grossing imagination, and by a musical sensibility which seems to vibrate through every fibre of his frame. The whole man is an instrument.

It must, however, be acknowledged that his eccentricity in his latter performances, sometimes injured his excellence. His mastery of the violin was so complete, that he often dared too much; and by attempting in his frolic moods, and his frolics are frenzies, to imitate things altogether below the dignity of music, he offended his audience. One of his favourite freaks was the imitation of old women's voices! He imitated birds, cats, and wolves. We have heard him give variations to the pretty air of the "Carnival de Venise," the variations consisting of imitations of all the cracked trumpets, the drums, the fifes, the squeaking of the old women, the screaming of the children, and the squabbles of Punch. These were follies. But when his better genius resumed its influence he was unequalled, and probably will remain unequalled for another generation. He enjoyed one result which genius has too seldom enjoyed, extraordinary emolument. He is said to have made, during the single year of his residence in England, upwards of L.20,000. His half share of the receipts of a single concert at the King's Theatre was said to amount to seven hundred guineas. Thus, in his hands, he established the superiority of the violin as a means of production over all others, and even over the human voice. talani, in her days of renown, never made so much by single performances. Paganini has now gone to Italy, where he has purchased estates, and where, if he is wise, he will continue and live on his fame. If he is weak or avaricious, he will return to England; when his powers will have decayed, he will meet the reception of so many great performers, who have forgotten that time makes inroads on every thing; he will receive pity where he once conquered applause; and like Mara, Giardini, Rode, and a host of others, he will fly from the country, disheartened and disappointed, to hide his head in some obscure corner of the Continent, where he will leave his money to his housekeeper, his body to the monks, and die.

Ca

The novelties which Paganini has introduced into his performance have

been highly panegyrized. Those are, his playing occasionally on a violin with but the fourth string-his pizzicato with the fingers of the left hand, giving the instrument something of the effect of the guitar-his use of the harmonic tones, and his staccato. That these are all novelties, that they add to the general compass of the violin, and that they exhibit surprising skill in the performer, we entirely allow. But excepting the staccato, which is finished and elegant, we have not been able to feel their peculiar value. That they may be the opening of future and wide triumphs to this beautiful and mysterious instrument, we believe perfectly possible. But in their present state they appear rather tricks than triumphs, rather specimens of individual dexterity than of instrumental excellence. The artist's true fame must depend on his appeal to the soul. Paganini was born in Scura, about 1784. He looks a hundred.

But

A new candidate for praise has lately appeared among us in the person of Olé (Olous) Bull. Half his name would entitle him to our hospitality. He is a Norwegian, and unpropitious as the remote north may be conceived to the softer arts, Olé Bull is the only artist of Europe who can remind the world of Paganini. unlike the great Maestro, he is nearly self-taught. His musical impulse came on him when he was about eight years old. His family successively proposed the Church and the Law; he espoused the violin, and at twenty resolved to trust to it and fortune. Some strange tales are told of his destitution. But all the histories of the great musicians have a tinge of romance. Olé Bull's was ultra-romantic. He reached Paris in the period of the cholera. All was terror and silence. His purse was soon exhausted. One day, after a walk of misery, he found his trunk stolen from his miserable lodging. His violin was gone with it! In a fit of despair he ran out into the streets, wandered about for three days, and finished his wanderings by throwing himself into the Seine. Frenchmen always throw themselves into the Seine, as we understand, for one or all of the three reasons that the Seine has seldom water enough in it to drown any body; that it is the most public point of the capital, and the suicide enjoys the

:

greatest number of spectators; and that, let the worst befall, there is a net stretched across the river, if river it must be called, which may save the suicide, if he can keep his head above water for a while, or at least secure his body for a spectacle in the Morgue next morning. But we believe that the poor Norwegian was not awake to those advantages, and that he took the Seine for a bona fide place where the wretched might get rid of their wretchedness. He plunged in, but, fortunately, he was seen and rescued. Few men in their senses ever attempt to commit suicide; not even madmen attempt it twice; and Olé Bull, probably brought back to a wiser and more pious feeling of his duties by his preservation, bethought him of trying his professional powers. He sold his last shirt to hear Paganini,-a sale which probably affects a foreigner but little. He heard, and resolved to rival him.

The concert season returned. He gave a concert, gained 1200 francs, and felt himself on the road to fortune. He now made a tour of Italy, was heard with pleasure; and at the San Carlos at Naples with rapture; on one night he is said to have been encored nine times! From Italy, where performers learn their art, he returned to Paris, like all his predecessors, for renown, and, like them, at length brought his matured talent to England for money. He is now twenty-five years old, if at that age his talent can be spoken of as matured. Determined in all things to rival the Gran Maestro, he would condescend to nothing less than a series of concerts in the vast enceinte of the Italian Opera House. The audiences were numerous, but the crowd belonged to Paganini. He has since performed with great popularity at the musical festivals; and if he shall overcome the absurd and childish restlessness which has so often destroyed the hopes of the most popular artists can avoid hiring the Opera House-and can bring himself to avoid alternate flights to Italy and the North Pole, he will make his fortune within the next ten years. If he resolve otherwise, and

must wander, he will make nothing, and will die a beggar.

His performance is of a very high order, his tone good, and his execution remarkably pure, powerful, and finished. He delights in double stopping, in playing rich chords, in which he contrives to employ the whole four strings at once, and in a singularly delicate, rapid, and sparkling arpeggio. Altogether, he treads more closely on Paganini's heel than any violinist whom we have ever heard. Still he is not Paganini. The imitator must always be content to walk in the second rank; and his imitation, though the imitation of a man of talent, is so close, that if the eyes were shut it would be scarcely possible to detect the difference. Paganini is the parentage, and we must still pay superior honour to the head of the line. But Olé Bull will be no unfit inheritor of the title and estate.

We recommend Mr Dubourg's very pleasing and well-arranged volume to all who take an interest, and who does not? in the violin. But we recommend it for the still higher object, almost the moral one, of pointing out to men of ability in the arts the extreme delicacy with which they must sometimes steer their course to competence

the necessity for common sense as well as for consummate talent-the hazard of ruin which attends disregard of the smaller proprieties of life-the hopes of the highest prosperity extinguished by imprudence-and the wisdom, in all instances, of trusting to any thing rather than fortune.

In his notices of the modern violinists, he has omitted the name of Yaniewicz, who, born in Poland, has lived for many years among us, and now resides with his family in Edinburgh. His style was that of the school of Viotti, the noblest of all the schools, but his execution, expression, and fire were all his own. Some of his concertos are still unequalled, perhaps by Viotti himself; and to the student who desires to comprehend the grandeur of the violin, they are invaluable.

THE Book of Baudoin, Baudouin, or Baudoyn (for the name is spelt in all these ways, and perhaps in half-adozen more), is one of the most ancient of the books of chivalry. The hero of it is that Baldwin Earl of Flanders who disappeared in the Crusades, and who (or some impostor in his name) returned to Europe many years after his supposed death, and was hanged by his dutiful daughter, Jane. A curious story is told of this incident in the "Imposteurs Insignes," a work published in 1683. "All the inhabitants of Lille believed that the Countess Jane was persuaded, after the man's execution, that he was really her father, for, at the moment of being turned off, he had said that his daughter Jane had a secret mark on her body, which was only known to him, to his wife, and the nurse, and which could not possibly have been divulged, the nurse having been dead a long time; and that immediately on this declaration, by reason of the natural instinct of the sex to be flighty and changeable, she was extremely vexed at having made him die in that way." But whether the incident be true or false, it has furnished the subject of several modern plays, so that Jane is not much celebrated as an example of filial piety. The family seems, indeed, to have been scarcely quite correct in other respects, as the reader will perceive that Baudoin was not very particular in his choice of a wife; and the younger daughter, Marguerite," loved not wisely, but too well." The editors of this edition indulge in great laudations of the moral inculcated by the work. We cannot say we perceive its value in this respect, but, as a picture of the state of manners, and the modes of thought and speech in the days of feasts and tournaments, we consider it unrivalled. It will be perceived that love plays a very secondary part in this romance. The author devotes all his skill to the description of jousts and battles, and certainly his attempts in that style are very successful. How vividly he brings before us the whole scene; and in what a cool, businesslike narrative he relates the breaking

lieved, however, by the well-sustained individuality of the different knights, the vaunting pride of Acquillan, the soldier of Parthia, and the firm courage of Baudoin himself. We have only given a translation of the first thirty or forty pages; but from these the whole style and tenor of the book may be judged. The history of the romance is soon told. It was written about a century after the date of the events related, that is, some time before the year 1300. The earliest printed edition is dated, Lion sur le Rosne, 1478. A very imperfect copy of this edition was sold for L.4. The next is that of Chambery, in 1484. This sold for L.20, 10s. Another of Chambery in 1485. one, without date, printed at Lyons — another, without date, printed at Paris; this, though very ill done, sold in 1829 for L.2, 11s. 8d.

But the copy followed in this reprint was bound up in the same volume with two other romances. That volume passed from the collection of a certain Baron de Drack of Ghent into that of the Capuchins of the same city. Those reverend gentlemen made a present of it to their physician, the late Dr Coetsem, at whose sale, in 1824, it was bought by Mr Heber for L.19 sterling. When a portion of the books of that" célèbre Bibliophile" was sold at Ghent, in 1835, Mr Crozet of Paris got possession of it at an expense of L.72, 12s.

The present editors, two literary gentlemen of Ghent, have had the good taste to follow this latter copy implicitly. The only liberty they have taken with it is in the punctuation, so that those who are curious in old French have here an opportunity of seeing it to perfection.

THE BOOK OF BAUDOYN.

Here begins the book of Baudoyn, Earl of Flanders; and of Ferrant, Son of the King of Portugal, who afterwards was Earl of Flanders.

In the year one thousand one hun

ders an Earl named Philip; of which Earl were twelve other Earldoms held by homage, to wit, Holland, Zealand, Alos, Haynault, Tarache, Cambresis, Vermendois, Noyon, Aumarle, Boloigne, Amiens, Corbie, Arthoys, and the Earldom of Guiennes, -and these were subject to him—and these made one good part of France; and, moreover, he was godson, and bore the name of, Philip, at that time King of France, who was right prudent and loyal. And in the reign of this King Philip was a Pagan from beyond sea named Caquedant, the which came before Rome accompanied by twelve sons whom he had begotten; and had full three hundred thousand men, who took the city of Rome by force, and killed the Pope, and the Cardinals, and all the other clergy. And they took and pillaged all the treasures of Rome, and burnt the great city of Rome, and threw women and children into the fire: And then went thither the Sarrazins and came to Rome, and entered into Tuscany and into Lombardy, and burned and ra vaged the country, and came before the city of Millan and besieged it. For Caquedant the Pagan, who, amongst the others, was a giant, was much feared and honoured; and his shield was of fine gold, with a lion rampant for his device; and this Pagan vaunted himself that he was the crowned king of all other kingdoms between the heaven and the earth.

How the Marquis of Millan did send a Messenger to the King of France to give him aid.

The Marquis of Millan feared much the Pagans and the Sarrazins when he saw himself thus besieged, because of the scarcity of his provisions and corn; he was much grieved thereat, and sent a messenger to France to require and supplicate King Philip that he would come and help him against the Pagans. The messenger betook himself to Paris, where he found King Philip, who was accompanied by a great number of people, among whom were three Dukes and ten Earls. And then the messenger of the Marquis of Millan saluted the King, and gave him the letters of the Marquis, and related to him the destruction of Rome.

And then the good King Philip agreed to go and succour the noble Marquis of Millan; and also to vindicate the law of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, whilst the good King Philip was devising with his princes and barons how they might first go and aid and succour the Marquis of Millan, another messenger, who came from the country of Gascoigne, did come before the King, and told him how that John the Bad, at that time King of England, was come upon the country of Gascoigne with great multitudes of people, and how that he destroyed and burned all the country-and he prayed the King, that for God's sake he would succour his good country of Gascoigne, for otherwise it was in peril of being destroyed. Whereat the King marvelled much, and said, "God of paradise! now is the King of England false and perjured, for he has broken the truces which we have made and sworn. Par dieu! If I come he will repent of it. I thought to go and revenge the Pope, who has been killed; and I thought no less to go and succour the Marquis of Millan, whom the Pagans have besieged-but now I know not what to do." Then did the Earl of Flanders, who was at the court of the King, say to him, "Sire, one ought to risk one's life for his country-and, my very dear Lord, you are my godfather, and I bear your name, and therefore I pray that of your bounty you will grant me a boon. It is that I

may go to succour the Marquis, and chase the Pagans, and revenge the holy apostolic see of Rome." "Godson," said the King, "we will and decree according to your request, and give you our treasures. And we shall ourself go into Gascoigne against the English King, for thither our duty calls us."

How the Earl of Flanders went into his own country of Flanders and summoned all his people, and then how he went to Millan.

The Earl of Flanders took leave of the King, and went into Flanders and summoned all his men, and made his assemblage at Arram. At his summons came the Earl Florent of Holland, Gualtier of St Omer, the Earl of Zealand, the Earl of Bouloigne,