snares of the Evil One. But the punishment | that he might regain his peace of mind. has overtaken me even in this world, for Father Aloysius gave him his blessing, and since that moment I have not known a quiet he returned to Cologne with a lighter heart. hour." And he related further how he had watched by night in the cathedral, and then continued: "I can no longer bear the fearful burden which weighs upon me. I would not confess to the pious fathers in Cologne, lest it should prove a grief and scandal to them, when they learned that the cathedral in which they so delight was built with Satan's help. Therefore I have come to thee, that thou mayest utter a blessing upon my building, that it may prosper, and tell me if it is not possible that the punishment which I have drawn upon me may be lightened." The master was silent, and bowed his forehead in the dust. But after long reflection, the pious hermit said, "Thou hast sinned grievously, my son. But the All-mighty is also the Allmerciful; he will behold thy deep and bitter repentance, and the heavy punishment which thou hast already suffered from the tormenting consciousness of thy guilt. And if thou shalt persevere in thy purpose of reformation, and dost exercise repentance until thy life's close, the Lord will look down graciously upon thee, and will not eternally condemn thee; for truly he sent his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to save and redeem mankind, and thou also wilt share in this redemption. But that thy penitence may be complete, go hence, and let the brazen tablet with thy name engraved upon it be taken out of the pillar in the church. For as thou hast sinned from foolish vanity, it shall be thy punishment that thy name be forgotten among men, and never more be uttered upon earth. And because thou didst not set about thy work with God's help, it will never be completed, for that at which the Lord is not present will never prosper." CHAPTER VII. THE MASTER'S NAME. VARIOUS strange things were whispered in the city of Cologne. The people heard with great astonishment that the master had caused the brazen tablet with his name to be taken from the pillar, and the opening to be walled up again. And they told each other that since that time the master had been completely changed. Although each one had formerly avoided him on account of his singular demeanor, his dark and steadfast gaze, yet now each looked upon him with compassion; for deep grief was visible in his pallid face, and still the heavy gloom upon his brow had become much milder. But the people wondered still more that the master no longer was ever present at the building as heretofore, but went often to the churches, and came more and more seldom, until at last he was almost entirely forgotten. And one day they heard in the city that the master was dead, and buried in all stillness. He had requested on his deathbed that this should be so, that no one should attend his body to the tomb, and no one know the place of his burial. And it happened as Father Aloysius had said. Soon, repeated hindrances interrupted the progress of the building, mostly arising from the feuds of the city with the Archbishops, so that it could easily be seen that they came from an evil source. And after the year 1499 the building of the cathedral entirely ceased, so that it remains at this day unfinished. But the master's name was forgotten. And when any one now stands before the At these words the master rose, and bit-gigantic edifice, and admires the boldness, ter wo was visible in his countenance. His the grandeur of the undertaking,-wonderwhole life had been bound up in the build-ful, even uncompleted, and asks after the ing of his cathedral, and now his life was lost. But the pious hermit continued to comfort him, so that he at last became more consoled, and resolved to do as was told him, fame of the master-builder, there is no one who can name him. It is to be found in no book, the memory of no man has preserved it, it has not passed from generation to generation-it is forgotten! THE VIOLIN. A MÉLANGE. THE violin is unquestionably the most important instrument used in music. It is the most important, considered with reference to the performance of music, inasmuch as it possesses more power, variety, and brilliance of effect than all the other instruments in combination, and thus commands the entire orchestra. The din of the wind instruments may be so used as to overpower it for a while, but the continuous use of them in that manner, soon fatigues the ear. The wind instruments can be used effectively alone, only for martial music in the open air; in the full orchestra, and in the higher departments of music, they can only be employed as accessaries to stringed instruments -and of these the violins are those which conduct the principal melody, and produce the body of tone which carries along the whole current of musical ideas-which, in fact, command the orchestra. For whatever may be the style of composition, if the stringed instruments are properly combined, they have a certain fire, an electric force, which all the rest cannot resist. To feel this, even any one wholly unacquainted with music has only to stand in or near the violins during the performance of an overture or any other orchestral piece. He will then have an idea, not only of the overwhelming power of the instrument, but of the irresistible fire and grandeur of emotion that music can express, and which can be fully attained in no other way. The violins are to the grand orchestra what the diapasons are to the full organ. They, and their quartet, the violas and violoncellos, form the substratum and body of the whole; the effects of the others, though beautiful and indispensable, being generally subordinate. modern style, and it is for his discoveries o their peculiar effects, and marvellous geniu in availing himself of them, that he has beer ever considered the father of modern instru mental composition. After him, MOZART added still new effects, particularly in the brass instruments; and under the genius o the great master of the orchestra, BEETHO VEN, and others, such as CHERUBINI, SPOR WEBER, and many more, we have it as now, capable of expressing the delicate and beautiful conceptions of MENDELSSOHN. Still, the old quartet maintains its position as the groundwork of the whole fabric; and it is no less necessary in modern composi tion than when it was used almost exclusively by the writers of a century since. Whatever may be the style, and whether the flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns. trombones, tympani, &c., be used loudly or softly, and in whatever combinations, they are always carried along by the violins, and it is to them that the hearer's mind returns with the most enduring satisfaction. No other instruments can produce such a firm body of sound; nor are any capable of such marvellously new modifications and changes of expression. There seems to be no limit to their utterance. In HANDEL's Israel in Egypt, we hear them imitating the buzzing of flies, the plague of hail, and the thick darkness; while MENDELSSOHN has made them tell of the roar of the desolate sea in Fingal's Cave, and the loves of fairies and heroes, and the humor of clowns, in the Midsummer Night's Dream. And what have not MOZART and BEETHOVEN made them say in their symphonies and quartets? All forms of human emotion, love, tenderness, anguish, things unutterable, have breathed through their mysterious voices, until, to the musician, there is a charm is their very shape and appearance. The old writers used only the quartet for voice accompaniments. HANDEL so wrote the MESSIAH, and the wind instruments, as they are now employed, were added to the But the violin may be considered not only score by MOZART. HAYDN was almost the as important to musical performance, but to first to employ the wind instruments in the | the whole musical art. Once it was furnished with frets like the guitar. Those have long | them, D being its third, and A the third been discarded, and the scale, as now played of its dominant harmony; accordingly, this upon it, exists only in the mind of the per- key approaches more nearly a medium chaformer and his habits of execution, modified, racter. In F we use all the open strings in as they must be, by the open fifths and their the scale, but they fall in such a manner in harmonics. It is a theory that has never the principal harmonies that they have not been expressed, so far as the writer is aware, the same effect as when used as the fundaexcept here, that the different qualities of mentals of tonic harmonies; this key has the different keys may be traced to the hence, perhaps, a less marked character than construction of the violin. In strictness, there any; it is simply pleasing and cheerful. should be no difference except that of pitch; This illustration may be carried through but without it we should be deprived of all all the major and minor keys, and it will be those beautiful progressions of chords and found that the universally recognized qualithe modulations which are the glory of the ties of them have always a similar connection science of counterpoint. The keys of which with the places of the open strings of the the open strings of the violin are the funda- violin. Other instruments require to be mental of the tonic harmony, G, D, A, E, tempered in tuning to suit our ideas of are the most open of any. They also in- the different keys; and the imperfection of erease in brilliancy as we go upward; D be- the scale is thrown into keys less frequently ing a more brilliant key than G, A than D, used than others, and therefore termed reand E major, or the key of the upper string mote. On the violin, the artist tempers of the violin, being the most brilliant of any as he plays, according to the scale which in music. May not these differences be exists in his mind, with the exception of the owing, not merely to pitch, but to the com-use he makes of the open strings, which, mon chords formed from these key-notes being affected by the powers of the four open strings, and the temperament unconsciously given them in tuning and in playing? Thus, in G, the harmonies most nearly related are D, an open string, (the octaves or harmonics on both strings being frequently used in playing,) and C, whose third is an open E, and fifth, G itself. The open notes in this way fall differently in the scale to what they do in any other key, and there are more of them used in playing than in keys of a less open character. So it is with D and A, and their attendant harmonies, and with E, which makes use of the highest open notes and harmonics, and is therefore the most piercing and brilliant in its quality. If we take keys very near these in pitch, we perceive at once a great change in quality, according as the open notes are more or less used in them. Thus, A flat, only half a note from G, is one of the most rich and mellow in inusic, and is associated in our minds with beautiful andantes and adagios, where the great masters so frequently employ it. Here, not a single note, either the tonic, or its related harmonies of the fifth and fourth, the dominant and sub-dominant, falls upon an open string. So with E flat, another rich key, but one which comes in its remoter relations a little nearer to the open Botes. In B flat we approach still nearer being of a slightly different quality from the closed notes, affect each key in the manner suggested. At least, the great power of the violin, the fact that its scale exists almost wholly in the mind, and the coincidences we have above observed between the use of the open notes and the qualities of the keys, makes this the most plausible theory we have ever seen, to account for their manifest differences. The importance of the violin to music may be again illustrated by its almost unlimited capabilities of execution, and the fact that so much music is written expressly to take advantage of its peculiar facilities. It is not the organ any more, if it ever was, which gives shape and form to melody; nor, looking at the whole art, can we say it is the voice. The melodies which have taken most hold of the world's ear, which the voice and all instruments have followed and imitated, have been those most adapted to the violin; and it is not too much to say that this instrument controls the very shape of the passages of notes in modern music. The most admired melodies are the best for the violin; they are violin melodies; such as, but for the existence of the violin, never could have been conceived, at least, not in the form in which they are now written. When we say a piano-forte melody," a "horn melody," or an "organ passage," we mean something different from ordinary melody, which is, in a peculiar sense, the melody of the violin. True, there are peculiar violin difficulties, and points which can be made singularly effective by uncommon skill; indeed, there is, as we remarked, no end to such. But the airs and themes-the ordinary tune of music-belong to the violin, and are, in an especial and essential manner, governed by its capacities. It is more at home in melody than any other instrument. It lies nearer to the bosom of pure Music, and can, better than aught else that ever man invented, unbind the chains that tie her secret soul. The history of the violin is not less remarkable than its character. While the world has been rolling on during the slow lapse of centuries; while civilized mankind has changed in customs, manners, religion; while empires have come up and gone down, and the glory and grief of thousands of battles have passed into oblivion, this little instrument, composed of a few insignificant pieces of wood, has remained without one particle of change-the same little Protean spirit, as obedient as ever to the call of genius, and as potent to soothe and beguile. It is said that something nearly resembling it, and played upon with a bow, has been found in some ancient bas-relief. The Jews, if we are not mistaken, also lay claim to the invention of it; and hence it is possible it should be ascribed to that great father of music, Jubal-he whose descendants have certainly made as much noise in the world as those of any great man whose fame has reached us. However it may be, the Jews of the present day can produce most excellent performers on the violin, as well as composers of music. Perhaps the chief musicians to whom so many of the Psalms were addressed, were acquainted with the instrument. We know that they were with the harp. The generality of writers, however, trace the violin to the Grecian lyre, of which it is thought to be a modification. The lyre was invented by a certain individual of ancient Greece, who found one day, as he was walking along the sea-shore, a large turtle-shell which had lain there and dried in the sun. Some of the tendons that remained had also dried, and by their contraction had become tightly stretched across the concavity of the shell. The gentleman, whoever he was, hitting them carelessly with his cane, was surprise to observe that they gave forth a ringin sound. Being a person of some taste fo music, he picked up the shell and took i home with him to Argos, where he kept and used it a long while for the amusemen of his countrymen. At length the tendou broke; and it then occurred to him to re place them by others of similar material This is the story of the origin of the lyre. Gradually it changed its form. The shel was covered, and the strings stretched ove the top, as in the mandolin, or more popu lar banjo, which probably resembles very much in its tone a lyre that might have be come addicted to the use of snuff. Then Apollo (if we are not mistaken) stretched out the ends of the shell into two necks, with a bar across to hold the strings; added a bridge; changed the shape of the body, and played upon the instrument himself to universal admiration. Possibly he may have used a bow; but our impression is, that his music was a sort of arpeggio-pizzicato, and that the bow was not used till considerably after his era. About the tenth century of our era, the two necks of the lyre had united into one, the bridge had become elevated, the body enlarged, and a bow was used, something like a part of a hoop of a flour-barrel—¿ most inconvenient article, one would imagine, for cantabile playing. It must be remembered, however, that the world was then in a very rude and uncultivated state with respect to the arts, compared with that in which it is now. Alfred the Great was then King of England; in Germany all was anarchy, and the most powerful princes constituted themselves electors, to appoint their emperors; the last of the race of Charlemagne ruled in France; Donogh the Second in Ireland, and Dublin was just building; in Scotland, it was a century before Macbeth ever thought of murdering Duncan; Wales was governed by Howel Dha, a prince of whose greatness few readers of history have any idea; while in Italy the Pope was just beginning to assume the temporal power. It was three centuries after the death of Saint Cecilia; two centuries since Gregory the Great had permitted the use of music in the Christian Church; one century before the first crusade; one century before Guido gave names to the notes of the diatonic scale; and three centuries before Cimabue restored the art of paint- [ be remembered that in those days learning ing. was very much neglected, and that there was not an individual in all England who could be said to have possessed the advantage of a common school education." Chaucer spells it fidel, which is a little better, but yet not sufficiently well to entitle him to "go up to the head." But the English need not blush for the ignorance of their ancestors, when they turn to other nations of the continent. In high German it was (and for aught we know, is still) called videl, a player upon it is a videlare, and the bow is For several centuries afterwards, the violin and all stringed instruments must have been of extremely rude construction, and quite incapable of being used in music of a later date. In the hands of the minstrels and troubadours of those times, the shape and compass of the instrument depended very much upon the fancy of each performer. They are accordingly found, in the illuminations of ancient manuscripts, of many varieties of shape, generally, however, more or less resembling the modern. Some-a videl-boge. In Icelandic it is fidla, in times they had three strings; sometimes six, and even more; and the bow was not universally used. But they bore a resemblance, gradually increasing in the progress of time, to the form of the instrument now in use. Almost every nation possessed instruments like the violin, and hence it is not possible to determine to which one should be ascribed the merit of its invention. In England, an instrument resembling the mandolin shape, with a short neck, and played upon with a bow, was used by the Anglo-Saxon Gleemen, as early as the earliest date we have mentioned, the tenth century. Later than this, the Welch claim to have originated the erwth or cruth, which was the parent of the English crowd. This was a bowed instrument in the form of an oblong square, the lower part of which formed the body. It had four strings, and was played upon like a violin; but not being hollowed at the sides, it could have left little play for the bow, unless the bridge were very high, which would have produced a singular quality of tone. The true English crowd was more like the Anglo-Saxon instrument in its form, the body being deep and curved like the mandolin, or the half of a pear. This was used at fairs and merry-makings long after the introduction of the violin proper. It was sometimes called the fythele, from an old Saxon word, fidle. This word occurs in the old legendary romances of the eleventh and twelfth centuries; and if the instrument varied in its form according to the fancy of each performer as often as does the orthography of its name in the ancient chronicles, it is hardly possible to say what might not have been its "exterior semblance." In English it was spelled fythle, fithele, and sometimes fythale; but it must Danish fadel; the Dutch called it vedel, veel, vicol, the Flemish vedel and vedele, and in modern German it is still fedel, fidel, giege. It is singular that a nation so remarkable for its love of music, and for general knowledge and acquirements in the sciences, and especially in metaphysics, should so neglect one of the most important rudimentary branches of education. But the name most used in England was the crowd. Perhaps, from its attracting many listeners, this word came to be used in the modern sense, as when we say "this crowd wants fixin'." However this may be, the instrument was so called for many centuries. Crowdero, or a performer on the crowd, is one of the characters in Hudibras. A leading Professor, lately conductor of one of our principal orchestras, informed the writer that often, in travelling in England in his youth, he had been familiarly styled a "crowder." When one considers what dif ficulty violinists have in getting through the world, and especially that they work their way along literally with the elbows, the title seems singularly appropriate. Four or five years ago, a leader of an orchestra in Boston, in looking up some apartments for himself and family, found at length some which answered the purpose, and agreed to take them. After settling about the terms, &c., the lady, as he was leaving, thought it but prudent to inquire his occupation. "I am Mr. Such-a-one," he answered, "very well known in the city as a musician. I play the violin, and conduct orchestras." "Ah, indeed!" exclaimed the good woman; "then we can't think of letting the rooms to you; we can't have any in our house but respectable people!" In Queen Elizabeth's time, a statute was passed by which "minstrels, wandering |