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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
Of noon's high glory, when hard by the streams
Of Tiber, on the scene of a green plat,

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.
Close in the covert of the leaves there stood
A nightingale, come from the neighbouring woods
(The sweet inhabitants of each glad tree,
Their
muse, their
syren, harmless syren she)
There stood she list'ning, and did entertain
The music's soft report: and mould the same

In her own murmurs, that whatever mood
His curious fingers lent, her voice made good :
The man perceiv'd his rival and her art,
Dispos'd to give the light-foot lady sport
Awakes his lute, and 'gainst the fight to come
Informs it, in a sweet præludium

Of closer strains; and ere the war begin,
He lightly skirmishes on every string,

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Charg'd with a flying touch: and straightway she
Carves out her dainty voice as readily,
Into a thousand sweet distinguish'd tones,
And reckons up in soft divisions,

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
To their own dance; now negligently rash
He throws his arm, and with a long drawn dash
Blends all together; then distinctly trips
From this to that; then quick returning skips
And snatches this again, and pauses there.
She measures every measure, every where
Meets art with art; sometimes, as if in doubt,
Not perfect yet, and fearing to be out,
Trails her plain ditty in one long-spun note,
Through the sleek passage of her open throat,
A clear unwrinkled song; then doth she point it
With tender accents, and saverely joint it
By short diminutives, that being rear'd
In controverting warbles evenly shar'd,
With her sweet self she wrangles. He amaz'd
That from so small a channel should be rais'd
The torrent of a voice, whose melody
Could melt into such sweet variety,
Strains higher yet; that tickled with rare art
The tattling strings (each breathing in his part)
Most kindly do fall out; the grumbling base
In surly groans disdains the trebles grace;
The high-perch'd treble chirps at this, and chides,
Until his finger (moderator) hides

And closes the sweet quarrel, rousing all
Hoarse, shrill, at once; as when the trumpets call
Hot Mars to th' harvest of death's field, and woo
Men's hearts into their hands: this lesson too
She gives him back; her supple breast thrills out
Sharp airs, and staggers in a warbling doubt

Of dallying sweetness, hovers o'er her skill,
And folds in wav'd notes with a trembling bill
The pliant series of her slippery song ;
Then starts she suddenly into a throng

Of short thick sobs, whose thundering volleys float,

And roll themselves over her lubric throat

In panting murmurs, still'd out of her breast,
That ever-bubbling spring, the sugar'd nest
Of her delicious soul, that there does lie
Bathing in streams of liquid melody;
Music's best seed-plot, where, in ripen'd airs,
A golden-headed harvest fairly rears

His honey-dropping tops, plow'd by her breath
Which there reciprocally laboureth

In that sweet soil, it seems a holy choir
Founded to th' pame of great Apollo's lyre,

Whose silver roof rings with the sprightly notes
Of sweep-lipp'd angel-imps, that swill their throats
In cream of morning Helicon, and then

Prefer soft anthems to the ears of men,

To woo them from their beds, still murmuring
That men can sleep while they their mattens sing:
(Most divine service) whose so early lay
Prevents the eye-lids of the blushing day!
There you might hear her kindle her soft voice
In the close murmur of a sparkling noise,
And lay the ground-work of her hopeful song,
Still keeping in the forward stream, so long
Till a sweet whirlwind (striving to get out)
Heaves her soft bosom, wanders round about,
And makes a pretty earthquake in her breast,
Till the fledg'd notes at length forsake their nest,
Fluttering in wanton shoals, and to the sky,
Wing'd with their own wild echoes, prattling fly.
She opes the floodgate, and lets loose a tide
Of streaming sweetness, which in state doth ride
On the way'd back of every swelling strain,
Rising and falling in a pompous train.
And while she thus discharges a shrill peat
Of flashing airs; she qualifies their zeal
With the cool epode of a graver note,

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;
So said, his hands sprightly as fire he flings,
And with a quavering coyness tastes the strings.
The sweet-lip'd sisters musically frighted,
Singing their fears, are fearfully delighted.
Trembling as when Apollo's golden hairs
Are fann'd and frizzled in the wanton airs
Of his own breath: which married to his lyre

Doth tune the spheres, and make heaven's self look higher.
From this to that, from that to this he flies,

Feels music's pulse in all her arteries,

Caught in a net which there Apollo spreads,

His fingers struggle with the vocal threads,
Following those little rills, he sinks into
A sea of Helicon; his hand does go

Those parts of sweetness which with nectar drop,
Softer than that which pants in Hebe's cup.
The humourous strings expound his learned touch
By various glosses; now they seem to grutch,
And murmur in a buzzing din, then gingle
In shrill tongu'd accents, striving to be single.
Every smooth-turn, every delicious stroke
Give life to some new grace; thus doth h' invoke
Sweetness by all her names; thus, bravely thus
(Fraught with a fury so harmonious)

The lute's light genios now does proudly rise,
Heav'd on the surges of swoln rhapsodies,

Whose flourish (meteor-like) doth curl the air
With flash of high-born fancies: here and there
Dancing in lofty measures, and anon
Creeps on the soft touch of a tender tone:
Whose trembling murmurs melting in wild airs
Run to and fro, complaining his sweet cares
Because those precious mysteries that dwel
In music's ravish'd soul he dares not tell,
But whisper to the world: thus do they vary,
Each string his note, as if they meant to carry
Their master's blest soul (snatch'd out at his cars
By a strong ecstacy) through all the spheres
Of music's heaven; and seat it there on high
In th' empyreum of pure harmony.
At length, (after so long, so loud a strife

Of all the strings, still breathing the best life
Of blest variety attending on

His fingers fairest revolution

In many a sweet rise, many as sweet a fall)
A full mouth'd diapason swallows all.

This done, he lists what she would say to this,
And she, although her breath's late exercise
Had dealt too roughly with her tender throat,
Yet summons all her sweet powers for a note.
Alas! in vain! for while (sweet soul) she tries
To measure all those wild diversities

Of chatt'ring strings, by the small size of one
Poor simple voice, rais'd in a natural tone;
She fails, and failing, grieves, and grieving dies.
She dies and leaves her life the victor's prize,
Falling upon his lute; O fit to have

(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
Which poets of an elder time have feign'd

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,
That art and nature ever were at strife in.
Amethus. I cannot yet conceive what you infer
By art and nature.

Men.
I shall soon resolve ye.
A sound of music touch'd mine ears, or rather
Indeed entranc'd my soul; as I stole nearer,
Invited by the melody, I saw

This youth, this fair-fac'd youth, upon his late,
With strains of strange variety and harmony,

Proclaiming, as it seem'd, so bold a challenge
To the clear choristers of the woods, the birds,
That, as they flock'd about him, all stood silent,
Wond'ring at what they heard. I wonder'd too.
Amet. And so do I; good, on!

Men.

A nightingale,
Nature's best skill'd musician, undertakes

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,
The nightingale, did with her various notes
Reply to. For a voice, and for a sound,
Ameibus, 'tis much easier to believe

That such they were, than hope to hear again.
Amet. How did the rivals part?

Men.
You term them rightly,
For they were rivals, and their mistress harmony.
Some time thus spent, the young man grew at last
Into a pretty anger, that a bird

Whom art had never taught cliffs, moods, or notes,
Should vie with him for mastery, whose study

Had busied many hours to perfect practice:

To end the controversy, in a rapture

Upon his instrument he plays so swiftly,
So many voluntaries, and so qnick,
That there was curiosity and cunning,

Concord in discord, lines of diff'ring method
Meeting in one full centre of delight.

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
Fail'd in, for grief, down dropp'd she on his lute,

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
A fellow-mourner with him.

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Men. He look'd upon the trophies of his art,

Then sigh'd, then wip'd his eyes, then sigh'd and cried :
"Alas, poor creature! I will soon revenge

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,
As he was pashing it against a tree,
I suddenly stept in.

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,

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