144 BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 
gentle appeal, and to lift the heart into its highest region 
of sympathy and moral beauty, by the blending into one 
harmonious whole of the simple things around it. The 
Old Arm-chair ; Oh, Nannie; and the Evening Bells, 
have kindled more pure aspirations and left dearer 
memories behind than all the morceaux of the French 
and Italian masters that ever were introduced into the 
boudoir. The ballad is essentially the song of home; 
its appeals are direct, and it plays upon the emotions by 
a rhyming of the things that are near and dear to us. 
Happy the child whose first sleep is softened by a 
mother's song; happy the mother who sings her child 
to sleep ! Happy the home w r here music supplants the 
attractions of the tavern and the gambling-table; happy 
the bride who loves the wedding bells for their own 
sake, and mingles with the first cares of the wife a song 
to w r in her husband's kisses—for “ domestic happiness 
is of that quiet nature which the heart enjoys but the 
tongue boasts not,—it is like that still music which the 
ancients supposed is going on above—not the less sweet 
for its making no noise in the ears of this world." 
