ment of that journal the collaboration of the ablest talent. The eleven volumes of Chateaubriand's "Memoires d'outre tombe" have cost La Presse the sum of $19.421 cash paid. They contain 92,718 lines published in 192 feuilletons. This is equivalent to 21 cents per line.

Some Musical Notes, by C minor.

"If you are calm and tranquil amidst the ecstacies of this great art, if you feel no delirium, nor transport,— profane not the sacred shrine of genius with your presence; what can it avail you to hear what you cannot feel.” Rousseau.

I intended here to add a mass of curious information, which I have been collecting during the last five years, touching the principal feuilletonBefore commencing with my pen, I have ists of France and their pay. But I find upon wound up and set by me a small Music-box. It reference to my notes that I cannot put them in is now discoursing (in a rather rapid fashion) a order in time for this letter. Besides, I am at the pleasing arrangement from Rosenberger. One end of my sheet. I think that I will give the of those sweet bird-like strains that emanated Messenger the benefit of them in my next letter. from the lively fancy of that composer at a time A law passed on the 30th ult. deals yet more when German melody seemed nigh unto stagnaseverely with the French stage than that above tion; it was a sort of dance-light over a marsh. described with the French press. It enacts, I am a sincere believer in the Alisonian theory "That until a general law, which must be intro- of Imagination. I believe that it furnishes twoduced in the course of a year, shall definitively thirds of affective pleasure and pain; that a kind regulate the police of the theatres, no dramatic Providence has divided the beauty and delight of work can be represented until permission shall have been previously obtained in Paris from the Minister of the Interior, and in the departments from the Prefects." There's liberty for you! France however calls itself republican, and possesses a constitution even more liberal and more democratic than our own!

W. W. M.

ON A SLEEPING INFANT.

How sweetly sleeps our darling babe!
How softly close his eyes!
Anon he smiles, as list'uing to
Celestial melodies.

Dreams chase each other o'er his brain,
And as they lightly pass,

You see their lights and shadows in
The changes of his face.

Now half awake, his eyes uplift
Their curtains fringed with silk;
And now his moving lips suck in
Imaginary milk.

His cradle angels watch beside,
And whisper in his ear;

And at their tales of love he smiles,
Or drops a gentle tear.

Belov'd of Heaven! Oh! never may
Thy innocence be less!

May God, who deigns to guard thee now,
Thy life time ever bless!

sense between the objective and the subjective. From this little three-by-two box by me, a sweet and rather sad tune winds forth in "linked sweetness long drawn out." And see! It rises from beauty to sublimity, and is seemingly evolved upward; and as from the casket wherein the genius had been sealed up by Solomon, he rose up before the fearful Fisherman; so from this small box by me, is exalted a very Giant of sound, and with a Giant's sway.

There is a divineness in Music; it belongs not to earth, nor was it on it when the universal curse fell. There is a small circumstance in Holy Writ which has always made a strong impression on me, though I know not that it has cost others a thought. Elisha was the bosom and beloved friend of the most honored Prophet of God. He appears to have been very distrustful of himself, and at the translation of Elijah in a chariot of fire, asked that his mantle should be bequeathed to him. And it was so, as he sought. But even this did not do away with his diffidence: and when an occasion for the exercise of his vocation occurred, he said, "But now bring me a Minstrel. And it came to pass when the Minstrel played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him. And he said," &c. Yes, it is spirit of the Better-land,-the highest idea of which that we have, is, as an Eternal Choir!

Music! How many lofty thoughts and pure associations vibrate to the word. Many hundred years agone, and in the deep midnight of Time there lived a great mental and moral man. A radiating planet he was in that dark age, whereat the vulgar throng were frightened. This man's name was Plato. His eagle eye was unnoticed comparatively in that day-and the influence of his burning words unfelt. But no we look back it is to cry "In apprehension how

now as

like a God,”—and to pray that God would raise up some such human soul amongst us now.

Then came on the Augustan age of Musicthe time when the Tallis's, Birds, Gibbons and Plato's spirit towered far up above that of any others of Elizabeth's day took it to the church other that walked by his side; and so he found and made it there what it is now. Of all other sympathy nowhere save in the bosom of the Sacred Music is more worthy of cultivation. Universe of Nature. Nature was his first and Operas and symphonies are vacillating, but only love, and with her he went forth to com- Church Music in itself will always be the same. mune. He saw her glories, her sublime histories, It was Wesley, we think, who said that the Devil her sublime grandeur, in which the likeness of a shouldn't have all the good music, and so approGod was shadowed and impressed. To ex-priated any idea that he could derive from the press all these things which he felt so keenly, Operas: they would never have lived so long how his great mind must have struggled! But without it. It is the old "Hundred" of Luther, after all he could find no name suflicient save the "Evening Hymn" of Ignace Pleyel, and the that of porn! Music was Plato's highest idea sublime compositions of Lackley and Handel, of perfection. It was a distinctive embodiment, and even of King Henry, that will live wherever too, of his own soul. Philosophy on Earth will a spire glitters in the sun, or men have souls and never gain a greater name. imaginations. It is in the church when men are resting from care, that the organ notes bear them where no other strains ever bore them; and to a

Let those who wish to do so laugh at such impalpable fascinations-let them go their ways whose music is the jingling of silver and of place which they never forget. How many gold, or the hissing of steam. For my part, I thousands are there whose sensations are porcan afford to let the world go on ahead of me- trayed in the following poetical words of Hawif with gibes, so be it-whilst I turn my thoughts thorne: on those great spirits of music, whom enraptured "Hark! the hymn. This, at least, is a pormillions will one day hail, and whose triumphal tion of the service which I can enjoy better than cars they will drag over the forgotten dust of if I sat within the walls, where the full choir and Cræsuses.

the massive melody of the organ, would fall with It is extremely interesting to remark the pro- a weight upon me. At this distance, it thrills gress of Music in the world. The ancients had through my frame, and plays upon my heartsome crude and indefinite notions about its being strings with a pleasure, both of the sense and the greatest of all things. They ascribed it spirit. Heaven be praised. I know nothing of powers that they scarcely awarded to Jupiter. music as a science; and the most elaborate harNothing else save that, in their eyes, could have monies if they please me please me as simply as made animate and inanimate nature follow Or- a nurse's lullaby. The strain has ceased, but pheus. Nothing else could have destroyed the prolongs itself in my mind, with fanciful echoes, walls of one of their famed cities, or demolished till I start from my reverie and find that the serthose of another. They regarded that gift of mon has commenced." Amphion as the most sacred and unworldly of all else. Pan had not his place amidst the noise and bustle of the city, but sounded his divine reed on the green hills and vales of Arcadia,

Feelings there are which the sound of sacred melody will call forth from us that we had never dreamt of before. Show me a man that finds his heart refusing to be moved thereby and I will point -patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi. out one that, whether or not he be fit for "treaBut Music was to progress,—that is according sons, stratagems and spoils," I had rather avoid. to the common idea of progression. Properly there Toward placing Music on the eminence it now is no progression-save of our minds. Things occupies, the Gerinans have contributed as much already exist in their fullest activity, it is our dis-or more perhaps than any other people. And covery of what before was, that is Progress. that class of composers who devoted themselves The human mind until it tastes is afraid of it, or to its cultivation will live when the Napoleons and any thing like innovation. Timotheus was turn- Wellingtons have been forgotten for evil or good. ed out of the Spartan Senate, it will be recollected, for adding another string to the lyre! And so in the middle of the 16th century men and disfigured by new compilers. In the Carmina Sacra, were excommunicated for making their oratorios for instance, a work published a year or more ago under the faster than eight beats, and so according to "un- supervision of Lowell Mason, Boston, we have the "Devo godlie time!" But nevertheless for Spartan tion" of Pleyel so much altered from the original of the Seuates and Councils of Trent there have al-author, that under the name of " Brattle St." it is hardly ways been enough Timotheuses and Paelestre-to be recognized. The same is the way with two-thirds of our new books. We instance that, because we had nos to advance the Divine Art amongst the chil- thought if there was any who would have been spared, it

dren of men.

*It is really mortifying, however, to see the manner in which the fine old tunes of our old composers are eut up

would be Pleyel

Of all nations Germany has the honor of having posure of Haydn, or the sustained tenderness of given to the world the greatest one of the noble Mozart; but it is grave, and full of deep and order of men we speak of. I admire almost exmelancholy thought. When rapid, it is not brisk travagantly the richness of Handel-a great Pro- or lively, but agitated and chaugeful, full of "sweet and bitter fancies"-of storm and sunphet he was, or I know not what to call him. I shine-of bursts of passion sinking into the subconfess to an indifference for Mozart, there's dued accents of grief, or relieved by transient nothing in him that touches me; perhaps an ex- gleams of hope or joy. There are movements, ception may be taken in favor of his "Dona indeed, to which he gives the designation of scherRequiem," which was with him as the swan, zoso, or playful; but this playfulness is as unlike as possible to the constitutional jocularity to sweetest in its dying note. I have some sweet which Haydn loved to give vent in the finales of reflections concerning the "Te Deums" of the his symphonies and quartettes. If, in a movemiddle of the 18th century-meditations on some ment of this kind, Beethoven sets out in a tone grand ideas of Gluck and St. Ambrose found of gaiety, his mood changes involuntarily,—the floating about on the top of much muddy water. But oh! of all-of all give me Beethoven; he who lived in an atmosphere where every breath that stirred was sublime thought. I have never come across anything so excellently appreciative of Ludwig Von Beethoven as a critique in a work of George llogarth, (Musical Biog: Hist: and Criticism. General Survey, &c., London. 1835). I beg leave to introduce it here, as it will prove far more entertaining than any thing I could say in the same space.

"As a musician, Beethoven must be classed

smile fades away, as it were, from his features, which he ever and anon recovers himself, as if and he falls into a train of sombre ideas, from with an effort, and from a recollection of the nature of his subject. The rapid scherzos, which he has substituted for the older form of the minuet, are wild, impetuous and fantastic; they have often the air of that violent and fitful vivacity to be compared to that of the bacchanalian effusion which gloomy natures are liable; their mirth may of the doomed Caspar. They contain, however, many of Beethoven's most original and beautiful conceptions; and are strikingly illustrative of the character of his mind.

We

woods. the cheerful notes of birds, and the cries meandering brook, and listen to the murmuring of animals. We stray along the margin of a

of its waters. We join a group of villagers, keeping holiday with joyous songs and dances. The sky grows dark, the thunder growls, and a storm

along with Handel, Haydn, and Mozart. He Beethoven's genius are most fully displayed. "It is in his symphonies that the powers of alone is to be compared to them in the magni- The symphony in C minor stands alone and untude of his works, and their influence on the state rivalled; and the Sinfonia Pastorale is probably of the art. Though he has written little in the the finest piece of descriptive music in existence. department to which Handel devoted all the energies of his mind, yet his spirit, more than that of Every movement of this charming work is a any other composer, is akin to that of Handel. scene, and every scene is full of the most beautiIn his music there is the same gigantic grandeur feel the freshness of a summer morning. We ful images of rural nature and rural life. of conception, the same breadth and simplicity hear the rustling of the breeze, the waving of the of design, and the same absence of minute finishing and petty details. In Beethoven's harmonies the masses of sound are equally large, ponderous, and imposing as those of Handel, while they have a deep and gloomy character peculiar to himself. As they swell in our ears, and grow darker and darker, they are like the lowering storm-cloud on which we gaze till we are startled by the flash, and appalled by the may are heard amidst the strife of the elements. thunder which bursts from its bosom. Such ef- The clouds pass away, the muttering of the thunder is more and more distant, all becomes quiet and fects he has especially produced in his wonderful symphonies. They belong to the tone of his placid, and the stillness is broken by the pastoral mind, and are without a parallel in the whole song of gratitude. Nothing can be more beautirange of music. Even where he does not wield ful or more true to nature than every part of this the strength of a great orchestra; in his instru- representation. It requires no key, no explanation, mental concerted pieces; in his quartettes, his trios, and his sonatos for the pianoforte, there is the same broad and massive harmony, and the same wild, unexpected, and startling effects. Mingled with these, in his orchestra as well as And now we must take leave of this very dehis chamber music, there are strains of melody lightful companionship. Our notes have been inexpressibly impassioned and ravishing; strains

bursts on the alarmed rustics, whose cries of dis

but places every image before the mind with a distinctness which neither poetry nor painting could surpass, and with a beauty which neither of them could equal.”

which do not merely please, but dissolve in plea- most hurried, and may possibly cause some of sure; which do not merely move, but overpower the old composers to turn over in their coffins! with emotion. Of these divine melodies, a re- In a future paper we shall bring our references markable feature is their extreme simplicity. A to some of the compilations and compositions of few notes, as artless as those of a national air. our own most barren day.

are sufficent to awake the most exquisite feelings.

"The music of Beethoven is stamped with the * Does not the reader imagine that he is listening to peculiarities of the man. When slow and tran- that piece of unearthly pathos and depth "La Desir," as quil in its movement, it has not the placid com- he reads this?

.

ertions to assist an unfortunate and worthy friend, | and other Magazines with the rich harvests of that one of the first and best female boarding its industry, and often were the verses and prose schools, ever kept in Richmond, was established pieces of "Marcella" and "M. M. W." (her here in 1812, where many of the most distinguished ladies of the present day acquired their education and accomplishments.

She departed this life on the 2nd of October, 1843, retaining to the last her mental faculties, and to an uncommon degree, her strength and activity. She had reached the advanced age of eighty-two when taken ill. A few sad days she suffered from pain and fever, then her spirit took its flight, we trust, from Earth to Heaven!

usual signatures,) lauded by the most fastidious votaries of literature-they were always filled with pathos and religious feeling, for they were always the spontaneous effusions of a brilliant mind and pious heart.

Her poem of “ Pocahontas," the only one she ever published, was eulogized by the ablest critics and reviewers. She was profoundly versed in all scriptural subjects, and what is very remarkable, had included in her studies, that of Eighteen months previous to her death, the medicine, regarding that branch of knowledge, as spacious and beautiful mansion she occupied, a necessary part in the education of one residing uninsured, and with nearly all of its contents, in the country. I have been informed too, that was destroyed by fire. Her deportment on this her proficiency in it has excited the surprise of trying occasion, created both respect and admi- several eminent Physicians. ration, as the following extract from the newspapers of that period will show:

prem

In her youth, Mrs. Mosby must have been very handsome-the writer had not the happiness of knowing her, personally, till late in life, and even then her features were delicate and regular, and her countenance sweet and intelligent, but owing to protracted ill health, her complexion was pallid.

husband.

"There was no white person upon the ises when we reached Belleville, exceptits strongminded and wonderfully gifted proprietress, Mrs. Mayo, the widow of Col. John Mayo, and motherin-law of Gen. Winfield Scott and Dr. R. H. Cabell of this City..... We have never witnessed a more imposing spectacle of this deIt is now time to say something of her birth scription. The immense building on fire, the and parentage, the particulars of which have large masses of light which were scattered in all been obtained from one who justly idolized her, directions, illuminating grove and lawn,-the and still deeply mourns her death!—from her large groups of people collected around,-the heaps of furniture piled up at the several points, She was born on the 25th of April 1792, and formed a tout en semble of the most striking character! . . . . . . . But the most impressive thing was the daughter of Mr. Robert Pleasants, of of all, was the moral effect imparted by the pres- Curls, in Henrico county, whose father (also ence of the venerable lady of the Mansion, who named Robert) was one of the most distinguishsat in front of the burning ruins, amid the masses ed members of the society of "Friends" in Virof furniture without one tear, one lamentation ginia. or murmur, inspiring all who saw her, with the deepest sympathy and respect for one who bore herself so firmly, so nobly, under so severe and sudden a calamity!"

.......

Mrs. Mayo lies interred near her husband and children in the family cemetery of Powhatan Seat, a short distance below Richmond.

MRS. MARY W. MOSBY, OF CURLS.

The next hallowed name we select from Richmond annals of female excellence and talents, is that of Mary Webster Pleasants, the late consort of John G. Mosby, Esq., of this city.

And who that knew her can ever forget her, or fail to treasure the remembrance of her virtues and genius!

Gentleness, piety, charity, liberality and energy of mind and character, were her distinguishing traits, combined with talent and intellectual cultivation.

Her mother was Miss Elizabeth Randolph, of Tuckahoe, the daughter of Col. Thomas Mann Randolph, and the sister of Col. T. M. Randolph, (formerly Governor of Virginia,) and of Mrs. David Meade Randolph, Mrs. Harriet Hockley, and Mrs. Virginia Carey.

At nine years of age, Mrs. Mosby was left an orphan, but the loss of her parents was almost supplied by her venerable paternal grandfather. Being exceedingly strict in his religious principles, he sent her when old enough, to his brother (Mr. Samuel Pleasants, of Philadelphia.) with directions that she should be placed at Weston School, which was under the superintendance of persons of his profession of faith. Here she resided seven years, and received every advantage that the most careful education can bestow, and that the good seed was sown upon a rich and grateful soil, was plainly evinced by her refinement of mind and manners, her agreeable conversation and useful habits.

At eighteen she bestowed her heart and hand For many years her ready pen supplied this upon Mr. Mosby-they were blessed with chil