tions of my poor mother into effect. In those arrangements I was aided and assisted by the worthy magistrate whom I have already mentioned, and who came down to Teddington the moment the melancholy intelligence reached him.

He too accompanied me to the funeral. That day will never be forgotten by me; till the moment I saw the black coffin borne from the door, I did not feel that I had really lost my beloved parent-the link was not quite broken; but then-then all my sorrow burst upon me, and I was scarcely conscious of what afterwards occurred, until the drawing up of the ropes by which the body had been lowered into the grave, awakened me again to a sense of all my miseries. Years, years have rolled on, and yet that hour is still vividly fresh in my mind-the smell of the soldered coffin is still in my nostrils-the falling earth upon its lid still rings in my ears.

TO THE SPIRIT OF SONG.

SPIRIT of immortal birth!.

Power, our praise excelling !

Where, in this all-wondrous earth,
Shall we fix thy dwelling?

Thou, who rapture's fire canst boast,
And the keys of healing,

Say, where reigns thine influence most,
And thy loftiest feeling?

By the rock, whose solid might

Storms have riven in sunder?

Where the mountain, height on height,
Tempts the living thunder?
Where the sullen mist-wreath sleeps,
And shrill blasts are sounding,
And from earth the torrent leaps,
As to freedom bounding?
Where the melancholy deep
Heaves with constant motion,
And the hoar, fantastic steep
Frowns o'er glimm'ring Ocean;
And the moon-illumined caves,
As with choral numbers,
Murmur to the listless waves
In their tranquil slumbers ?
Lies thy path through valleys green,
Where the dew gleams longest,
And the harvest's ears are seen
Closest rank'd and strongest ?
Where the stainless lily blows
On the shining river?

Where the purple loosestrife glows?
Where the tall reeds quiver?

It may be that still decay

Haunts more meet may render,

Ivied arch and turret, gay

With its lichen'd splendour ;

Abbeys, o'er whose solemn height
Pale the noonbeam streameth;
Cloisters, where the entering light,
As in reverence, beameth.
Musing by those fretted cells,
Dost thou love to linger,
When the deep-toned organ swells
'Neath the volant finger?
And in sunset's magic reign,
With a radiance holy,
On thy sight the blazon'd pane
Glows, or darkens slowly?
When, on some triumphant day,
Pomp and splendour glisten
Round the banner'd pageant's way,
Art thou nigh to listen
To the loud, exulting shout,
And the trumpet's warning,
And the merry peal, rung out.
'Neath the sunny morning?
Or when winter stoops on earth,
And grim tempests darken,
Sitt'st thou, to the young-eyed Mirth,
In our halls to hearken;
Joying in affection's sight,

Proof to years or sorrow,
And the laugh of glad delight,
Fearless of to-morrow?

Oh, thou Queen of constant bliss!
Thralls to error's lightness;
Vainly do we seek for this-
Here to meet thy brightness:
Faint to us thy glories are,
And thy glances clouded,
As the dimly-wandering star,
Seen, and instant shrouded.

But in those bright halls above,
As thine home, residing,
Where the heart's one sense is love,
Changeless and abiding:

And to wake their tuneful strings

Ransom'd hosts are bending;

And the adoring seraph sings,
Tranced in bliss unending.

Still, as in the days of old,
Thou thy smile art showing,
Inspiration's fount of gold

At thy guidance flowing ;-
Holiness thy perfect theme,
Blessing thine endeavour ;-

Pure thy powers as Truth's own beam,
And thy joys for ever.

J. F. HOLLINGS.

NOTES OF A MUSICAL STUDENT.

ENGLISH SINGERS AND SINGING.

THERE are more fine voices, and fewer good singers, among the English, than any other nation in Europe. It is not merely that the proportion of singers to voices is smaller; the actual number of voices is greater, and of singers less. This fact is not so generally known as it deserves to be. It is a vulgar error to suppose that our climate is unfavourable to the production of fine voices; and its prejudicial effects on the voiceare greatly over-rated. Even Italian vocalists suffer less from our raw and variable climate than might be expected. "Indisposition " is a term of most happy equivocation in theatrical phraseology. As regards the quality and permanence of the voice, climate alone would seem to have little more effect upon it than upon the other organs. That change of temperature and climate does affect the voice it would be absurd to deny. A winter campaign in London greatly injured Velluti's; but it was already past its prime: moreover, he is not a fair criterion; for his voice can scarcely have been so robust as one of more natural formation. Besides the variations of climate, be it remembered, the singer is exposed to sudden and violent changes of temperature and currents of air that would affect any one less inured than theatrical performers very seriously. The gust that sweeps across the stage on the drawing-up of the curtain cannot but have an effect upon the often thinly-clad vocalist, notwithstanding the excitement which unquestionably enables the body to resist cold. The best proof that can perhaps be given that climate has not much share in producing voices, is the fact that Italy, "the land of song," is not so celebrated for fine voices as for good singers. Comparatively with the superiority of the old Italian method of vocal instruction, how few remarkably fine voices has Italy produced! The most famous are attracted to this country by the wealth and "bad taste" of John Bull; and yet it is no easy matter for the manager of the King's Theatre to get together a complete and efficient corps d'opera. The only one of the Italian male vocalists known to the English public in the present day, who possesses a voice naturally perfect in quality and power, is Donzelli. Lablache's voice is unequal, and his enormous power is limited to two or three upper notes. Tamburini, the most finished singer now before the public, owes far more to his taste and science than to his voice, which is by no means first-rate either as regards its power or quality. Rubini's voice, though of a fine quality, has, by being forced, lost its sustaining power; and in his florid style and redundant execution consist all his strength. Thus, in the majority of the present corps of Italian singers, the voice is inferior to the art of its production: in fact, the Italians as a people are accustomed to throw out their voices ore rotundo. The peasant who carols over the mountains sings with that spirit and vivacity that fine animal spirits and perfect freedom from restraint inspire. The Englishman who ventures to sing as he walks along does but hum after all or if the shade of night or a bye-way tempts him to the indulgence of an extra degree of energy, how like a culprit he looks should he unexpectedly encounter a well-dressed passenger! The reader may have

shared the amusement we have often experienced on emerging suddenly from one of the green alleys of Kensington Gardens, and coming suddenly upon some young bass-singer groping for his G, or a tenor exercising his B b, to note how instantaneously the confidence of the embryo vocalist, thus taken flagrante delicto, vanishes, the abortive note sinking tremulously into sotto voce. That mauvaise honte, which is one of our national characteristics, has no small degree of influence upon the muffled voice of the amateur singer; who, even if he have been taught how to bring his voice from the chest, either imprisons it within the teeth, or stifles it with the tongue. The mouth is the grave of many a voice, of which the verdict should be, "frightened to death." Englishmen's voices are not generally deficient in power, if given free utterance to; nor would they lack permanence, if carefully developed. Yet a want of power is one of the principal deficiencies of even professional singers in England. This is owing in most cases either to the voice having been prematurely forced, or to imperfect training. In illustration of the firstmentioned cause, the cathedral choirs afford numerous instances. The system by which the supply of treble voices is kept up is cruel in its operation on the victims, and destructive of their voices. If a wrong method of production be injurious to the mature voice, how much more so to the delicate organization of a child! It is undoubtedly a very mistaken notion to suppose that singing, even in children, injures the lungs : on the contrary, a moderate exercise of the voice tends to strengthen them. But though the vital power be not affected, the vocal organs may be destroyed by over-exertion, and by their exercise being prolonged beyond the time when the first or infantine voice has begun to evince signs of " breaking," especially if a false mode of singing and neglect of proper cultivation be superadded. Even in Italy, where the infantine voice is properly developed, many a good singer is nipped in the bud by over-exertion when young. Not that it follows of course that a boy with a beautiful voice will have a fine manly voice; but the chances are greatly diminished by the straining of the muscles of the throat before they acquire their full strength. The life of a boy chorister is a drudgery that is only profitable to the person who farms the choir. He learns to sing at sight, 'tis true, but by the time he is proficient in this art, his voice is perhaps gone-in nineteen cases out of twenty-never to return. The injury to his mind and habits, it is not our province to speak of, but we would warn parents of the danger to youth in this particular. Forcing young voices is not, however, confined to the choirs. Many a young singer of great promise is injured by premature exertion, from none but honourable motives. We never hear Miss Clara Novello at one of the many concerts and festivals where she sings, but we fear lest the freshness and beauty of her voice should be impaired by too early and severe trial of its powers. Our respect for Mr. Novello induces us to throw out this hint, in the spirit of kindness. Illustrations of the ill effects of imperfect training of the voice are even more numerous than the public singers of the old English school now before the public; for they include all those whose voices have been destroyed by bad teaching. The existence of an art of singing, to be taught independ ently of voice, taste, or musical knowledge, was almost unknown amongst our professors. We have no school of singing, in the true

sense of the term, native to this country; and it is only within these few years that the Italian method has become familiar to English masters. The formation of the voice was left to nature, or rather to chance. The singer was taught to form his style, and acquire execution before the powers of his voice were properly ascertained; and the course of practice was itself of a kind unfavourable to their development. So little knowledge had the master of the means of determining the capabilities of the vocal organs, that the endeavour to strengthen the voice by practice ended in straining it; so that the more careful masters were deterred from bringing out the full power of the voice for fear of doing it injury. We have no means of forming an accurate judgment of those models of the old English school of singing (as it is courteously styled), Harrison and Bartleman; but if we are to judge of them by their successors -and perhaps imitators-Messrs. Knyvett, Vaughan, and Bellamy, our notions of their powers and accomplishments must be much humbler than those of some professors whom we have heard speak of those departed vocalists.

Let us pass in review the present representatives of the old English school of singing-the upholders of what they are pleased to term " the pure style." One great merit they possess in common, that of being good musicians. Knyvett has a pleasing taste, but his voice has no power, being almost inaudible even in a concert-room; and it is of that bad quality, the falsetto counter-tenor. Mr. Hawkins, by the bye, is another of this class: he spoilt a good tenor to acquire an artificial alto. The falsetto is rarely tolerable, never agreeable, and most frequently painful, from its piercing, unnatural quality of tone. Moreover, it is very liable to be out of tune, and it will not admit of distinct articulation. It was very little cultivated in the old Italian school; an intermediate voice partaking of the qualities of head and chest tones was acquired in its stead. The male counter-tenor has scarcely ever been recognised by classical composers, except in choral writing. Among the Germans, the alto is generally supplied by contralti in part music.—Mais revenons à nos moutons. Vaughan, who is looked upon as the successor of Harrison, has a voice of agreeable quality, but no power; his style is called pure we should call it a manner, and the reverse of pure; for it is tame, mechanical, and monotonous; its ornament consisting in a small set of shakes, cadences, and twiddles, introduced in the same places of similar songs ad infinitum. Horncastle's singing is equally mechanical. His style is coldly correct, with neat execution; but his voice is utterly deficient in tone. Hobbs's voice possesses some sweetness, but its tone has been muddled away by the gastronomic action of tavern dinners. He too is a disciple of the "pure style," with the addition of a few flourishes more suo. Bellamy, the fellow-student and follower of Bartleman, is the most unfavourable specimen of the "good old school." His manner is cold and hard; his production of tone is nasal; his execution disjointed; and he is apt to indulge in clumsy and unmeaning flourishes. E. Taylor we regard less as a vocalist than a musician. He is a bad singer, but a good critic, when his prejudices allow him. His voice is stunning in a small room, but almost inaudible in a spacious one: even in the King's Theatre, than which we know of none more easy for a singer, he produced no effect; his enunciation, moreover, is