birjmingham musical festival. 211 



Every tone gives rise to an indefinite number of others, produced by 

 the aliquot* parts of the sonorous body. The principal sound is 

 termed the Jiuidamenial note, those caused by it, being much softer, 

 harmonies. Since, then, a fundamental note with its harmonies 

 form a common chord, there is, properly speaking, no such thing in 

 Nature as a simple sound. Now with every sane human being the 

 power of distinguishing, and deriving pleasure from, sounds thus 

 produced, is equally innate with that of calculating numbers and 

 discriminating" differences of form. On this ground we are no way 

 afraid of contradiction from those whom experience has qualified to 

 decide. 



The art of Music, then, having Nature and the constitution of the 

 human mind for its foundation, has been gradually brought to its 

 present state of complication by following out the principles which 

 regulate sounds, and by taking advantage of the properties possessed 

 by their combinations to excite the imagination and the feelings. 

 The arithmetician investigates the properties of numbers, the geo- 

 meter those of lines, and the chemist explores the qualities of mat- 

 ter ; and although each effects combinations not to be met with in 

 Nature, their pursuits have never been stigmatised as unnatural. 

 To bring the analogy yet closer to our subject — the painter, in com- 

 bining forms and colours, light and sliade, employs materials fur- 

 nished by Nature, yet scruples not to apply them in a manner far 

 from identical with hers: they are but the instruments, with 

 which, working out the imaginings of his own mind, he produces a 

 work of art. Even so it is with the composer. He is the poet, not 

 of words, forms, or colours, but of sound. If his art is to be con- 

 demned as unnatural, on the same principle ought every other art 

 and every science which effects new combinations to be blotted out 

 from the book of human attainments. Leaving the defence of other 

 branches of knowledge in the hands of tliose who are both able and 

 willing to ward off the feeble attacks of the lovers of darkness, be 

 it our task to explain the grounds on which ]\Iusic rests its claim to 

 rank as one of the noblest arts vouchsafed to man for his happiness. 



The oscillations of a sonorous body cause vibrations in the atmo- 

 sphere, which, in their turn, acting upon the external and internal 

 mechanism of the ear, afi'ect that portion of the brain whose func- 

 tion it is to judge of their pitch : each set of vibrations gives rise 

 simultaneously to innumerable others, which, by the spontaneous 

 action of Nature herself, afford the mind exquisite delight. When 



• Parts related to each other in the ratio of 1, 2, 3, 4, &c. 

 VOL. VII., NO. XXII. BE 



