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of Jewish extraction fiddling and piping wonder that German music is exalted most with their music-stands in front of them, unduly, and is kept unremittingly before the executants are English men and women the public? But the writers in the musinging English words, conducted by an sical press will be thought by many to be Englishman, and appealing at every phrase still more important auxiliaries than these to our best appreciation, with music which, so powerful ones already mentioned, since, if we only confessed the truth, goes home while a concert is only listened to by a few to us powerfully. This is a second reason hundreds, the account of the concert for the supremacy of German music in reaches the eyes of many thousands our country · the tacit assumption that millions. The critics on the London press the instrumental compositions which the are mostly German Jews. It is true that Germans write are a higher form of art they cannot write very good English, and than the vocal works which the English are a constant source of trouble to the write. The third reason is of a more editorial staff in consequence. Their practical and unfortunately of a more tell- 'copy" reaches the eye of the public after ing nature than either of the preceding. having undergone a merciless alteration in For years and years past the Germans grammar and style at the hands of the have been crowding into this country to improvers." The words came out very enlighten us on the subject of music, in much changed; but the opinions remain which, owing to their great composers of the same, and those opinions are invarilast century and the earlier half of this, ably the praise of German music, of Gerthey have the repute of greater knowledge man artistes, of German composers, and than we, who are only just attaining our of German conductors. Genuine English meridian. Their title to all superiority concerts they do not notice. They do not was extinct thirty years ago, on the death attend them; they ignore them as worthof Shumann, since which time, except the less to report on. It is a well-known fact great Wagner bubble, now burst and van- that on a certain London newspaper no ished from human ken, their warmest English musician, with the exception of partisan would be hard put to specify what one or two of our very greatest composers, they have done, not merely in the shape is ever mentioned in the musical columns of meritorious work, but as in the case at all. This is done as a matter of princi. of that bubble, of notorious failure. Yet ple. Interest cannot move the German still they crowd and crowd into the coun-Jew who is responsible for this part of the try, and by benefit of a baseless prestige paper; solicitation cannot bend him. are accepted as authorities. As music-is stubborn to his creed, which is: "I masters, as concert performers, as singers, believe in one music, and that is German, and most of all as conductors, they over- and, where possible, Jewish." Concert flow the land. Even as writers on musical subjects they affect to shine, when their insufficient knowledge of our language scarce enables them to construct an English sentence correctly. But it is in these two last spheres of their activity that their pernicious influence comes out most strongly, and the dominion of German music over us is mainly strengthened. As conductors they have the control of nearly all the engagements in the musical world, and of the music to be performed at the various concerts attended by the public. Is it to be wondered at that their preferences lie mainly on the side of their own countrymen? That English artistes are overlooked wherever possible? That English talent is persistently depreciated? And that for compositions they naturally turn their eyes to the writings of their German kinsmen, in which their interest chiefly lies, and their early education and surroundings have taught them to see beauties invisible to us?

With such auxiliaries as these, the most powerful in the musical world, can we

He

after concert of our ablest composers is thus passed over, and, as we have said before, instead of reaching the thousands of eyes which a brief notice in the newspaper would secure, the knowledge of it is confined to the few hundreds who attend the concert-room. This is grossly unfair, but is a slight specimen of the almost universal unfairness under which we English groan from the multitudes of Germans who riddle and honeycomb the musical world. Such treatment does our friend accord to the ablest English composers; but if a concert is given by Herr Schmitz, some scouring of Thuringia or spawn of Swabian peasantry, at once comes out a column in his favor, in which his quartet, his concert, his rhapsody is praised as the highest utterance of art, and invidious comparisons made between such miserable twanging and the recent oratorio or cantata of some talented Englishman. The critics play into the hands of the conductors. The conductors pay deference to the critics; and, between the two, we English suffer terribly.

These are the main reasons, I take it, | why German music is so much to the front in our country, and why English music is so obscured and shelved. The great repute of Germany as a musical centre has fastened these swarms of invaders on us, and we shall simply have to wait until their hold relaxes. Happily, that day is not so distant as even the sanguine may imagine. Since Schumann's death in 1856, Germany has actually done nothing in music worth mentioning at all. The bubble of Wagner and the rhapsodizing of Liszt are the sole exceptions to the deathlike stillness which prevails in artistic circles there. A little tinkling now and then from Herr Breitmann, the head of the Conservatoire of Potzenhausen; a few Phantasiestucks from the pen of Herr Müller, the famed romantic composer whose renown is confined to the small circle of his native town of Hölle and the brains of a few London critics; a great quartet once a year from Herr Schmitterling whom nobody in Europe has ever heard of until one fine morning we awake to find a column in the newspapers describing Schmitterling as a second Beethoven; beyond these occasional phenomena of unimportant moment, music in Germany is practically dead. All the noise is being made in our country, where the public, not knowing what is going on behind the scenes, stand agape at the wonderful Germans among us. The secret, however, is bound sooner or later to leak out. People will awake one day to the unpleasant fact that they have been imposed upon in the matter of German music; that there is a sort of National League among these Teutons, worked in a spirit of self-interest solely (for their names are never found among the contributors to musical charities; they take money from us, they give us none); that while with patient purses and unsatisfied ears the public pay for consert after concert to hear German music, they might far more profitably, far more wisely, and far more naturally have bestowed their patronage on their own countrymen, whose excellent writings languish for want of proper support. J. F. ROWBOTHAM.

From The Spectator.

ANIMAL ESTHETICS.

SCENTS AND SOUNDS.

ONE of the oddest tales in the "Bestiaries," or stories of Bible animals written by the monks, is the legend of the

panther. "The panther," so the homily runs, "is the most beautiful of all beasts. More than this, when it goes abroad it diffuses a marvellous sweet perfume. This odor is so sweet that all the other beasts and birds follow the panther wherever it goes. Wherefore the panther is a type of virtue." Perhaps the old monks who borrowed and embellished this story had heard of and misunderstood the strong love of sweet scents which the panther and its relations, the lions and leopards, often show. The old theory of animal liking for scents denied them any share in such pleasures unless they suggested the presence of their food or prey. But such a reason can hardly be alleged for a lion's liking for lavender water! The writer, wishing to test for himself the reported fondness of many animals for perfumes, paid a series of visits to the Zoological Gardens provided with bottles of scent and a packet of cotton wool, and there tried some harmless experiments which apparently gave great satisfaction to many of the inhabitants. Lavender water was the favorite scent, and most of the lions and leopards showed unqualified pleasure when the scent was poured on the wool and put into their cages. The first leopard to which it was offered, stood over the ball of cotton, shut its eyes, opened its mouth, and screwed up its nose, rather like the picture of the gentleman inhaling Alkaram " in the advertisement. It then lay down and held it between its paws, rubbed its face over it, and finished by lying down upon it. Another leopard smelt it and sneezed; then caught the wool in its claws, played with it, then lay on its back and rubbed its head and neck over the scent. It then fetched another leopard which was asleep in the cage, and the two sniffed it for some time together; and the last-comer ended by taking the ball in its teeth, curling its lips well back, and inhaling the delightful perfume with half-shut eyes. The lion and lioness, when their turn came, tried to roll upon it at the same time. The lion then gave the lioness a cuff with his paw, which sent her off to the back of the cage, and having secured it for himself, laid his broad head on the morsel of scented cotton, and purred. These were all old inhabitants of the gardens, civilized. But at the end of the building was the lovely young Sokoto lion, with the spots of "cubhood" still showing like a pattern in damask on his skin. If he, too, liked the scent, it could hardly be an acquired taste. reception of the new impression was different from that of the others. He lay

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His

The

they have heard from men, and its lowest
in the snakes and reptiles which seem to
be fascinated by the Indian pipe.
writer has heard more than one parrot
whistle part of a tune, and then strike the
octave of the last note; and the piping
crow at the Zoological Gardens, and a
Persian bulbul which was once an inmate
of the same aviary, can whistle a tune
perfectly. It is to be expected that birds
which take such pleasure in each other's
song should be most sensitive to sweet
sounds new to them.

down inhaling the scent with a dreamy | pleasure. The taste finds perhaps its look in his eyes. Then he made faces highest expression in those birds which and yawned, turned his back on the scent, actually learn to whistle the airs which and thought. He then inhaled the perfume again for some time, walked slowly off to his bed, and lay down to sleep. The smaller cats were in many cases as pleased with the scent as the leopards, the ocelot in particular on one occasion, after inhaling the perfume, ate the small piece of paper on which it was poured. But the liking for lavender-water is by no means confined to the felida. The Cape Ratels were delighted with the scent, and the racoon, when the bottle was presented to it corked, with great good sense pulled out the stopper; but this may have been due But the taste is not confined to birds. to curiosity, as it was at once thrown away. The old horses in the regimental riding. Other creatures, on the contrary, either schools learn the meaning of the different cared nothing for the scent or found it bugle-calls; and though it is not possible disagreeable. An otter, in particular, gave to say whether they distinguish between a snort of disgust, dived into the water, different airs, it is well known that they and then ran to its mate, to whom it trot or gallop better to some tunes than to seemed to convey some of its impressions, others. This may be compared with a for both otters carefully avoided the per- curious story told by Playford, in his " Infumed wool. No doubt there lies some- troduction to Music." "When travelling where in our rivers, "under the glassy, some years since," he writes, "I met on cool, translucent wave," or on their flower- the road near Royston a herd of about bordered banks, some odorous herb or twenty bucks following a bagpipe and a water-weed which the otters also love. violin; while the music played they went That the pleasure felt by so many animals forward; when it ceased they all stood in the odor of "sweet lavender " is due to still; and in this manner they were brought pure and simple enjoyment of a perfume, out of Yorkshire to Hampton Court." made intensely more delightful to them Seals have long been known for their love than to ourselves by the wonderful devel- of sweet sounds. Laing, in his account opment of their sense of smell, seems clear, not only from the fact that so many species share this amiable fondness for the scent, but also because their liking for perfumes is by no means limited to that of lavender. A flask of rose-water will make as many friends among the leopards and their kin as will the former scent, and they also enjoy the sweet odor of pinks and lilac-blossom. The heavy scent of lilies and narcissi fails to please, perhaps on account of their strong narcotic qualities. It is not unlikely that the scent of these plants with which the Furies were said to stupify their victims, an odor which is often insupportable to men themselves, should be distasteful to their far more sensitive nostrils.

It could hardly be expected that in the matter of sweet sound, animals, any more than men, should think alike. The scent of the rose gives pleasure from the Himalayas to the Hebrides; but the music that soothes the Highlander is to the Japanese as the howling of cats. Still, as to some men certain sounds are always musical, so to some animals these same sounds give

of a voyage to Spitzbergen, says that when a violin was played on board the vessel, a numerous audience of seals would often assemble and follow the vessel for miles. Sir Walter Scott mentions this taste in the lines,

Rude Heiskars seals, through surges dark, Would oft pursue the minstrel's bark; and it is said that when the bell of the church on the island of Hoy rang, the seals within hearing swam to the shore and remained looking about them as long as it was tolled. In a less prosaic age, the story of the seals of Hoy might have be come an established myth of a successful "deep-sea mission " to the mermaids of the North. It would be interesting to make some musical experiments at the Zoological Gardens; but the only occasion on which the writer attempted this, led to such strong suspicions of his insanity among the visitors, that in the face of a caution addressed by an elderly nurse to her charges, "Don't go near 'im; he ain't right in his 'ead," he had not the courage to continue his researches.

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