ing the imagination more than moral or religious principle, it, in effect, adds to the force of the antagonist powers which assail human integrity, while it gives no additional strength to the counteracting dispositions by which alone they can be restrained. The pleasures of intellectual labour are, by the constitution of the human mind, accessible only to a small fraction of the human race. When Lord Brougham said he did not despair of seeing the day when every poor man should read Bacon, and Cobbett added it would be much more to the purpose if he could give them all the means of eating it, the one showed as great ignorance as the other evinced knowledge of the intellectual capacity of the great bulk of mankind. In no rank of life nor condition of society did any man ever find a tenth of his acquaintance in whom the pleasures of study would form a counterpoise to the excitement of the imagination or the seductions of sense. Education can to almost all magnify the influence of the latter: to a few only can it strengthen the sway of the former. Thence its universal and now generally experienced failure as a substitute for religious principle, and its total inadequacy to counteract the temptations to sin, which it itself has so greatly increased.

But how then, it may be asked, if the universal failure of democratic institutions be owing to the inherent corruption of the human heart, can it be argued that aristocratic government is preferable? Are not nobles children of Adam as well as paupers? And has not the taint of universal liability to crime descended in at least as great a degree to the high-born, pampered, and luxurious aristocrat, as to the humble hard-working peasant or mechanic? Undoubtedly it has, and the observation is a perfectly fair one; and unless it can be satisfactorily answered, it leaves wholly unsolved the problem to be solved, which is the universal and experienced rapidity of corruption, oppression, and misgovernment in democratic states. The solution, however, is easy, and it at once confirms the general truth of the preceding argument, and points out the only form of government where a due protection either to persons or property can be secured.

"It is frequently observed with sur

prise," says Mr Hume, "both in history and private life, that while most persons evince both judgment and moral feelings in judging of the conduct of others, they exhibit but little of either when called into action themselves; and very generally fall into the very same vices which they have been the loudest in condemning in their neighbours. The reason is obvious; in estimating the conduct of others, they are guided by their reason and their feeling; in acting for themselves, they are actuated by their reasons, their feelings, and their desires." In this simple observation is to be found the key to the whole mystery. When the machinery of government is in the hands of the holders of property, that is, the aristocracy, whether landed or commercial, the great bulk of the people are spectators merely of their conduct; they are the audience in the court, or the jury in the box, not engaged in the heat or animosity of the trial. In such a situation, therefore, their reason or feelings only are called into action, and these principles in mankind generally, when not under the influence of passion, are uniformly on the side of virtue. In these circumstances, therefore, the feelings of the majority, that is, public opinion, is, generally speaking, and unless when their passions are excited by extraordinary circumstances, the best safeguard of public morality, and the most effectual check on the corruptions of government; and thence the long stability, enduring virtue, and pure state of public feeling in such communities. when the people are themselves, or by their leaders, admitted into power, this felicitous state of things is at once subverted. From being spectators of the game, they become actors in it from being actuated by their reason and their feelings only, they become actuated by their reason, their feelings, and their passions. The latter, ever predominant with men acting together and under the excitement of common feeling, speedily becomes omnipotent, and immediately the sovereign multitude fall into all the vices, ambition, and corruptions of the sovereign aristocracy or the sovereign despot-nay, worse; for, from the contagion of multitudes, the passions are more strongly excited; from the needy condition of the ruling mass, the necessity of instant spoliation is more

But

strongly felt; from the division of power among numbers, the responsibility of injustice is reduced to nothing. At the same time, and what is still worse, the counteracting principle which chiefly kept the aristocracy right when it was at the helm, viz. the force of public opinion, that is, the feelings of the majority, so far from being an antidote to the evil, becomes its greatest supporter. The masses, formerly so loud in their reprobation of abuses when their rulers only were to profit by them, become their cordial supporters when they are themselves to obtain these benefits; the crowds, formerly so clamorous in their demand for economy, become the warmest supporters of costly measures when domestic corruption or the multis utile bellum is to shower its golden showers over them; the patriots, once so indignant in their declamations in support of freedom, speedily become the greatest of all tyrants when they are to restrain others, instead of being restrained by them. The aristocratic classes indeed, and their supporters among the people, make the loudest lamentations at this portentous state of things; but what is the opinion of hundreds among that of thousands, or the weight of the minority against a tyrant corrupt government, which is securely entrenched in the fastnesses of corruption by a majority, all hoping to profit, directly or indirectly, by its fruits? Thence the rapid and inevitable degeneracy of all democratic states; thence the frightful and swift progress of corruption among the classes who had heretofore been its most strenuous opponents; thence the total inability of the minority, composed of the property, virtue, and education in the community, to stem the progress of evil thence the inconceivable celerity with which all the bulwarks of freedom are laid low by the blows of a deluded or interested populace: thence that fatal confusion of public ideas which, as Madam de Stäel says, is the worst bequest of revolutions, to destroy altogether the eternal distinction of right and wrong, and make men apply to public actions no other test but that of success. We need not refer to other ages or states for a proof of this assertion: our own country, and our own age, is its most striking confirmation: the worst corruptions, the most disgraceful tergiversations in

public men noways weaken their influence with their supporters, if they do the one thing needful in supporting the cause of democracy. "Si monumentum quaeris, circumspice.'

It is another reason why aristocratic societies are less liable to the invasion of corruption or the temptations to oppression than democraticthat, in the former law, the rulers of the state have a lasting interest in the administration of Government, and will be permanently affected in their interests and estates by external disaster, or internal misgovernment; whereas, in the latter, as Government is perpetually changing, the consequences of error or criminality hardly ever affect the actual perpetrators of it.

The first is a tenant with a long lease, or such a grant as he may think almost amounts to a perpetuity. The latter is a tenant at will-every year expecting notice to quit from a changing and capricious set of landlords. It is not difficult to say which will run out the soil. Rotation of office is the grand principle of democratic government, and will do admirably well with a conquering state, which, like the Roman Commonwealth, or French Republic, can annually send forth fresh its magistrates to conquer and plunder other countries, and gratify the ambition of its rulers by foreign suffering; but it is utterly fatal to good government when the rulers are confined to their own bounds; and the cupidity of the changing demagogues, who are raised for a few months or years to power, must be satisfied at the expense of their own subjects or supporters. Admitting that an aristocratic government is not disposed by nature to abstain more from abuses or misgovernment than a democratic one, the important distinction lies here, that it is made to feel in its own estates, and in the power or influence which its members can transmit to their descendants, the consequence of misconduct, and, therefore, from self-interest, if from no better motive, is brought to abstain from flagrant acts of violence or injustice: whereas the popular leaders, having no prospect of retaining power for more than one or two years, and none whatever of transmitting it to their descendants, and no estates to be permanently affected by hurtful measures, are natu

rally led to make the most of it before it slips out of their hands. And experience has abundantly proved the justice of these views; for while history shows that the nations who have risen to the highest and most lasting greatness, from the Roman to the English, have been governed by aristocratic government, and exhibits many, as Austria, Prussia, and Bavaria, where this form of government at this moment rules with a paternal and beneficent, though despotic sway, it can exhibit none in which democratic institutions, in an old state, have not, in a few years, utterly destroyed the frame of society, and, by levelling all the bulwarks of freedom, necessarily induced a transient or lasting despotism.

Lastly, aristocratic societies differ from democratic in this essential particular—that they bring to the helm of public affairs a far greater degree of skill, experience, and practical talent than can possibly be expected under the changing jealousy of popular rule. Here, again, it is not that there is any original difference between the intellectual capacity of different ranks of men, but that it is a difference of circumstances which occasions the difference in the result. Experiencelong, hard-earned experience is indispensable to the formation of an accomplished statesman; twenty years' study and practice are as indispensable to that character as to that of a great lawyer, or judge, or physician. The theory of self-government by the masses is utterly at variance with the plainest dictates of common sense, as evinced in the daily transactions of life. What should we think of the masses pretending to build their own houses, or make their own coats, or plead their own causes, instead of employing architects, and tailors, and barristers to do these services for them? Infinitely more absurd is it for them to employ their ever-changing delegates to engage in the difficult science of legislation for them, bound hand and foot, as they will always be under democratic institutions, by their mandates; for seven years

will make an accomplished tailor or mason, but thirty years is barely adequate to the training of a judicious statesman. It is a common complaint that the English diplomatists are now so much inferior to those of the monarchical states with whom they are brought in collision; but the fact is no ways surprising, when we consider how often administrations in this country are now changed under the pressure of popular fickleness, and how little chance, therefore, any diplomatist has to be employed for the time requisite to acquire skill in his profession. Without a certain degree of stability in Government, ability in administration or its subordinate situations will never be acquired by the servants of the public; and this stability will never be found under the changeful phases of democratic fervour.

Do we conclude, from all this, that a pure unmixed aristocracy is the only beneficial form of government? Far from it; though we strenuously maintain that it is infinitely preferable to an unmixed democracy. What we maintain is, that the holders of property are men, and liable to human error as well as the supporters of democracy, and therefore stand in need of the watchful jealousy and effective control of the masses of the people: but that it is only where property is the ruling, and numbers the controlling power, that control can be turned to good account; and that when numbers become the rulers, its weight is all thrown on the wrong side, and, instead of the flywheel regulating the motion of the machine, it drives it headlong to destruction. It is the first form of government which Old England for a hundred and forty years possessed: it is the second which New England for six years has experienced. cording to the choice now made by its electors it is easy to see whether the star of British prosperity is to shine on with undiminished brightness, or to blaze for a short term, and to be extinguished for ever.

Ac

THE English have been charged with a terrible deficiency of musical genius. But, at least, they cannot be charged with any deficiency of musical patronage. England, barbarian as she is, has the honour of seeing all the artists of the Continent come fluttering in long files, like the woodcocks in winter, to her hyperborean shores. Every performer on every instrument, from the fairy displays of a Eulenstein on "two jews'-harps," to the sonorous sweep of a Bochsa with his twentyfour pupils all rushing through the chords of as many harps together. Every tolerable singer, and, we had almost said, every intolerable composer, finds reception, if not renown, favouritism, if not fortune, in all-enduring England. The higher ranks retire loaded with opulence wrung from the ears of the unsusceptible multitude, and in the shades of some Tuscan villa, or the halls of some Roman palazzo, laugh at the slow sensibilities of John Bull; the lower cling to the prey with German indefatigability and Italian eagerness, solicit, save, and sneer, until, like the Savoyard chimney-sweepers, or the Swiss porters, they can revisit their household gods, purchase a cabin on a precipice, and libel the land of fogs, faction, and the Philharmonic Society.

Still John Bull may have no great reason to lament his lot. If he is no pre-eminent fiddler, we may say that he has something else to do; if he must send for foreign masters of the string, it is something to be able to pay them; and if his soil produces no Viottis or Paganinis, he may be well content with its home-production of poets and philosophers, warriors and

statesmen.

Yet none will deny that music is a lovely art. It is unquestionable that its use singularly increases the innocent enjoyments of life; that it remarkably humanizes the popular mind; that its general cultivation among the lower orders on the Continent has always been found to supply a gentle, yet powerful solace to the hardships

inevitable in a life of labour; that to the man of literature it affords one of the simplest, yet most complete refreshments of the over-worked mind; while to the higher ranks its cultivation, frequently the only cultivation which they pursue with interest, often administers the only harmless passion of their nature.

All things which have become national have more to do with nature than perhaps strikes the general eye. Music and musical instruments certainly seem to have a remarkable connexion with the climate and conceptions of a people. Among the nations of antiquity, the people of Judea were perhaps the greatest cultivators of music. Their temple worship was on the largest scale of musical magnificence, and for that worship they had especially the two most magnificent instruments known to antiquity-the trumpet and the harp. In later times, the horn is the instrument of the Swiss and Tyrolese mountaineer. Its long and wild modulations, its powerful tones, and its sweet and melancholy simplicity, make it the congenial instrument of loftiness, solitude, and the life of shepherds. The guitar is the natural instrument of a people like those of the Peninsula. Its lightness, yet tenderness-its depth of harmony, yet elegance of touch-its delicacy of tone, yet power of expression-adapt it to a race of men who love pleasure, yet hate to toil in its pursuit, whose profoundest emotions are singularly mingled with frivolity, and whose spirits constantly hover between romance and caricature. The rich genius of Ireland has transmitted to us some of the noblest strains in the world, but they are essentially strains of the harp, the modulations of a hand straying at will among a rich profusion of sounds, and inspiring them with taste, feeling, and beauty. The violin is Italian in its birth, its powers, and its stylesubtle, sweet, and brilliant-more immediately dependent on the mind than any other instrument-inferior only to the voice in vividness, and superior

to all else in tone, flexibility, and grace. The violin, in the hands of a great performer, is the finest of human inventions, for it is the most expressive. The violin has a soul, and that soul is Italian.

Nothing is more extraordinary in this fine instrument than the diversity of styles which may be displayed on its simple construction; yet all perfect. Thus, from the sweet cantabile of the early masters, the world of cognoscenti was astonished by a transition to the fulness and majesty of the school of Tartini. Again, after the lapse of half a century, another change came, and the school of Pugnani developed its grandeur, and from this descended the brilliancy, rapidity, and fire of Viotti; and from the school of Viotti, after the lapse of another long period, the eccentric power, dazzling ingenuity, and matchless mastery of Paganini, who might seem to have exhausted all its spells, if human talent were not always new, and the secrets of harmony inexhaustible.

Thus the violin belongs to more than physical dexterity. Its excellence depends on the sensitive powers. It is more than a mean of conveying pleasure to the ear; it is scarcely less than an emanation from the mind. Of course this is said of it only in its higher grades of performance. In its lower, it is notoriously, of all instruments, the most intractable and unbearable. We shall now give a slight coup d'œil of its chief schools and professors.

The invention of the violin is lost in the dark ages. It was probably the work of those obscure artists who furnished the travelling minstrels with the rebec and viola, both common in the 12th century. The violar, or performer on the viol, was a companion of the troubadour. The name fiddle is Gothic, and probably derived from viola. Videl and fedel, are the German and Danish. About the close of the 16th century, the violin, which once had six strings, with guitar frets, was fortunately relieved from those superfluities, and was brought nearly into its present form. But the bow remained, as of old, short-scarcely beyond the length of the violin itself. Its present length was due to Tartini.

Italy was the first seat of excellence in music, as in all the other arts; and France, in the 16th century, was, as

she has always been, the patron of all that could add to the splendour of court, and the elegance of public amusement. In 1577, Catherine de Medicis, the wife and mother of kings, invited her countryman, Baltazarini, to France. His performance excited universal delight; and the violin, which, in the hands of the wandering minstrels, had fallen into contempt, became a European instrument.

The first school was that of the celebrated Corelli. This famous master was born at Fusignano, in the Bolognese, in February, 1653. In 1672 he visited Paris, then the chief seat of patronage. From Paris he made a tour through Germany, and returning, fixed it at Rome; and commenced that series of compositions, his twelve sonatas and his " Ballate de Camera," which formed his first fame as a composer; crowning it by his solos, which have a fortune unrivalled by any other composition of his age, or of the age following—that of being still regarded as one of the most important studies of the performers for their science, and still popular from their beauty.

It is remarkable, that in those centuries which seemed to have scarcely recovered from the barbarism of the dark ages, and which were still involved in the confusion of civil wars, enthusiasm distinguished the progress of the public mind. It was not pleasure, nor the graceful study of some fine intellectual acquisition, nor the desire of accomplishment; it was a wild, passionate, and universal ardour for all that awakes the mind. The great schools of classic literature, of painting, of architecture, and of music

all first opened in Italy-were a conflux of students from all nations. The leading names of these schools were followed with a homage scarcely less than prostration. Even the masters of that driest of all studies, the Roman law, gave their prelections, not to hundreds, but to thousands. The great painter had his "seguaci," who paid him almost the allegiance of a sovereign. The announcement that, in Rome, the most expressive, skilful, and brilliant of all masters of the violin presided at the Opera, drew students from every part of Italy, and even of Europe, all hastening to catch the inspiration of Archangelo Corelli. Cardinal Ottoboni, a man of talents,