arrangement would be more excusable if the last measure of the former had been deprived of its consecutive 5th, and the second measure of the latter of its crude dissonance.

. The remainder of this class appears less exceptionable, though Lorn, page 115, furnishes us with two instances of a chromatic license, that we are not yet able to relish in psalmody.

The fifth class presents us with a considerable variety of style. It sometimes happens that a worthless composition, when once before the public, will acquire such a popularity as to render it difficult for a compiler to reject it; and policy, perhaps, may dictate that it should be suffered somewhat to outlive its popularity. But with regard to new music the case is quite different. No person is excusable, on any principles, for introducing as new acquaintances, such pieces as are not really deserving of patronage. Our country is already deluged with musical trash; and it is the duty of every editor and compiler to contribute his exertions towards diminishing the quantity.

But while the work before us furnishes considerable new matter that is valuable: 'we are compelled to say that there is a larger quantity that is more or less indifferent; and not a little that is positively insignificant. Our readers will probably agree with us in thinking that such tunes as Pembroke, Clifton, Tisbury, Antworth, China, Lucerne, Hopkins, Carmarthen, Allerton, Lothian, Prescot, Despondence, Courtney, &c. are unworthy of republication.

Most of the compositions also of W. Arnold, J. Arnold, and of Husband, Walker, Leach, Peck, Chapple, Dalmer, and Dixon appear rather insipid to us. Some glimmerings of genius are here and there discoverable in their compositions, but not in general sufficient to rescue them from undisturbed oblivion. Nor can we yet relish all the pieces that appear under the names of A. Williams, T. Williams, Smith, Taylor, Milgrove, and Costellow, however much we admire some of them. A favourite author will sometimes be found to write insignificantly, and it is only the best of his pieces tha should be inserted in a collection for general use.

But we hasten to speak of a sixth class where we are able to bestow commendation. Collingham, Babylon, Yarmouth St. Phillip's, Munich, Dundee, Newton, Dort, Hartford, Stade, Armley, Westbury, Kirkland, Fairfield, St.

Bridge's, Bath Abbey, Charmouth, Walsal, Feversham, and a few others may be considered as possessing superior excellence.

Gregor's Hosana' is composed in very fine style. The duet was originally designed for children to sing in response, and the chorus for the choir and congregation to unite with them; and hence, what might otherwise appear objectionable. repetitions, will not fail to excite a good degree of interest, especially when an organist furnishes us with the original accompaniment. Kent's Anthem Blessed be thou,' is truly excellent. The Heavens are telling is of classic celebrity; though too difficult for most singers, it will be found an excellent exercise for such as wish to perfect themselves in reading chromatic music; and the amateur will find near the close of the piece a beautiful specimen of the enharmonic. Denmark, HeraldAngels, and Dying Christian, still continue in favour with the public; and they appear in their usual dress.

This class of compositions may be cheerfully recommended to public patronage, and though at present they form an inconsiderable portion of a volume, which otherwise would not abound in well founded pretensions to science or taste, we sincerely hope that in a future edition they will be found more

numerous.

The rudiments of music, contained in the work before us, are incomplete in some respects, and redundant perhaps in others. There is something in relation to time and to intervals that might very conveniently be exchanged for a more complete system of solmization. But the style in which the rudiments are written is surprisingly illiterate. The following will be deemed a sufficient specimen.

'Music is written on five parallel lines and their four intermediate spaces: and are called a staff. making nine degrees, or places for the heads of the notes, and are counted upwards.

It has already been stated that the key. pitch, or tonic, may be elevated or depressed by flats and sharps to any of the twelve semitones of the scale. This may be done by flats or sharps placed at the beginning of the tune, on such lines or spaces as are necessary to bring the tones and semitones into their relative and proper order, required by the alteration intended."

And again,

And having thus found mi, the notes above are fa, sol, la, fa, sol, la, and then comes mi again-and below are la, sol, fa, la, sol, fa, and then comes mi again, as the foregoing examples will show.'

ART. V.-Lettres écrites d'Italie en 1812 et 13, à M. Charles Pictet, l'un des Rédacteurs de la Bibliothèque Britannique, par Frederic Sullin de Chateauvieux. A Paris et à Genève. 1816, 2 vols. 12mo. pp. 576.

PERHAPS there are none of our natural advantages which it still remains for us fully to appreciate and avail ourselves of, so much as those which respect the agriculture of our country.

Without running into all the errors of the economists or adopting their entire theory, we trust that we may assert the paramount importance of this pursuit, particularly to the 'United States. To every country it affords at least a partial, and often a complete subsistence for its population; it gives a constant and healthful employment to sometimes more than half, and never less than a fifth of the community; its profits though not so large, are more certain than those in other employments of capital; and while it replaces the annual advance invested, a surplus profit has accrued, and an occasion of national wealth been secured, which can be employed as private interest and the public good may require. But in the United States the cultivation of the soil has these and many more advantages; nay, it is intimately connected with our national character, because it powerfully acts upon the morals and constitution of our citizens. If it be true, that the torch of liberty has always burned with a purer and brighter lustre on the mountains than on the plains, it is still more true, that the sentiments of honour and integrity more generally animate the rough but manly form of the farmer, than the debilitated body of the artisan. There is in that primitive and honourable occupation, the culture of the earth, something which, while it pours into the lap of the state an increase beyond every other employment, gives more than the fabled stone, not only a subsistence but a placid feeling of content

*** Farmers and country labourers, on the contrary, may enjoy completely the whole funds destined for their own subsistence, and yet augment at the same time the revenue and wealth of their society. Over and above what is destined for their own subsistence, their industry annually affords a neat produce, of which the augmentation necessarily augments the revenue and wealth of their society.' Smith's Wealth of Nations, vol. iii. p. 178.

'Farmers and country labourers, indeed, over and above the stock which ma.ntains and employs them, reproduce annually a neat produce, a free rent to the landlord.' Ibid. p. 186.

New Series, No. 5.

7

ment; not only creates the appetite to enjoy, but guarantees its continuance by a robust constitution, fortified with the safeguards of temperance and virtue.

The anxiety of our countrymen to possess in fee a spot of ground however small, and the consequent paucity of leases, is a fact no less curious that it is solitary. This is not the case, or at least in any considerable degree, in any other country. Such indeed in Britain were formerly those small proprietors called Franklins, who possessed a keen spirit of independence and a determined opposition to oppression; feelings, which, with the alienation of their farms, have gradually departed from the breasts of their descendants.

Notwithstanding, however, the ease with which the pride of independent possession may be gratified, it is not the less true, that agriculture, instead of being a favoured, has been a degraded and unpopular pursuit; that instead of cherishing every motive which might lead to its honourable extension, we have endeavoured gradually to weaken its legitimate efforts. It is indeed a singular inquiry, why the cultivation of the soil among us should have been so little encouraged, when every state in Europe, since the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, has turned its most assiduous attention to this most important department of domestic economy, and ultimately borrowed from it the resources which have carried them through the prodigious conflicts of the last generation.

There have been many causes, certainly not all of equal efficacy, which have co-operated against the interests of agriculture. But there is a prominent one to which we can but just allude. During a very considerable period since the peace of '83, the peculiar situation of Europe has afforded opportunities for commercial enterprize too tempting to be resisted. American merchants received, in the lapse of a very few years, the most astonishing accessions of wealth; and fortunes, ordinarily the fruit of a laborious life, and never the portion of many, were amassed with unparallelled rapidity, and by large numbers. Our domestic prosperity more than equalled the extension of our trade. It was then that the compting-houses of our merchants were filled with youth from the country, who forsook the slower but surer emoluments of agriculture, for the mushroom but unsubstantial fortunes of commerce; nay, who preferred the meanest drudgery behind the counter of a retail-dealer, to the manly

and invigorating toil of the cultivator of his paternal acres. Unfortunately this spirit of migration was encouraged by too great a success in trade. Feelings of vulgar pride contracted in town caused the manual labour of the farmer to be regarded as degrading; this unworthy sentiment spread with baleful influence, and when the compting-houses became overstocked and afforded no longer a resource, it was no uncommon thing to see a young man with no qualifications but a little bad Latin picked up at a miserable village school, forsake a large and fertile farm and apprentice himself to a poor country attorney.

Another cause of the depressed state of agriculture, mentioned in a late publication,* is the constant emigration to the west. There must necessarily be a tendency to a most impoverishing system of cultivation, where people feel that after having extracted all the richness of the soil, they may throw it up and remove to a country, which offers them an untouched surface, and needs no artificial aid of composts or manure. The land, besides suffering from negligence consequent on the prospect of departure, will be worn out by successive crops, and long be rendered unfit for the more valuable dispositions of the agriculturalist. Indeed we have been informed, that in many instances, when the land is almost ruined by the continued culture of tobacco, it is sold by the planter to some enterprizing and laborious individual, who may restore it by his patience and attention, while he himself removes to another spot, where the same wretched system of exhaustion may again be renewed. There are other causes we might -mention, such as the unwieldy size of our farms, and particularly the want of a regular, enlightened farming system. But we cannot now stop to enter on these topics, but may notice them hereafter.

If then agriculture be so important an item in a nation's resources, affording subsistence to its population, and a surplus capital to be employed in the various objects of national industry and enterprize, it would seem to follow, that nothing but very imperious circumstances should induce any government to repress its vigour or palsy the exertions of those devoted to it. Immediately connected with such an attempt was the late bill before Congress, establishing a new tariff of duties. But why go back to a bill which was rejected? We

* Letters on the Eastern States.