FINE ARTS. :307 



capable of performing wonders and (to them) impossiljilities? It is 

 this comparison with a low, an exceedingly low standard, that, for 

 more than a centHrj"^, has been the bane, as it has been the pride, of 

 English musicians. They have rarely looked beyond their own li- 

 mited sphere, rarely enlarged their minds by an extended survey of 

 what was going on in other lands, and of the discoveries which were 

 every day being made by those who infinitely surpassed them in 

 research as well as in native power. To this unfortunate and nar- 

 row-minded tendency must we, in great measure, look for an expla- 

 nation of the inferiority of our composers, since the time of Purcell, 

 as compared with the liright luminaries who so thickly bestudded 

 the musical firmament of our continental neighbours. The time 

 was, indeed, when the works produced by our countrymen, instead 

 of suffering by a comparison with those of the continent, received 

 rather additional lustre from the juxtaposition. Witness, amongst 

 others, the names of Tye, Tallis, Bird, Orlando Gibbons, and 

 Henry Purcell, whose works, unfaded by time, still live, and ever 

 will live, to attest their greatness, and to bear witness that in Mu- 

 sic, as in other things, England may lift up her head amid her 

 proudest rivals without a blush. We hope to see the time when 

 she will again assert her equalit)'^, if not her superiority, and regain 

 with honour the position she once so nobly held. The power, we 

 doubt not, is present, and, once more directed into the proper chan- 

 nels, will manifest itself the more conspicuously from its temporary 

 misdirection and inefficiencv. 



Of the anthem at the head of the present article but little need 

 be said. It is the commonplace production of- a commonplace mind ; 

 enlivened by no single spark of genius, it drags its weary length 

 along ; as it begins so it ends, in solemn unmitigated dullness. The 

 only wonderful point about it is the ingenuity with which so many 

 notes are strung together to so lamentably little purpose, and the 

 extreme dexterity with which all feeling, all enthusiasm, is banish- 

 ed, in order to preserve the whole in unmeaning uniformity and 

 frigid inanity. 



INSTRUMENTAL. 



Chef's d'CEuvrcs de Mozart, a new and correct edition of the i)i«no- 

 forte works (with and without accompaniments) of this celebrated 

 composer. Edited l)y Cipriani Potter. Nos. 2, :5, 12, 13, and 

 14. London : Coventry and Ilollier, 71> Dean-slrcet, Solio. 



TiiK republication of classical music by some of the first houses, 

 and edited by eminent musicians, is a sign of the times which augurs 

 well for the prospects of art in this country. The assertion that 

 the Engliiih feel no enthusiasm for music, is contrary to fact : wit- 

 ness the time and money expended in the pursuit. But their eflbrts 

 arc too often wasted on trifles intrinsically incapable of yielding an 

 adequate return of pleasure. It is a fallacy to regard bad taste as 



VOL. VII., NO. XXII. KU 



