ing resort; and the name of George Livermore will be always so associated. The munificent provision which has been this moment announced, in the communication just delivered to me, as having been made by himself and his co-executor, Mr. Dale, for the permanent safe keeping and superintendence of the Library, calls especially for our renewed acknowledgments, and I tender to them both, in behalf of every member of the society, a sincere expression of our deep and heartfelt obligation.

It only remains for me, gentlemen, to remind you that our responsibilities increase proportionately with our opportunities and advantages; that many things remain to be desired and to be done to perfect other departments of our institution, and to render them worthy of what has thus been inaugurated; and to assure you that, for myself, I shall most gladly co-operate, in every way in my power, with the excellent and efficient officers whom you have associated with me, in promoting the continued prosperity and welfare of a society, whose objects are at once so interesting and so important.

MUSIC IN NEW ENGLAND.

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE OPENING OF THE FIRST MUSICAL FESTIVAL IN BOSTON, MAY 21, 1857.

I AM here, ladies and gentlemen, at the request of my friend, Mr. Charles Francis Chickering, the worthy successor of an honored father in the Presidency of the Handel and Haydn Society, and by the invitation of the gentlemen associated with him in the government of that Institution, of which it becomes me to remember most gratefully to-day, that, by their unmerited favor, I have myself enjoyed the privileges of an Honorary Member for nearly twenty years, to inaugurate the Festival which is now about to commence, by some introductory words of commemoration and of welcome.

I am not unmindful of the difficulty of the service to which I have thus been called. I am deeply sensible how thin and meagre any single, unaccompanied human voice must sound, in this spacious Hall and to this expecting audience, when brought, even by anticipation, into such immediate contrast with the multitudinous choral and instrumental power and grandeur which may be seen arrayed behind me and around me, and which are presently to break upon us in a glorious flood of mingled harmony and light.*

More than one of the great Masters, whose genius is to be illustrated during the progress of this Festival, have found their highest powers tasked to the utmost, if I mistake not, in preparing an adequate and appropriate Overture, even for a single one of the great compositions to which they have owed their fame;

*Haydn's Creation, with its sublime opening chorus "Let there be Light," immediately followed the Address.

and some of them, I believe, have abandoned the effort altogether. How hopeless, then, is it for me to attempt to say any thing, which shall constitute a worthy prelude to all the magnificent Oratorios and Symphonies with which this Hall is now successively to resound! Well, well, may I recall the opening of that memorable musical competition, so forcibly depicted in the celebrated Ode on the Passions:

"First FEAR his hand, its skill to try,
Amid the chords bewildered laid,
And back recoiled, he knew not why,

E'en at the sound himself had made."

But I shall hardly succeed in rendering the formidable Solo which I have undertaken, either more easy to myself or more acceptable to others, by indulging too much in the fashionable tremolo of the hour; and I turn, therefore, without further preamble or apology, to a simple discharge of the service which I have promised to perform; - not, indeed, altogether without notes, for that would be quite out of keeping with the occasion; but not without a due remembrance, I trust, of the apt and excellent wisdom of the ancient Son of Sirach: "Speak, thou that art the elder, for it becometh thee, but with sound judgment; and hinder not the music. Pour not out words where there is a musician, and show not forth wisdom out of time. Let thy speech be short, comprehending much in few words." *

It has sometimes been made a matter of reproach upon us New Englanders, my friends, that we are too ready to imitate the fashions, and even to ape the follies, of the Old World; and I think we must all admit that there have been periods in our history, when the charge was not altogether without foundation. We come to-day, however, to borrow a leaf out of the book of our brethren of Old England, which we need not be ashamed to copy, which is eminently worthy of being copied, and which I trust is destined to be reproduced, — in enlarged and improved editions, frequently if not statedly, in the future history of this community.

*This intimation was fulfilled, in the delivery of the Address, by the omission of many passages which are included in the printed copy.

For many years past, I know not exactly how many, the great Musical Festivals of Birmingham and Norwich, of Liverpool and Manchester and York, have been among the most cherished and delightful holidays of our mother country. They have done much for the cause of musical improvement, and they have done much, too, for the innocent entertainment and wholesome recreation of the people. The most eminent living composers and performers of Europe have been proud' to take a part in them, and the most distinguished lovers and patrons of art have been eager to attend them.

At this very moment, as you know, arrangements are in progress for holding one of them, on a grander scale than ever before, at the Crystal Palace at Sydenham; and the presence and patronage of the Queen and Prince Albert-whose musical skill and science, it has been said upon the best authority, would alone have won for them no ordinary distinction, had they been in a condition of life to admit of the full development and public display of such accomplishments—have been promised and accepted for the occasion.

We have no Queenly presence or Princely patronage, my friends, to rely upon, for lending grace or dignity to such an occasion, though forms and features which would add brilliancy to a diadem are never wanting to our public assemblies; — but we have the fullest confidence that Republican ears are not insensible to "the concord of sweet sounds," and that Republican hearts are neither closed nor callous to the impression, whether of the softer melodies or the sublimer harmonies of the divine art. And in that confidence we are assembled here to-day, to inaugurate the first Musical Festival, which will have been organized and conducted in New England, or, I believe I may say, in all America, after the precise pattern of the great Festivals of Europe, hailing it as the commencement of a series of Festivals, which may not be less distinguished in future years, perhaps, than those from whose example it has been borrowed, — and welcoming it, especially, as another advance towards that general education of the heart, the tastes, and the affections, of which Heaven knows how much we stand in need, and which is to be carried on and conducted, in no small part at least, through

refined and elevated appeals to the eye and to the ear, under the guidance and inspiration of Christian faith and fear and love, by every department of human Art.

The public performance of sacred or of secular Music is, indeed, I need hardly say,- by no means a new thing, or a thing of recent introduction, in this community. I know not exactly how early musical entertainments commenced in the old town of Boston. It is not to be doubted that the Pilgrims of Massachusetts, like those of Plymouth, in the beautiful words of Mrs. Hemans, "shook the depths of the desert gloom with their hymns of lofty cheer."

"Amidst the storm they sang,

And the stars heard, and the sea;

And the sounding aisles of the dim wood rang

To the anthem of the Free."

They sang the psalms of David as versified by Sternhold and Hopkins, or by Henry Ainsworth, the eminent Brownist, adapting them sometimes, perhaps, to the tunes arranged by that ancient "Bachelor of Music," Thomas Ravenscroft; and sometimes, I doubt not, they sang the hymns and songs of simple old George Wither, to the plain and plaintive two-part melodies of Orlando Gibbons. And, by and by, they made a Psalm-book for themselves, and published it among the cherished first-fruits of a New England free press.*

But the Fine Arts, of which Music is eminently one, can find no soil or sky for growth or culture in a new country and amid unsettled institutions. They are at once the fruit and the ornament of peace, civilization, and refinement. We have authentic history for the fact that in 1676 "there were no musicians by trade" on this peninsula. Yet more than a hundred years ago, certainly, the largest hall in the place was known by the name of Concert Hall, and as early as the second of January, 1775, "a Concert of Music" was advertised there,-"Tickets to be had

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* Governor Endicott's copy of "Ravenscroft's Psalms" is in the Library of the Massachusetts Historical Society, where, also, is a copy of Wither's Hymns and Songs, with the autograph of Martha Winthrop, who came over to New England in 1631, and died soon afterwards. The Bay Psalm Book was published in 1640.