474 



NOTES AND QUEHIES. 



[2nd s, V. 128., June 12. '58. 



trivance been already brought, that one day last week 

 information was conveyed from Dover to London in the 

 space of only seven minutes. The plan proposed to be 

 adopted in respect to telegraphs is yet only carried into 

 effect between London and Dover ; but it is intended to 

 extend all over the kingdom." 



L. 



MUSIC IN THE UNIVERSITIES. 



It is announced that the candidates for the new 

 degree at Oxford and Cambridge may undergo a 

 voluntary examination in Music ; and I see refer- 

 ence made to those mystical terms " harmony and 

 thorough bass ; " but no particulars are mentioned. 

 This may lead to a more enlarged study of the 

 principles of the science, and in future students may 

 not rest contented when told here a sound is sus- 

 pended, sus. per coll. — hung up by the head or the 

 tail, — here another is retarded — collared by an 

 estoppel, — checkmated without a why or a where- 

 fore : there a third is converted into an appoggia- 

 tura, a Lilliputian Silenus, so tipsy he must lean 

 upon some other sound to prevent instant anni- 

 hilation; and so forth. All such unscientific 

 terms are absurd, because they represent appear- 

 ances only, and leave the realities unexplained. 

 As no knowledge of a language can be acquired 

 without a knowledge of the alphabet, so no 

 knowledge of music can be acquired without a 

 knowledge of the sounds in a key ; and unless a 

 student knows how many sounds there are lying 

 in the key of C, he cannot know how many in D, 

 or any other key. The two chief things to leajm 

 Jirst in music are sounds and rhythms, for to study 

 a combination of sounds, such as chords, before 

 knowing sounds, their origin and rights, in their 

 single estate, appears to me an ill-regulated pro- 

 cess ; and to treat upon the movement of chords 

 before knowing the science of progression or the 

 poetry of motion in sounds, is a mode of educa- 

 tion not less injudicious. Scale and rhythm are 

 ample fields for examination, and many a pro- 

 fessor of music would be puzzled to prove that A 

 flat or G sharp, D flat or D sharp, or even D 

 natural, have their right to be in the scale of C. 

 Such is the state of musical science at present 

 that not many men can give an intelligible answer 

 to this simple question, " Why are the sounds 

 C, D sharp, F sharp, A and C combined as a 

 chord in the key of C, and by what right are they 

 heard together ? " I put this question very re- 

 cently to an accomplished musician, and the 

 answer was, " The D and the F go before, and 

 stand in the place of the real sounds that are 

 coming." Strange as this may read, it is a far 

 more sensible explanation than any to be found 

 in any theory of music published in this country. 

 One word as to Thorough Bass, or the art of 

 reading distances from any given note. To affirm 

 that thorough bass reveals the roots of chords is 



to affirm what is not true. It does that for which 

 it was invented — shows the intervals used from 

 any given bass note ; and as there are only nine 

 figures employed, thorough bass can be well ac- 

 quired in six short lessons, the time Giardini took 

 to teach it. H. J. Gauntlett. 



Powys Place. 



P. S. — The true value of English systems on 

 harmony can be tested in a very simple way. 

 Everybody knows the adagio opening of Handel's 

 Overture to the Messiah, and that when the bass 

 begins the theme, the third sound is F, to which 

 Handel has put the chord of E. I ask any 

 mathematician, any theorist, any professor, nay, I 

 ask the Professors of the two Universities, to tell 

 the readers of " N. & Q." by what right these 

 sounds are heard together ? Of course I shall be 

 told the F is in a state of transition — a discord of 

 transition ; that is to say, Handel has given the 

 second of his key a first-class ticket, pushed it on 

 the rail, and left it to get home as it could. 



Minav Hatei* 



Saying on Black Hair and White Beard. — 

 There is a joke attributed to an eminent legal 

 dignitary and orator of our day, who, on being 

 asked by a barrister more remarkable for his 

 fluency than for his knowledge of law, how it 

 happened that his hair remained black, while his 

 whiskers had become grey, answered, that it was 

 owing to his having worked harder with his jaws 

 than with his brains. 



This joke is not original, as will appear from 

 the following anecdote in the Fureteriana : — 



" M. le Cardinal de Richelieu, qui avoit auprfes de lui 

 M. de Lort, lui demanda un jour d'oii vient qu'il avoit 

 les cheveux blancs et la barbe noire, et que lui M. de 

 Lort avoit la barbe blanche et les cheveux noirs. ' C'est, 

 monseigneur,' r^pondit cet habile m^decin, 'parceque vous 

 avez beaucoup travaille de la tete, et moi de la machoire.' " 

 (Ana, torn. i. p. 227.) 



Another saying on the same subject, but re- 

 ferring to the converse case, is given in a French 

 collection of jests : — 



" Henri IV. etant un jour h, Paris, et voyant passer un 

 homme qui avoit la barbe fort noire et les cheveux tout 

 blancs, il le fit appeller, et lui demanda d'ou venoit qu'il 

 avoit la barbe fort noire et les cheveux blancs. 'Sire,' 

 lui r^pondit I'homme, qui etoit railleur, et qui sentoit que 

 la question ^toit difficile h, resoudre, ' c'est que les che- 

 veux sont plus ag^s de vingt ans que la barbe.' " 



In the same volume of Ana, in which the above- 

 cited anecdote occurs, there are two passages 

 which deserve to be extracted : — 



" Semel comedere angelorum est, bis eodera die homi- 

 num, frequentius brutorum." (76. p. 52.) 



" Alchymia est casta meretrix, omnes invitat, nemi- 

 nem admittit ; est ars sine arte, cujus principium est scire, 

 medium mentiri, finis mendicare." (76. p. 117.) 



