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dignified as it was only by the gifts of the Holy Ghost. Thei traces it, as far as hiftory will permit, through the darker ages. And while, with a candour that does him credit, he scorns to defend the then corrupted state of the order, he feems very fenfibly to feel the obloquy in which the religion itself has been involved through the degeneracy of its minifters. Yet even in this gloomy period the priesthood appears more enlightened than any other clafs, and to exert all its powers in protecting the weak, and reftoring a kind of favage, morality; nor is it to be forgotten that the first attempts at a reformation were the intrepid efforts of a priest.

This leads our author to an inquiry into the present state of the church and its minifters. Here, while no allowance for human weakness is required further than what the feverity of fcepticism would admit, it is boldly contended that the too common fuggeftions against the clergy are unfounded, illiberal, and unjuft; that the feverity with which the few culprits it has to lament are justly treated, is a proof of a purity of morals in the body at large. The neceffity of religion, and of an order of men fet apart from the common concerns of life, is next ably infifted on. This naturally leads to a review of the manner in which the clergy are fupported; and our author pathetically laments the peculiar hardfhip under which thofe of the principality labour from the number of impropriations, and the poverty of its preferments.

Our author then proceeds to give an account of the charity for the benefit of which his fermon was intended; and we fincerely with our limits would permit us to offer, in his own words, the many forceable arguments, and the delicate addreffes to the feelings, with which this part abounds. We can, however, only conclude with referring our reader to the work, and with fincerely wifhing it may be attended with all the fuccefs the intention of the preacher, and the importance of the object, entitle it to.

ART. V. Letters upon
Addreffed to a Friend.
Small 8vo. 3s. 6d.
1789.

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the Poetry and Mufic of the Italian Opera: By the late Mr. John Brown, Painter. Bell, Edinburgh; Elliott, London.

IT appears Mr. Brown was not lefs endowed with a juft tafte for painting than its fifter arts poetry, and more especially mufic. The fcience of the Italian opera was very familiar to him; and though he was a great admirer of it, he was not infenfible of the abfurdities of modern refinement, in making tafte

fubfervient

fubfervient to the difficulty of execution. After fhewing the advantages that forceable expreffions of the different paffions might derive from the aid of mufic, the author apologises for recitative, inasmuch as it prevents the perpetual tranfition from poetry to profe, from mufic to plain speaking, which difgraces our English comic opera; that the mufic of the recitative, though for convenience confined to bars, is not fubjected to precise musical measure, but regulated by the natural profody of the language. In a note fubjoined to this paffage our author illuftrates the fubject by produeing feveral Italian words, which he fhews have, in these musical compofitions, a degree of time allotted to them equal to the quantities they hold in common

fpeech thus amo, confifting of a long and fhort fyllable, has for its first fyllable a crotchet, for its second a quaver, as amo,

docile and Hebile, making an exact Latin dactyle, have a timilar allotment of time in mufic, as docile, flebile. While our JCC JCC

author difcanted thus in praise of the application of the Italian language to musical recitative, he might have recollected that the fame may be done in any language thar ever yet was spoken, or that can be spoken, that the fame has ever been attended to in English burlettas, except where a deviation from it may serve to heighten any ludicrous event or expreffion, as in the addrefs' of Minerva to Paris in the burletta of the Golden Pippin;

I'll make your fortune in the mi-litá-ry.'

Here the lengthening out the laft word by a falfe quantity, adds much to the drollery of addreffing fuch a speech to a powdered beau. While we are ready to allow the disadvantages our language labours under from its too great abundance of confonants, we think the last observation fhews this does not render it unfit for musical recitative; it is allowed by all that its force in heroic poetry is much increased; and we fhall produce an inftance to fhew it is capable, when rightly managed, even in the fonnet, of much softness, without any violation of its true profody. It is not a little remarkable, that in the mufic of the old ballad of Grammachree Molly, fcarce a fyllable fhould be accented different from its proper pronunciation. Let us take the following line:

• Such fondnefs once for me was fhewn.'.

If the reader either read or fing this line, he will be fenfible of the force of our remark; let him transpose a single fyllable, and the truth of it will be more ftriking:

Such fondness for me once was fhewn.?.

ENG. REV. VOL. XV. MARCH 1799.

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By

By this apparently trifling alteration, for instead of me becomes a long fyllable in reading, and has a crotchet instead of a quaver affigned it in the mufic; nor is the effect less striking, even to an ordinary ear, in the latter than in the former. Having taken the liberty of throwing in this little vindication of our own language, we fhall proceed with the work before us. The author next marks, with equal juftice and tafte, the various powers of recitative, the manner in which it is, under different circumftances, connected with the air, and the advantages it frequently derives from the orchestra. The different fpecies of airs are next confidered, and their divifions marked with much clearness and propriety. We could have wished the examples produced had been tranflated into verfe instead of profe, by which their effect would have been increased, and the whole affumed a more inviting and uniform air. The fymphony is defcribed with much perfpicuity, and its varieties and occafional omiffions traced.

The fpecies of air are divided into cantabile, di portamento de mezzo caratere, parlante, di bravura or di agilita. These are all well defcribed, and illuftrated with fuitable examples as well as remarks, for which we muft refer the reader to the work itself. We shall offer the concluding obfervations as a fpecimen of the work, and as containing many useful hints to moft performers: and compofers:

From what has been faid of the aria di portamento, the cantabile, the mezzo caratere, and the different fubdivifions of the aria parlante, I hope I have, in fome degree, made it plain to your lordship that there is no affection of the human breaft, from the flightest and most gentle ftirring of fentiment to the most frantic degrees of paffion, which fome one of these claffes is not aptly fuited to exprefs. If this be true, other claffes must be either bad or fuperfluous. This, in fact, is the cafe of the aria di agilità, or aria di bravura, as it is fometimes called; in treating of which, it will be almost fufficient to repeat to your lordship the defcription I gave of it in the general enu meration of the different claffes; it is an air compofed chiefly, indeed too often merely, to indulge the finger in the difplay of certain powers in the execution, particularly extraordinary agility or compass of voice. In fuch a compofition, the means are evidently confounded with the end of the art; dexterity (if I may be allowed the expreffion) and artifice, inftead of ferving as the inftruments, being made the object of the work; fuch are the airs which, with us, we fo frequently obferve fung to ears erect, and gaping mouths, whilft the heart, in honeft apathy, is carrying on its mere animal function; and of this kind, indeed, are all the attempts, in the different arts, to fubftitute what is difficult or novel for what is beautiful and natural Where there has ever been a genuine tafte for any of the arts, this aptnefs to admire what is new and difficult is one of the firft fymptoms of the decline of that tafte; fuch is at prefent the cafe in Italy with

respect

refpect to all the arts; but the admiration beftowed in Britain on difficulty and novelty, in preference to beauty and fimplicity, is the effect, not of the decline, but of the total want of taste, and proceeds from the fame principles with the admiration of tumbling and ropedancing, which the multitude may gaze on with aftonishment long before they are fufceptible of the charms of graceful and elegant pantomime, these feats of agility having exactly the fame relation to fine dancing that the abovementioned airs have to expreffive mufic: they are therefore, I conceive, incompatible with the nature of a fe rious drama; but in the burletta or comic opera, in which much greater liberties may be taken, I think I have fometimes heard them introduced with fuccefs. In a comedy a pretty frolickfome coquette may be fuppofed to cut an elegant caper, at once. to fhow her legs and to display her skill in dancing; nay, fucha ftroke might be characteriftic, and therefore proper: fo a gay fashionable lady might, with a kind of graceful levity, exprefs, by an air of this kind, fome of her. pretty capricious humours, equally unintelligible with the mufic itfelf, the merit of both confifting merely in the prettinefs of the man. her; for this kind of mufic, though incapable of any expreffion excepting that perhaps of gaiety in general, may yet have all the beauty which can be given to it by a fine voice running, with eafe and velocity, through an arrangement of notes, not in itfelf unpleafing, just as the humour of the lady, though perhaps rather unmeaning, may be accompanied with many graces of countenance, figure, voice, and motion.

Now the union of all this with the mufic produces often, without any violation of propriety, a very happy effect on the stage; but your lordship will obferve with what abfurd impropriety thefe airs often make a part of our concerts, where all this elegant flirtation of face and figure is forbidden, and where thefe fanciful and exuberant fallies are gravely pronounced by a lady standing at the harpficord with downcaft, or at beft unmeaning eyes, and without the smallest apparent tendency to motion.'

Every reader of taste will admit the juftice of these remarks, and regret that the Italian airs are fo often brought into obloquy by fuch improper application in fmall parties at private houses.

We have next a concluding chapter, containing much ingenuity of expreffion and reafoning on the power of mufic to produce ideas of grandeur, fwiftnefs, and other fubjects not immediately connected with found, as well as what our author calls imitative mufic; where the orchestra gives fome idea of the scene and furrounding objects, even where the words of an air muft be fung in a very different manner. Here too we recommend the musical reader to perufe a paffage we can neither do juftice to, nor abbreviate, nor will our limits allow us to transcribe it.

Though our author is ready to admit himself an unequal judge how far enthusiasm may have warped his judgment, and on that account does not wish to undervalue the good fenfe of those who have no tafte for his favourite compofitions; yet he

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every

every where points out with freedom the blameable excesses to which fome otherwife beautiful movements are frequently carried. On the whole, we cannot but recommend this little performance as replete with candour, tafte, and found judgment.

ART. VI. Archæologia; or, Miscellaneous Tracts relating to Antiquity. Publifhed by the Society of Antiquaries of London. Vol. VIII. 4to. Il. Is. White. London, 1787.

[ Continued. ]

XXV. Account of an ancient Infcription in North-America. By the Rev. Michael Lort, D. D. V. P. A. S.

THIS account fhews the wonderful influence of imagination in the human mind. In Taunton river, Narraganset bay, New England, are upon a large rock feven or eight lines, feven or eight feet in length, and about a foot in breadth, confifting of feeming characters and fome figures. Thefe M. Gebelin of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, confidered as Punick, and produced them gravely as proofs, of a Carthaginian vifit to America. A Dr. Stiles of Connecticut, equally confidering them as Punick, and torturing them into the support of another fyftem in favour of triumphant rebellion, makes them the work of the Phoenician fugitives of Canaan, who fled to America, we fuppofe, from the arms of Jofhua, the son of Nun, the robber.' And Colonel Vallancey, confidering them in a different light, and imagining them to be Tartarean, esteems them the act of the firft and Tartar inhabitants of America. On fuch a wild fea of hypothefis are we toffed in this effay,, no one of the hypothefis-mongers pretending all the time to read them, though they have them by copies under their eye. Dr. Lort prefumes not to offer any hypothefis. When I first faw 'it in M. Gebelin's book,' he says, I own I could conceive of it as nothing more than the rude fcrawls of fome of the Indian tribes, commemorating their engagements, their marches, or their hunting parties.' And if the different copies and accounts of it," he adds at the close, which I have been able to collect, fhall enable any perfon to throw any new light on fo obfcure a fubject; I fhall think the attention I have paid to it, amply recompenfed.'

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XXVI. Obfervations on the American Infeription. By Colonel Charles Vallancey, F. A.S."

This effay is to fupport that opinion of the colonel's, which we have mentioned from Dr. Lort before. From this it ap

pears that fome letters paffed betwixt the colonel and the late M. Gebelin, on the fubject; and that the latter at length' acknowledged his doubts, in fhort, tacitly gave up the point.' And we now beg leave to give our opinion upon the whole.

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