of the students the superlative excellences of that great man. So much was he struck with the importance of holding him up as a model for the study and imitation of artists, and so anxious was he to impress them with the high idea of the talents of that extraordinary person, that he declared it to be his ardent wish, that the last word he should utter in the president's chair, (a kind of dying bequest) should be MICHAEL ANGELO!!!

The professor of music might with truth apply a corresponding sentiment to HANDEL, and warmed with the same admiration of the musician, as that which the late President of the Royal Academy entertained towards the father of the Roman school, he might, with equal propriety and equal dignity, express to his pupils the wish, that the last word he should address to them, from the professor's chair, might be HANDEL!

I am, Mr. Editor,

Your Constant Reader,

C. T.

SIR,

TO THE EDITOR.

IT is now admitted, that the delight which almost every individual receives from music, combined with the leisure which wealth and civilization afford to most classes, and the taste for intellectual pleasures growing out of these two causes, have brought the science into universal practice and request. Its cultivation must therefore proceed with an accelerated velocity. Professors will become more numerous; and as the propagation of art depends mainly upon them, as it is desirable both for themselves and the amateurs, that their intercourse should be preserved by the surest and safest ties, an essay on the character of the professors of music appears to me to be well worthy a place in such a work as THE QUARTERLY MUSICAL Review. At present, Mr. Editor, the character of the profession is clouded and obscured by strong facts and by stronger prejudices (which it must be confessed have their foundation in these

facts,) sufficient to close the doors, and to shut the hearts of a great proportion even of liberal persons, against all avoidable intercourse with men and women, who with so much of accomplishment to recommend them, have at the same time among them no small number of examples of laxity of principle to exclude them from society, I am quite ready to grant, that the many suffer for the few, and that there exists a great confusion relative to the several orders of musicians. It is to endeavour to clear up these points, and to propose a remedy, that I put pen to paper.

In considering this subject, the first reflection I ought to make, in order to except against invidious imputation, is, that my obser vations are not confined to this or any particular point of time. They embrace the general experience of the past. The class that attaches the most attention (I do not say it is the highest,) is that of those singers who appear upon the stage. It is perhaps a necessary consequence, that vocalists of this description will earn a far larger sum than can be obtained by any other branch of the profession, Hence great talents will be attracted into the vortex of the theatre, where experience shows that the million have lost their moral sense in the delirious whirl of public applause, and fallen victims to private solicitation, to seduction, and to dissolute pleasures. I shall not now stop to enquire into the causes which facts prove to exist in sufficient force to produce so constantly the same results. But I may be permitted to remark, and it is of importance to do so, that the musical character thus becomes associated with the theatrical, and, however unjustly, is taken to be amenable for all the faults and vices that do actually belong or that are supposed to belong to the stage. This, Sir, is a broad distinction, and admits of a vast declension. The denomination of a player or a public singer is alike applicable to MR. YOUNG, MRS. SIDDONS, OF MISS STEPHENS, and to the stroller from barn to b: rn; and when we depart from the Metropolis, we gradually descend from the pinnacle of greatness in art to its most occult depths of misery and degradation. But the association is irremediable; and it is not more unfrequent in the one degree in which the illustrious exceptions we have quoted by name are ranked, to find the most depraved instances of departure from the rules of morality, than in the other where licentious profligacy has the extenuation of all the temptations that lurk round poverty and passion,

In intimate relation with the English Theatre stands the Italian Opera. The manners of foreigners engaged in such pursuits are notoriously more luxurious and dissolute than consists with those notions which distinguish the great body of the English nation. There are doubtless very eminent exceptions, but it is the exception that establishes the rule.

It is needless for me, Mr. Editor, to pass through the several degrees that divide the musical, as they must do every other profession. I would rather treat the subject generally than particularly, for reasons which must be obvious. I must however stop to remark, that even the teachers of music are of necessity ranked with those who exercise the art personally and publicly. Now I conceive, that of all classes of musicians, the teachers are the most respectable, and not the least consequential on account of their daily admission and the influence of their manners upon the minds of the children committed to their care. Their circle extends itself every hour; and I must do these ladies and gentlemen the justice. to proclaim, that their moral character, their manners, and their general attainments, have kept more than equal pace with the advances of the science to which they devote themselves. The introduction of females as assistants in the art of tuition is a striking improvement, both in the condition of the sex and of society.

We may now proceed to our purposed examination more at large.

In the world, rank, wealth, and talents are the accessories which mark men from the herd, and neither of these distinctions is without its pride and its prejudice. It might present more difficulty than I am disposed to encounter to decide to which of the three the greater share belongs. But talent is unquestionably the most susceptible and the most sensitive. Rank is seldom uncombined with wealth and education; all its pride and all its prejudice are therefore tinged, heightened or softened by circumstances not common to mere opulence, which, however, is not now often found unaccompanied by education, except in the very first founders of a fortune. Among persons of condition, there is a general disposition to treat talent with respect, and to employ its powers usefully and honorably. But I may venture to say that to whatever familiarity they may occasionally admit professors, they never for a moment lay aside the opinion that it is a matter of condescension on their part. They note with that nice tact which is

the peculiar characteristic of high polish, every deviation from THEIR RULES of propriety, and they regard the admission of professional people into their circle, merely as it contributes to their amusement. Still there is commonly a delicacy of behaviour which strives to cover this the true principle that brings the parties together, and to preclude its ever appearing to disconcert the individual. Talent is safe in the company of well-bred people, for the essence of good breeding is neither to say nor do an offensive thing. The worser part of these sentiments, with regard to professors, have somehow or other crept downwards through all conditions, and hence it happens. that the moment we pass from really elevated (or good) society, the character of the musician seems to suffer the degradation which so ill comports with the natural dignity of liberal art, and which the professor ought not to undergo. However take the fact as it stands -and so it is.

The age to which this country is arrived, has brought us to a pitch far beyond the state of things when simple usefulness is the primary ground of the estimation by which an individual or profession is to: be valued. The community is no longer in that period of its growth, when strength, courage, or cunning, when the skill of a carpenter, a smith, a herdsman, a shepherd, or a farmer, are alone the desiderata. We have long begun to respect the ornamental as well as the more solid parts that compose the commonwealth. And, Sir, I would bring to recollection the classical maxim, no less important to society than to artists themselves, that nothing tends to refine the manners and to add to the happiness of a state, both by the pleasures they carry along with them and by the vices which they banish-. nothing I say contributes so much to civilization as the fine arts. It is now no longer necessary to enquire concerning the utility of musical instruction and enjoyment. The science is come to take a share and a very large share in our pursuits. And if the professors of music rank in dignity of mind below other faculties, the cause is less in the necessary devotion of their time to the acquirement of the technical and mechanical dexterity requisite to the practice of their art, than to the dissipation of valuable hours in other

ways.

To return for a moment to the accidents which have placed mankind in their several stations and their consequences; these are not more carious in themselves than the ideal value, at which the several

classes estimate them. The man of birth prides himself upon his ancestry, while the founder of a large fortune (even though he envies the high-born) holds him up to ridicule and scorn. The man of rare talents and high science entertains a no less cordial contempt for the station and the wealth of the others, which he regards as extrinsic to their possessors, and conferring little that is truly to be. esteemed by a wise man; yet it is no less certain that each of these circumstances has its peculiar usefulness among the compacts of society. As they respect the musician it imports him highly to take a just view of what each claims to demand, for (as it appears to me) there is nothing that so materially injures the fortune and mars the happiness of professional people as the not seeing their own rights and those of amateurs through a clear medium. This observation is as common as the most common, with regard to all conditions of men, but it applies more sensibly to the class I am speaking of than to almost any other, because, although generally persons of inferior birth and fortune, they suddenly become the objects of public. applause, and are called at once into the presence of rank and affluence, and into an intercourse so close and immediate as to implicate a familiarity most dangerous to their habits, unless they are scrupu lously guarded by that general self-knowledge, which includes also the knowledge of the relations in which we stand to those who sur-. round us.

In the computation we make of what is most valuable in life, we are all apt to be misled by one peculiar notion; men are all prone to consider that faculty or circumstance which most contributes to their own elevation, not merely as most desirable and beneficial, but they also too frequently think it is the only real source of greatness or distinction. This idea prevails in proportion to the limits which education and opportunity have fixed upon the general acquisitions of the individual. But it is always true according to this degree, because it is the effect of association, and in so far as the association is interrupted or continued, the principle extends its hold and its power. It is not wonderful that the bigh-born, accustomed to perceive the respect which waits upon title from their infancy, should be brought to believe that birth is the fountain of honour. It is no wonder, if the man of wealth who observes the obeisance and the power that are bought by opulence in the various gradations through which he ascends to large property, should look upon