the violin and 'cello a little, but his work | or twelve o'clock at night, and bid us finish has chiefly been that of a choirmaster. our practice there." The singing of glees by small parties of a dozen or so he well remembers. Those were days when a halo of celebrity hung round singers and players. There were so few of them that they were the envy and wonder of their neighbors. There was no tonic sol-fa then to make music easy for everybody. To attain the power of singing at sight or of playing an.instrument demanded perseverance and selfdenial. People had to puzzle things out for themselves. Printed music was very expensive. Oratorios cost in guineas what they now cost in shillings. The consequence was that nearly all the music of these weavers was copied out by their own bands. Old Mr. Fawcett has sat up copying music till two or three o'clock in the morning. But when the music was copied and the performance came off, how the neighbors delighted! The "Messiah," or some other oratorio, would be performed with a band consisting of two violins, a flute, and a 'cello, yet the people of the village thought the effect perfect, and the perform ers showed no little pride in their work. As a result of this training the sons of Mr. Fawcett senior are now all players. John plays the alto trombone, Joseph the tenor trombone, Samuel the bass trom. bone, Tom the pianoforte and organ, and Handel, the youngest son, the double bass. This, however, is but the beginning of the tribe, for the three elder sons and their married sister, Mrs. Midgley, have grown-up children who are also players. Thus John has two sons in the profession: Harry, a violinist, and Mendelssohn, a clarinetist; while of his younger sons Handel, aged fourteen, promises well on the trombone, Willie, aged twelve, plays the pianoforte, and Tom, aged ten, plays the flute. Joseph has a son Charlie, a violinist. Samuel has three sons: Charlesworth, a clarinetist, Verdi, a violinist, and Weber, an oboeist. Fawcett Midgley, the sister's son, is a bassoon player. All these lads had summer engagements last season at such places as Llandudno, Douglas, Saltburn, and Blackpool, where orchestras are engaged. So much for the players fairly started in life; there are a number of younger Fawcetts "coming on." Stepping into Joseph Fawcett's kitchen I find a boy of nine who is studying the clarinet, and "Joseph Haydn " aged three, who is handling marbles on the floor, will no doubt become a player in due time. For years Mr. Fawcett senior, with his three sons John, Joseph, and Samuel, worked at their looms in their own house. This was the universal custom twenty-five or thirty years ago; every house in Eccleshill contained its loom, and the passer-by ⚫could hear the rattle of the shuttle. Steam-power has since crept in, The Fawcetts are proud of their village. congregated the weavers in factories, and It has only seven thousand inhabitants, but destroyed some of the quaintness and it sends out more professional players to domesticity of their labor. The pecul- concerts in the north of England than iarity of the Fawcett household was that Leeds, Bradford, or Huddersfield. My without neglecting their work, or weaving friend, Mr. N. Kilburn, Mus.B., of Bishop less deftly than their neighbors, they did Auckland, who first directed my attention a great deal at music. For years the lads, to the Fawcetts, writes: I have known under the guidance of their father, prac- them for years. They are true and genutised singing or playing after each of the ine homespun Yorkshire men. At our three meals of the day. Even while weav- oratorio concerts at Sunderland they have ing they would sometimes stand their played to the number of nine or ten at music on a shelf and cast glances at it a time. It was during a performance of from moment to moment, whistling or The Rose of Sharon' last winter, as I singing the notes so as to get familiar looked across the orchestra, that the idea with them. The father was a good teach-popped into my mind that this was almost er. He not only had enthusiasm, and a unique clan, and I resolved to call attenmade his boys love their instruments, but tion to them. They are not only numerous, he knew how to guide and control the but most efficient players.' This group waywardness and fitfulness which from of Eccleshill musicians travel far and wide time to time possess all young people. to take part in concerts. They play regu"He made us work," said one of the sons larly in Leeds, Bradford, Hull, York, to me. 66 No shirking of difficulties was Scarborough, Sunderland, and Bishop allowed. He was strict." Anyhow, the Auckland and elsewhere. Joseph once sons needed but little pressure in their went to Ireland with Meyer Lutz, and had musical studies. "Our mother," says one some curious experiences at Cork during of them, "tired of the noise, has turned the Fenian troubles. John as a youth enus out sometimes into the road at eleven listed, and served twelve months in the band of the 68th Regiment, after which ex- | and allegiance of all classes in his native perience his father bought him out. Then place. The time of the Fawcetts is thus he went into the Yeomanry Cavalry band. It was in brass bands that as lads the Fawcetts began to play, and from this they worked their way to the higher musical level of the orchestra. For three years Joseph conducted the celebrated Black Dyke band, and at the present time he is training a brass band at Eccleshill. He has often acted as judge in the competitions between these bands which are so common in Yorkshire. The remarkable thing is that this tribe of players are all self-taught. "Our music," says Joseph, "hasn't cost us a penny." Their father was the first teacher; then the sons have themselves taught their children. "The violinists have had a quarter or two's lessons," says Joseph, "just to get them into right habits. But if we don't play an instrument we know enough about it to set our children right, or tell when they are playing wrong." What sums of money we spend on music lessons, and yet here is a group of players who have taught themselves and done without! The teacher can only guide the pupil. The real effort is the pupil's own, and in an art like music quickness of apprehension and an observant eye count for much. But of course for ordinary people lessons are essential, and even for the gifted they save time and prevent the formation of bad habits which have afterwards to be cured. If the West Riding is noted for its instrumentalists, it is noted still more for its singers. The love of choral music there is not an affectation, but a strong reality. The full and deep-toned Yorkshire voices are famed everywhere; and one reason why the Yorkshire folk are such good singers is that they are always singing. At the fireside, in the mill, in school, in church, in social gathering, their voices blend and commingle in strains now gentle, now tumultuous. John and Joseph Fawcett are both old glee singers, and Joseph is at present choirmaster of the Congregational Church at Eccleshill, where he has a choir of fifty-four voices. He has held this post for twenty years, and much enjoys the work. The church has an organist as well as a choirmaster, and is about to spend about £800 on an organ, although it only seats from eight hundred to nine hundred. Joseph is also conductor of the Eccleshill Choral Union formed among the middle-class folk of the district, and meeting by turn at the houses of the members. His sterling musicianship thus commands the respect chiefly taken up by music; but John and Joseph spend their spare hours in working at a little coal-selling business, which keeps them employed at times when music is dull. Instrumentalists have a more certain income than solo singers, because they are not afraid of their voices wearing out; and only by an accident - such as. the loss of a finger, or serious illness can their public work be suspended. I have sketched these honest, intelligent, and artistic Yorkshiremen just as they are, because I think they teach a lesson of industry which thousands of working men may learn. They teach, too, the possibility of pursuing at the same time art and manual labor. We want more of our operatives to lead this double life, working hard at the bench, the machine, or with the spade or plough, and recreating themselves when work is over by music, which is the prince of diversions. Why should they not do so? The Welsh colliers and quarrymen form some of the finest choirs in the world. Come with me to the rehearsal of a French Orphéoniste Society in Paris, and notice the porters, policemen, and mechanics dropping in in their uniforms or their blue blouses, and singing away with great heartiness when the hours of work are done. When they have sung a chorus they will sometimes pick up a set of brass instruments, transform themselves in a moment into a brass band, and start a quickstep or an overture. Our English choirs, except those in Yorkshire and Wales, contain but few ouvriers. The men are clerks or school teachers, the ladies are scarcely any of them wage-earners. Why should it be so? If we shorten the hours of work, there will be more time for recreation, and occupations must be found for leisure hours which refresh and renew the faculties. Otherwise the strength of our workers will be dissipated upon occupations which exhaust aud weary, which leave body, brain, and soul poorer than they found them. It will be a good thing in these coming days for the body politic if in hundreds of villages of our land the spirit of the Eccleshill Fawcetts stirs and grows. Others may not have time or skill enough to work their way to the position of professional players. This is the privilege of the few. But the many can learn enough of singing and playing to give pleasure to themselves and friends in an endless round of social and public gatherings. J. SPENCER CURWEN. For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co. Single Numbers of THE LIVING AGE, 18 cents. KITTY NEALE. FOUNDED ON AN OLD IRISH SONG IN THE PETRIE COLLECTION. ALL in the Golden Vale, I met with Kitty Neale, On her poll the milking-pail, a lamb nosing at her knee. Oh! her eyes were dreams of blue, And her saucy lips the hue of the rose on the tree. For a year and for a day, I had sought in every way That maiden fair as May for my true love to gain; Every art of tongue and eye Fond lads with lasses try, I had used with ceaseless sigh, yet all, all in vain ! But that morning, at the trace Of the trouble in my face, NO. II. FROM THE PORTUGUESE. Take it to thy breast; Then, amid pricks and pain, Confess that thorns remain When Beauty, proven vain, And Love, come not again. NO. III, FROM THE GERMAN. I. She paused with timid grace and murmured I THOUGHT that the swallow was wooing already From The Edinburgh Review. which prove prolific parents of popular prejudice. The novelists of the Old and the New Worlds have done as much as steam and telegraphy to foster kindly feelings between kindred peoples. They have proved more efficient guardians of the peace than a score of presidents or premiers. This fact alone justifies a study of American fiction. But when, in addition to this, it is remembered that American novels circulate as widely in this country as the productions of native authors, no apology is needed for an attempt to sketch the growth of fictitious literature in the New World, its present conditions and apparent tendencies. DURING the first sixty years of American independence, England and America drifted far apart. The breach was widened by mutual misconceptions of na tional life, character, and habits. English critics assumed offensive airs of patronage towards the nascent literature of the New World. Communication between the two countries was difficult. The "traveller's tales" of English Munchausens were numerous; splenetic Liberals, who had expected a Republican Utopia of Liberty, vented their disappointment in vulgar burlesques of the truth; hasty tourists brought back superficial pictures of soci- American fiction is not yet a century ety as the fruit of their holiday scampers old. Its sudden growth in a new, but through the States. On the other side, highly civilized, country, naturally preAmericans did little to remove the false im- sents features different from those which pressions which were created by English mark its gradual rise in an old country. travellers. They painted no pictures of It is often said that American novelists are their own daily life; their injudicious necessarily realistic, analytical, and anaanswers to foreign criticism, or volumes tomical, because they have little historical of gasconade, which made the utterances background, no salient class distinction, of Monsieur Parolles models of modesty, and a civilization which is essentially gave plausibility to the most unfounded reports. Within more recent years literature, and especially fiction, has, as it were, introduced the two nations to each other. It has not always exhibited either people in the best light, but it has removed many of those popular misconceptions 1. Old Creole Days. By George W. Cable. 8vo. New York: 1879. 2. The Grandissimes. By George W. Cable. New York: 1881. 3. Madame Delphine. By George W. Cable. London: 1881. 4. Dr. Sevier. By George W. Cabie. 8vo. burgh: 1884. 5. Bon Aventure. By George W. Cable. London: 1888. 8vo. utilitarian in its nature. The fact that American novelists mainly devote themselves to the portraiture of every-day characters, or to photographs of contemporary life, is true. Their works are deficient in creative power, and triviality is their curse. But the explanation seems to us inadequate. America has a history of a stirring kind, neither too remote for interShe still 8vo. est, nor too recent for romance. possesses provincialisms which no plane of society has levelled to uniformity. From the days of "Poor Richard" a masterful practicality has reigned supreme in the New World. Labor-saving automata have supplanted the finer things of life; the prevalent mania is the pursuit of mammon; success is measured by money. But, if the body has thus outgrown the soul, America only exaggerates the conditions and the standards of the Old World. Some other reason must be found for the want of creative power, depth, passion, and richness which characterizes American fiction. Edin 8vo. 6. Strange True Stories of Louisiana. By George W. Cable. 8vo. New York: 1889. 7. In the Tennessee Mountains. By Charles Egbert Craddock pseud. [i.e., Mary N. Murfree]. 8vo. Boston (Mass.): 1884. 8. Where the Battle was Fought. By Charles Egbert Craddock. 8vo. Boston (Mass.): 1884. 9. The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountain. By Charles Egbert Craddock. 8vo. London: 1885. 10. Down the Ravine. By Charles Egbert Craddock. 8vo. Boston (Mass.): 1885. 11. In the Clouds. By Charles Egbert Craddock. 8vo. Boston (Mass.): 1887. 12. The Story of Keedor Bluffs. By Charles Egbert Craddock. 8vo. London: 1888. The explanation partly lies, as we be13. The Despot of Broomsedge Cove. By Charles lieve, in the mental and physical defi Egbert Craddock. 8vo. London: 1889. ciencies of the American nation. The |