assisted in the music appended to some entertainment at Rutland-house, under the management of SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT, in 1656,) are undoubtedly of a very uninteresting character; but we cannot wholly subscribe to the judgment of critics who have asserted that his compositions are entirely devoid of air. They stand indeed at an immeasurable distance from the polished, beautiful, and diversified melodies of a later day; but there are, we are of opinion, in LAWES's writings the rudiments, the first links in the chain clearly discernible. We must not, in common candour, compare this old musician with any other than his cotemporaries and his immediate successor; and in so doing we cannot cut him off from his natural rights by neglecting to place him at the foundation. There is indeed a resemblance in some points even between him and PURCELL, the greatest of our early English masters. Remote from our age as is the time in which HENRY LAWES composed, it is unnecessary for us to say more, having, in mere justice, assigned him the place which we think he merits. We have sufficient proof of the limitations imposed upon his fancy by the state of the art and of manners* at the time he lived. The words in Comus, which he was called upon to set, were in the grandest style of classical purity. The severity of MILTON'S taste, the rank of the noble personst who sung his airs, and the probably slight practical dexterity they had attained, would have all conspired to awe and deter the composer from any attempts at what would, no doubt, have then been thought (had they been thought of at all) the extravagances of the art. Neither had he enjoyed any of the helps which have been since derived from the gradual perfecting of vocal and instrumental execution. We ought, therefore, to regard these specimens of the earliest English dramatic music, in the fight of the unaided experiments of one who makes the discovery of a new application of some of the latent powers of a science.

* Mr. Godwin, in the life of Chaucer, has very ably contended for and established the principle we here adopt.

+ Comus was first acted at Ludlow Castle, before the Earl of Bridgewater, President of Wales, and the principal performers were Lord Brackly and the Lady Alice Egerton.

Of the works of MATTHEW Lock, who immediately succeeded HENRY LAWES, one specimen has not only survived the oblivious hand of time, but it still maintains an unassailed ascendancy. The music of MACBETH not only keeps its place in the representations of that first of English tragedies, but is even in these days of refinement heard with peculiar sensations of delight, and so intimately associated with the high poetry of those beings "so wild in their attire," that it would now be impossible to attempt to separate them. There is indeed a fresh and breathing spirit of originality about the airs and chorusses that inclines us entirely to dissent from Dr. BURNEY'S judgment with regard to their being written upon the model of CAMBERT and LULLI, to fall in with the predilections of CHARLES II. and his Court. "His music, (says Dr. B.) for the witches in Macbeth, which, when produced in 1674, was as smooth and airy as any of the time, has now attained by age that wild and savage cast which is admirably suitable to the diabolical characters that are supposed to perform it." What the Doctor attributes to age we give to genius. Lock's music we consider to be as inspired as the poetry itself; and the resemblance it bears to CAMBERT and LULLI, no more than the features common to composers of the same date, which, (as we have before observed) may in almost all instances be traced. They seem to mark the intellectual intercourse and the blended studies of the musicians of different countries, but, with great deference for Dr. Burney's authority, we venture to think they afford very inadequate proof of direct imitation. We deem this work, when compared with the Comus of LAW ES, to exhibit the most rapid and striking advancement of any composition of any subsequent period. According to the reservation made above, we do attribute something of this to the progress of music in France and the example of that country, imparted by the pursuits and encouragement of the Court of the restored Monarch; it is certainly this reservation that smooths the slope between LAWES and Lock; but the music of Macbeth is, strictly speaking, in the highest degree original, full of fire, fancy, and legitimate expression. It tesselates with the

* Mr. Burgh, in his Anecdotes of Music, (which book, by the way, is almost word for word a transcript from Dr. Burney,) asserts as follows:-" Many persons imagine the justly celebrated music in Macbeth to be the production of Purcell; it certainly bears a striking resemblance to his peculiar style, and is beyond comparison superior to any other work of Matthew Lock which has come down to us. A musical friend of the author of this note assured him that