NOTES AND EVENTS OF THE MONTH. 571 



IMMORALITY OF Mu.sic. It is a pleasant thing to behold the pious 

 alarms which move the magistracy of this happy (but alas ! sinful) land, 

 in their zeal to discourage the abominations which encompass us round 

 about. Praise and honour to them, according to their deserts ! for 

 verily their disinterestedness equalleth their sagacity. It is known to 

 those whom most it concerns, that a certain period in the year is set 

 apart for granting, renewing, or withholding, the claims and petitions of 

 sundry loyal lieges, cognominated Tavern-keepers, who, instigated by a ge- 

 nerous spiritto cater for the public amusement, or by some other motive, seek 

 permission to make the public heart glad, by means of music, miming, 

 and other pleasantries. This period vernacularly called Licensing-day 

 has just passed, and if the prayers of many have been denied, yet, 

 surely, the hearty anxiety displayed by their Worships, the licensing 

 magistrates, to preserve unscathed the morals of thoughtless cockneys, 

 must soothe the asperities of the disappointed, and be a voucher to the 

 pure in spirit, of righteous intentions, on the part of the (lesser) powers 

 that be. 



Among many of these worthy rulers it is the well-assured conviction 

 that music hath that in it which leadeth to the road whose goal is 

 destruction and that it is the guileful charm of the charmer who 

 tempteth that he may devour the serpent, in short, of Adam's day, 

 which, now embodied in harmonic sounds, wriggleth guilt into the heart 

 of man, through the unfast gate of his auricular organs that is to say, 

 of the poor man, for riches have a neutralizing power and a resisting, 

 which the needy know not of. Tuneful sounds, so it is deemed, by 

 tickling the ear, conduce to a herding together of men and women in 

 unseemly community; for wheresoever such sounds be rife, thither 

 gathereth the multitude, and evil must of needs be where the many are 

 congregated clearly proving that sinfulness hath a sharp ear for music, 

 and delighteth in melody with an exceeding great delight. This is a 

 mournful acknowledgment of a fact, which the vulgar comprehended 

 never before that so it is, we have the testimony of a worshipful Bench, 

 whom to doubt were to wrong grievously. 



Long time, and assiduously, have these magistrates striven to interpose 

 a shield of protection between melody and the multitude, but as yet 

 their success hath not corresponded with the effort ; and it is very greatly 

 to be feared, that in this age of innovation, the barrier will ere long be 

 broken down with the strong arm of a benighted generation. Time was 

 a time of golden days ! when honest citizens were wont to be con- 

 tent with the solemn grindings of a street organ, from whose groanings 

 and squeakings, in dreadful diapason, no alacrity of sinful imaginings 

 was to be feared. But now, alas! our streets are infested with 

 gangs of minstrels, singing men and singing women, players on 

 harp and oboe, trumpet, timbrel, flute, and sackbut, viol, clarion, 

 and bugle wanderers, cunning in their craft, the chosen of 

 Satan, by whose instrumentation he designeth to cajole the virtuous 

 into iniquity, concerting his attacks in concertos, making overtures in 

 overtures, and triumphing by the score ! Now and anon, indeed, an old, 

 rusty, distempered, flatulent organ may be heard growling forth hideous 

 sounds (which bear some remote analogy to the old hundrelh, possibly, 

 or if not that, to nothing else), making more miserable the miserable 



M.M. No. 12. 3 Z 



