From an idea that the notes most difficult to execute with the voice are those which involve semitones, it has been assumed that the scale most natural to nations, in a rude and primitive state of society, is one similar to the so-called Scotish scale." But, although we are not much versed in the music of savage nations, we must say that, in any specimens of their melody, if melody it can be called, which have fallen under our attention, we have seen no evidence of the truth of this assertion; but, on the contrary, a great deal to bring our minds to an opposite conclusion,-viz. that the chromatic series is the succession of intervals which appears to be most agreeable to the taste of an uncivilized people. We cannot here spare room for illustration, but our readers will find one memorable example in Mr Graham's Essay on the Theory and Practice of Musical Composition,-viz. a song and chorus of Cannibals, consisting almost entirely in a passage which slides through very small intervals from E to G. The following, which we extract from one of our last books of travels, Captain Alexander's "Voyage of Observation among the Colonies of Western Africa in 1835," published in 1837, will serve for another. It consists of a Fingo War-Song.

With these facts before our eyes, we feel it to be utterly impossible to concur in the generally received opinion as to the existence of "a

Speaking of the ecclesiastical chants, Burney says, (vol. i. p. 21,) "For want of semitones, cadences are made from the flat seventh, rising a whole tone, in the same manner as among the Canadians and other savage people." Upon what authority did Dr Burney make this statement, and in what quarter was he informed that the Canadians and other savage nations made their cadences from the flat seventh?

b Plate 384, No. 18.

e Vol. ii. p. 112.

primitive national scale," consisting of certain "elementary tones prompted by nature,”a and from which the fourth and the seventh of the key are excluded; which is not only said to be "the same in the most remote and unconnected parts of the world," and "natural to the human. voice in an uncultivated state," but to furnish us with such an infallible test of antiquity, that, "in proportion as a melody approaches (to it) it is to be reckoned genuine and ancient."d

Dr Burney originated this error, for error it unquestionably seems to be. He was naturally much struck with the coincidence between the tonality of the Scotish tunes and a Chinese scale of six notes mentioned by Rameau, with a specimen of Chinese music in Rousseau's Dictionary, both of which wanted the fourth and the seventh of the key; and finding a resemblance between this scale and the description given of the old Enharmonic of Olympus, he was led to conclude,e not that the Scots borrowed their music from the Chinese, or that either of these nations was indebted to ancient Greece for its melody, but that, as the Chinese were extremely tenacious of old customs, and equally enemies to innovation with the ancient Egyptians, there was a presumption in favour of the high antiquity of this kind of music, and that it was natural to a people of simple manners during the infancy of civilization and art. Burney had also seen one of the Chinese musical instruments, which wanted the means of producing semitones. But the Chinese, according to Staunton, possess "a vast variety of musical instruments formed upon the same principles, and with a view to produce the same effect with those of Europe."" The scale Máravì of Soma," (says a learned Reviewer,")" as well as a certain Chinese scale, shows that the Indians knew, like the ancient Greeks, how to give a peculiar character to a mode by diminishing the number of its primitive sounds. But they were not, on that account,

ignorant of semitones, and of even smaller intervals, as has been stated by modern musical historians. Need we mention that the very same artifice (if it be one) of omitting certain sounds in the diapason of a particular mode, in order to produce a peculiar character of melody, occurs in numberless passages of the best modern composers?" To this citation, we cannot refrain from adding a few more observations from the pen of the same author, Mr George Farquhar Graham, as they place this matter of the scales in what we conceive to be their only legitimate point of view. We transcribe them from his recently published Essay on the Theory and Practice of Musical Composition,"a a work of which it may be said, that, within the same space, a larger body of sound, varied, and practical information, was never condensed by a more masterly hand. "We must not mistake (these) fragmentary formulæ for entire and peculiar scales independent of the general system

66

of sounds

Some peculiarities that have been observed in certain national tunes, as the omission, in some instances, of the fourth and seventh of the key, have been referred to scales of a particular kind, while it seems more reasonable to refer them merely to the imperfections of some of the musical instruments employed; for instance, the ancient flageolet, and the chalumeau, &c. Scales, seemingly anomalous, may arise from such causes, or from caprice, or conventional usage; but all such scales are only fragments of that general system of sounds which comprehends all manner of appreciable intervals, many of which last are much smaller than is commonly believed. It has been denied that the ancient Scotish music contained any semitones; but that this is an error is proved by the Skene MS., in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh."

If any thing could be named as likely to have had the effect of rendering the Scotish and Irish music more light, airy, and animated, than that of England, and of rescuing it, in a great degree, from the drawling monotony of plain chant, we think it must have been the superior attention which was bestowed, in these countries, on the cultivation of instrumental music. The instrumental and the vocal music of a nation are

a P. 9. Messrs Black. Edinburgh, 1838. 4to.

sure to react upon each other. The singer (as we know, from experience, in our own times, where the practice is often carried to a baneful excess) delights in imitating the effects and aping the fantastic tricks of the instrumental performer; and as human nature is the same in all ages, we are not to suppose that our progenitors were altogether free from that fault. With them, however, it could not fail to have been attended with the advantage of enlivening their melody, and of adding to a somewhat limited stock of musical ideas. The early proficiency of the Scots and Irish on the harp has been already noticed; and it is impossible (especially as that instrument is supposed to have been chiefly used as an accompaniment to the voicea) altogether to separate any description which has come down to us of the style of their instrumental from that of their vocal music. The two, in fact, were too nearly allied to have been otherwise than homogeneous in their principal qualities. That we have such a description in the works of Giraldus Cambrensis is well known; and, what is even more to our present purpose, it contains a comparison between the music of Ireland and Scotland and that of England, of so distinct and explicit a nature, as, in our estimation, to go far to settle the question as to the existence of our national style of melody, not merely in the fourteenth, but as far back as the twelfth century. This musica criticism, quite as eloquent as any that, ever and anon, fall from the pens of our periodical writers when they wax warm in their panegyrics on Paganini or Thalberg, and not unlike the whole style and tenor of their phraseology, forms a part of a work which was read by the venerable Archdeacon himself in the year 1187, before the University of Oxford, in full convocation, at the most magnificent festival which had ever been given at that renowned seminary of learning, "rivalling (as he expresses it) the times of the ancient classic poetry, and wholly unknown in England either in the past or present age. It should be premised, that Giraldus was not only an excellent musician, but, having travelled a good deal abroad, his opinion on such matters must have been the result of extensive observation. Speaking of the Irish nation, he says"-" It is in

Supra, p. 90.

Topographia Hiberniæ, lib. iii. cap. 2, p. 739.

the cultivation of instrumental music alone that I consider the proficiency of this people to be worthy of commendation; and, in this, their skill is beyond all comparison superior to that of any nation I have ever seen; for theirs is not a slow and heavy style of melody, like that of the instrumental music of Britain, to which we are accustomed, but rapid and abrupt, yet, at the same time, sweet and pleasing in its effects. It is wonderful how, in such precipitate rapidity of the fingers, the musical proportions are preserved, and, by their art, faultless throughout, in the midst of the most complicated modulation, and most intricate arrangement of notes; by a velocity so pleasing, a regularity so diversified, a concord so discordant, the harmony is expressed, and the melody is perfected; and whether a passage or transition is performed in a sequence of fourths or of fifths, (by diatesseron or by diapente,) it is always begun in a soft and delicate manner, and ended in the same, so that all may be perfected in the sweetness of delicious sounds. They enter on and again leave their modulations with so much subtlety, and the vibrations of the smaller strings of the treble sport with so much articulation and brilliancy along with the deep notes of the bass; they delight with so much delicacy, and soothe so charmingly, that the greatest excellency of their art appears to lie in the perfect concealment of the art by which it is accomplished.

"It is to be observed, however, that both Scotland and Wales, the former from intercourse and affinity of blood, the latter from instruction derived from the Irish, exert themselves with the greatest emulation to rival Ireland in musical excellence. In the opinion of many, however, Scotland has not only attained to the excellence of Ireland, but has even, in musical science and ability, far surpassed it, insomuch that it is to that country they now resort as to the genuine source of the art."

a «Non enim in his, sicut in Britanicis (quibus assueti sumus) instrumentis, tarda et morosa est modulatio, verum velox et preceps, suavis tamen et jucunda sonoritas." This slow and sluggish style seems to have pervaded all the music of England, even to the very beat of their drum ; although upon this point it must be allowed that the reply of the Welsh officer, Sir Roger Williams, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, to Marshal Biron, the French General, when he spoke disparagingly of the slow movement of the English march, was a hit a very palpable hit."—" True," said the Briton, but slow as it is, it has traversed your master's country from one end to the other."