dallying sweetness," the "ever-bubbling spring," the kindling of the bird's "soft voice "In the close murmur of a sparkling noise," the "quavering coyness" with which the musician "tastes the strings," the "surges of swoln rhapsodies," the "full-mouthed diapason swallowing all;" and in short, the whole "pride, pomp, and circumstance" of masterly playing, from it's lordly sweep over the full instrument to the "capering cheerfulness" of a guitar accompaniment. The man of letters will admire the power of language; and to the musician and other lovers of music we are sure we are affording a great treat. Numbers of them will never have found their sensations so well analyzed before. Part of the poetry, it is true, is in a false and overcharged 'taste; but in general the exuberance is as true as it is surprising, for the subject is exuberant and requires it. We should observe, before the concert begins, that Castiglione is represented by Strada as having been present at this extraordinary duel himself; and however fabulous this may seem, there is a letter extant from Bartolomeo Ricci to Giambattista Pigna, cotemporaries of Tasso, in which he says, that Antoniano, a celebrated improvvisatore of those times, playing on the lute after a rural dinner which the wri. ter had given to his friends, provoked a nightingale to contend with him in the same manner. Dr. Black, in his Life of Tasso, by way of note upon this letter, quotes a passage from Sir William Jones, strongly corroborating such stories: and indeed, when we know what parrots and other birds can do, especially in imitating and answering each other, and hear the extravagant reports to which the powers of the nightingale have given rise, such as the story of an actual dialogue in Buffon, we can easily imagine that the groundwork of the relation may not be a mere fable, "An intelligent Persian," says Sir William, "declared he had more than once been present, when a celebrated Lutanist, surnamed Bulbul (the nightingale), was playing to a large company in a grove near Schiraz, where he distinctly saw the nightingales trying to vie with the musician; sometimes warbling on the trees, sometimes fluttering from branch to branch, as if they wished to approach the instrument, and at length dropping on the ground in a kind of ectasy, from which they were soon raised, he assured me, by a change in the mode." MUSIC'S DUEL. Now westward Sol had spent the richest beams Under protection of an oak, there sat A sweet lute's-master: in whose gentle airs He lost the day's heat and his own hot cares. In her own murmurs, that whatever mood Of closer strains; and ere the war begin, Charg'd with a flying touch: and straightway she Quick volumes of wild notes; to let him know By that shrill taste, she could do something too. His nimble hands instinct then taught, each string A capring cheerfulness, and made them sing And closes the sweet quarrel, rousing all Of dallying sweetness, hovers o'er her skill, Of short thick sobs, whose thundering volleys float, And roll themselves over her lubric throat In panting murmurs, still'd out of her breast, His honey-dropping tops, plow'd by her breath In that sweet soil, it seems a holy choir Whose silver roof rings with the sprightly notes Prefer soft anthems to the ears of men, To woo them from their beds, still murmuring Thus high, thus low, as if her silver throat Would reach the brazen voice of war's hoarse bird Her little soul is ravish'd: and so pour'd Juto loose ecstasies, that she is plac'd Above herself, music's enthusiast. Shame now and anger mix'd a double stain In the musician's face; yet once again (Mistress) I come; now reach a strain, my lute, Above her mock, or be for ever mute. But tune a song of victory to me; As to thyself, sing thine own obsequy; Doth tune the spheres, and make heaven's self look higher. Feels music's pulse in all her arteries, Caught in a net which there Apollo spreads, His fingers struggle with the vocal threads, Those parts of sweetness which with nectar drop, The lute's light genios now does proudly rise, Whose flourish (meteor-like) doth curl the air Of all the strings, still breathing the best life His fingers fairest revolution In many a sweet rise, many as sweet a fall) This done, he lists what she would say to this, Of chatt'ring strings, by the small size of one (That liv'd so sweetly) dead, so sweet a grave! This exquisite story has had another relator in Ford the dramatist, and according to a great authority, a finer one. The passage is very beautiful certainly, especially in the outset about Greece; and if the story is to be taken as a sentiment, it must be allowed to surpass the other; but as an account of the Duel itself, it is assuredly as different as playing is from no playing. Sentiment however completes every thing, and we hope our readers will enjoy with us the concluding from Ford: Menaphon. Passing from Italy to Greece, the tales To glorify their Tempe, bred in me Desire of visiting that paradise. To Thessaly I came, and living private, Without acquaintance of more sweet companions, Than the old inmates to my love, my thoughts, I day by day frequented silent groves, And solitary walks. One morning early This accident encounter'd me: I heard The sweetest and most ravishing contention, Men. This youth, this fair-fac'd youth, upon his late, Proclaiming, as it seem'd, so bold a challenge Men. A nightingale, The challenge, and for ev'ry several strain The well-shap'd youth could touch, she sung her down; He could not run division with more art Upon his quaking instrument, than she, That such they were, than hope to hear again. Men. Whom art had never taught cliffs, moods, or notes, Had busied many hours to perfect practice: To end the controversy, in a rapture Upon his instrument he plays so swiftly, Concord in discord, lines of diff'ring method Amet. Now for the bird. Men. The bird, ordain'd to be Music's first martyr, strove to imitate These several sounds: which, when her warbling throat And brake her heart. It was the quaintest sadness, To see the conqueror upon her hearse, To weep a funeral elegy of tears, That, trust me, my Amethus, I could chide Mine own unmanly weakness, that made me Men. He look'd upon the trophies of his art, Then sigh'd, then wip'd his eyes, then sigh'd and cried : This cruelty upon the author of it; Henceforth this lute, guilty of innecent blood, Shall never more betray a harmless peace To an untimely end :" and in that sorrow, Orders received by the Newsmen, by the Booksellers, and by the Publisher, Joseph Appleyard, Printed by Joseph Appleyard, No. 19, Catherine-street, Strand.-Price od, |