Nature and Art, Febnmry 1, 1867.] 
MUSIC AT HOME. 
55 
died away, the yachtsmen heard the still more congenial 
sound of the sea, hissing, rushing, and caressing their vessels 
as they gathered way and cut through the foam-crested 
waves of the Atlantic. Lying inshore, the Henrietta was 
the last to catch the breeze, but quickly recovered this 
slight delay as she veered off from the land. For some 
time the steamers and tugs escorted the yachts in proces- 
sion, the bands on board the former playing “ Auld Lang 
Syne.” The wind gradually rose and the yachts increased 
their speed, the farewell cheering became fainter and fainter, 
and the last of the tugs, with a parting hurrah, turned 
homewards ; while, in responsive cheers, the crews of the 
yachts bade a temporary adieu to the United States. Day- 
light rapidly declined, the sun sinking beneath the western 
horizon in a departing halo of crimson and gold ; and at 
nightfall the friends lost sight of each other until they 
again met in the harbour of Cowes. 
The Henrietta, showing a blue flag by day and a blue light 
at night, sailed along over the Atlantic course ; making the 
Scilly Isles on December 24th, at 7.45 p.m., passing Hurst 
Castle the next (Christmas) day, at 4 p.m., and arriving off 
Cowes at 5.40 p.m. ; the winner of this Ocean Derby, having 
accomplished the voyage in the brief space of thirteen days, 
twenty-two hours, and forty-six minutes. 
Notwithstanding her remarkably swift passage, the 
Henrietta experienced the reverse of fair weather. She once 
lay to for ten hours in a gale, and in a subsequent calm of 
ten hours’ duration she made but little .progress. After- 
wards the weather proved tolerably fine, until the Henrietta 
reached the Scilly Isles, and then she encountered, in the 
British Channel, the fogs, mists, and gloomy weather so 
characteristic of our climate in the winter season. It was 
under this cheerless aspect that she reached the goal of 
victory (without the loss of a strand of rope or a shred of 
canvas), to be greeted with such hearty, enthusiastic wel- 
come as must have quickly dispelled from the minds of all 
on board any prejudicial notion that Englishmen’s feel- 
ings are influenced by the gloomy nature of their climate. 
The Fleetwing showing a red flag by day and a red light 
at night, commenced her voyage under most unfavourable 
auspices, which eventually culminated in the appalling- 
catastrophe so ably depicted by Mr. Dutton. On the even- 
ing of December 11th, the Fleetwing lost her weather 
square-sail boom the day following her jib-boom was 
.carried away, and she again lost it on the 16th. At 9 p>.m. 
on the 19th, while she was running dead before the wind, 
she broached slightly to, when a huge wave broke on board 
amidships. As her stern sunk in the trough of the sea, the 
immense volume of water rushed aft ; washing- overboard 
six of the eight men forming the watch in the cockpit. 
The remaining two (the mate and the helmsman), as also the 
two look-out men, stationed forward, escaped the awfully 
sudden doom to which their ill-fated comrades were hurried. 
During four hours the Fleetwing lay to, while those remain- 
ing on board fruitlessly endeavoured to discover the victims 
among the waves which had engulfed them. Continuing- 
her voyage with a diminished and naturally depressed crew, 
the Fleetwing eventually reached Cowes at 2 a.m. on 
December 26th ; thus arriving- some eight hours after the 
winner. 
The Vesta, which showed a white flag and white light, had 
remarkably favourable weather throughout her passage, and 
neither shipped a sea nor lost a rope. Taking a more 
northerly course than her opponents, she escaped the gale 
which caused the Henrietta’ s long detention and the Fleet- 
wing’s lamentable accident. Owing, however, to the devia- 
tion of her compasses, she went considerably out of her true 
course, and had to bear up off the Scilly Isles, which she 
sighted one hour earlier than the Hewietta, and to make good 
her lost ground. In addition to this, the pilot, whom she 
picked up about ten miles off the Needles passage, mistook 
his course, and almost ran her ashore and wrecked her on 
the rocks off St. Catherine’s ; by which error she was again 
unnecessarily delayed. She reached Cowes the last of the 
three yachts, arriving at 3.30 a.m. on December 26tli, one 
hour and a half after the Fleetieing. 
The distances respectively Sailed in the race are stated to 
be as follows : — Henrietta, 3, 040 miles ; Vesta, 3,069 miles ; 
and Fleetwing, 3,200. The respective maxinram and mini- 
mum daily distances sailed are, Henrietta, 280 and 113 miles; 
Vesta, 277 and 165 miles; Fleettving, 270 and 136 miles. 
Viz, 
MUSIC AT HOME. 
W HEN Christmas is fairly over, and the. old 
gentleman with the scythe and hour-glass 
is deposed in favour of that infant Hercules, the 
New Year, Britannia forthwith inclines to festivity, 
and devotes herself to party-giving. Pantomimes 
and burlesques are very well in their way, but 
the young people must be made jubilant at home. 
Those who live hi Rome necessarily follow in the 
wake of the genteel Romans ; and all who take 
delight in that institution known as “ Society,” are 
called upon to do their best towards promoting what 
vulgar little boys, partial to sliding, term “ keeping 
the game alive.” Matrons who, with their daughters, 
sail into two or three salons per evening, or even 
one per week, are required to occasionally throw 
open their own apartments ; and persons who 
partake of hospitality as represented by quadrille 
bands, bon-bons, ices, and champagne, must offer 
similar delights in return. Festivity may not be 
hydra-headed, but it takes varied forms, and a 
few remarks upon the comparatively mild delights 
of a “ musical evening ” may not, perhaps, be con- 
sidered out of place. Materfamilias having no 
Harlequin’s wand at command, cannot “ turn the 
| house upside down” for the delectation of her 
dancing friends without considerable inconvenience ; 
J she therefore chooses a quieter form of entertain- 
ment, and perching Euterpe upon the grand piano- 
forte, invites gentle and simple to worship the 
second Muse after their own fashion, that is to say, 
after the fashion of the day ; for to be unfashionable 
in music is to meet with looks of pitying wonder 
from some of the brightest eyes in the world. 
Could society be furnished with statistics relating 
to musical parties, it would probably transpire that 
during the last quarter of a century these enter- 
tainments have increased a hundred-fold. There 
are soirees musicales, where court beauties all a-blaze 
with diamonds, find themselves face to face with 
operatic stars in the evening dress of private life ; for 
the loving and confiding Margherita does not always 
wear her hair in long plaits, neither does Mephis- 
topheles appear in scarlet hose when he sings his 
(strictly speaking) fiendish serenade. There are 
also the musical parties of middle-class life, where 
volunteers take the place of hired mercenaries ; and 
where Mendelssohn’s First Violet pales before a 
jewel of such exceeding brightness as the fashionable 
