448 NOTES OF THE MONTH. 



tan be supposed to sing, and no instrument can be endured in any 

 other than foreign hands. The humbler classes have caught the in- 

 fection. Any fellow tricked out with a feather and a cracked guitar 

 will command an audience, while itinerant native talent may t( waste 

 its sweeteess in the desert air." 



We recollect sometime since reading Mr. Planche's entertaining 

 "Tour by the Danube/' when he speaks with a sort of operatic rap- 

 ture very excusable in a good lyric poet and dramatist of the uni- 

 versal music he heard on either shore ; the small family orchestras in 

 every hut or cottage, the girls playing trombones, trumpets, &c. and 

 other feminine instruments j the boys violins, clarionets, and " such 

 like dulcet" discoursers of " most eloquent music." We must make 

 allowance for the excitement which so new a scene and such pleasing 

 accessories to it must beget in a mind of a tyro traveller, possessing 

 moreover the right warmth of poetic temperament ; but when he 

 descants on the scientific skill which these cottage Viottis and 

 Schmidts display in their performances, of four parts of his rapture 

 we must yield him one part, and deduct the other three. That mu- 

 sic is a mere common enjoyment or accomplishment with the hum- 

 bler classes on the Continent than it is here in ee merry England," 

 we have no doubt ; that it is superior, we deny. Of course we do 

 not allude to individual instances of perfection ; for no one can for a 

 moment deny the excellence and the superiority in a number of admi- 

 rable foreign artists over our native professors. Nevertheless we 

 have admirable men in our orchestras ; they are not numerous, but 

 where they are good, they are as good as the best ; that they are not 

 so considered by their countrymen is easy to be accounted for : pro- 

 phets are not honoured in their own land nor are fine musicians, 

 save by the discerning few. We love " foreign wonders," and must 

 have them : so be it ; but let us not overlook the merit at our own 

 doors we shall not then have one word of objection to make to the 

 growing taste for musical exotics ; let it grow and spread, till Eng- 

 land is the market for all the musical world. 



But what we mean to contend against is the superiority of the 

 humbler musicians of the Continent over those of our own shores. 

 We have been listening to a band of Swiss players, male and female, 

 all dirt, blue frocks, and cock's feathers of the dingiest hues. Never 

 did a more squalid group meet our eyes ; but we have not to do 

 with their poverty, but with their talents ; and these we deny. They 

 have played some half-dozen waltzes in the most common-place, 

 spiritless manner possible in wretched time, and not always in 

 tune ; one or two of them sharp at most up to the unendurable, and 

 the others flat down to the execrable. These people we must sup- 

 pose to be fair specimens of the peasant bands of which Mr. Planche 

 and others have rhapsodized so pleasantly : they have, perhaps, 

 thought themselves above the average of their brother mountain 

 players, else they would not have wandered so far to give us f -'a spice 

 of their quality." We are quite satisfied as to the merits of those we 

 have not heard by those we have. They play on instruments, but 

 they are not musicians. They are gone, and we are not sorry to part 

 with them. And now we listen to four English street-players 



