mans; and a sheep track, which leads one up and down and roundabout, through valleys of mud, over break-neck hills, to the lake-side. It is the sort of journey in which the halts leave a very pleasing association, and I treasure the memory of Rieca. That tiny village climbs up the hill-side, after an independent, Montenegrin manner. It has a quaint bridge of unknown antiquity, and a record of unbroken warfare. There is nothing else to describe. There is nothing in the land but stones and glory. The pull across Lake Scutari at dawn next day, in a boat unchanged of shape since Roman times or earlier, is worth some trouble and fatigue. To see in Europe the paddle and the crossed sweeps used after the Chinese fashion is a pleasure, but it may also be enjoyed upon the Danube. A lovely sheet is this lake, full of lilies and water-chestnuts, to secure which as we glide by gives perilous employment to half our crew. Fine hills surround it, and every one has a score of tragic legends. The epic age has not yet passed in this country. We muster strong, and our course lies well within the Montenegrin frontier; but our brawny mariners, clothed in arms from groin to breast, keep a watch for suspicious craft.

On the other shore to horse again, up and down and round about, rising always, until towards dusk, if all have gone well, we look from the shoulder of a mountain on the emerald plain and the deceptive neatness of Cettinje. That oddest of capitals has been described often enough: the best of it perhaps is the getting thither. But if in riding up the main street for the first time one chance to meet the Waywodes and superior officers dispersing after a levée, as I did, that picture is not to be forgotten. They are nearly all gigantic-all superbly martial. Their costume is equalled only by the Scotch :--a round cap, scarlet and gold, long white coat, brilliant waist-scarf, and over it a scarlet weaponbelt, emptied within the precincts of the court, blue breeches, and high boots. The plaid is not to be named for effect beside the struka, a rug home-woven, black, with slight imperfect bars of colour at the edge, fringed very heavily. It is worn, as a rule, across the shoulders, leaving all those gay accoutrements displayed; but its extraordinary weight keeps it in almost any position, if folded. No description could represent the savage majesty of warriors thus accoutred stalking by groups in the moonlight, sparkling with gold and silver, the fringe of their strukas sweeping the earth.

422

TUNES.

It would be certainly interesting, and possibly useful, to know the particular composition performed by Orpheus when he headed that somewhat startling procession of birds, beasts, trees, and rocks, which followed him admiringly, entranced by the music of his lyre. Similar information with regard to Amphion and the persuasive strains by which he induced the stones of Thebes to move, or perhaps dance to their places and build themselves into a city without the intervention of masons and bricklayers, would have an obvious value during a strike in the building trade. So, too, the discovery of Arion's manuscript score might perhaps influence the price of fish in a manner beneficial to the consumer, assuming that the dolphin is or can be rendered palatable food. There is every reason to fear that the works of these distinguished musicians are lost beyond the hope of recovery; there can, however, be little doubt that the surprising effects referred to were produced by the agency of simple Tunes. Birds and beasts can know nothing of thorough-bass, and stones and dolphins are, as a rule, profoundly ignorant of the mysteries of counterpoint and fugue. A tune, which may perhaps be defined as a melody possessing an especially obvious rhythm, appeals directly to an almost primitive sense, common to nearly all civilised men and possibly to dolphins. The appreciation of music in its higher forms demands the deliberate and careful cultivation of an inborn taste. It is not by mere instinct that the full merit of the masterpieces of Beethoven and Mozart is recognised. A man may be possessed of an undoubted 'ear,' his love of music may be perfectly genuine, and yet much of what is ordinarily accepted as high-class music may be utterly beyond him. He is simply bored by oratorios, symphonies, and concertos: the crash of choruses, the quaint and marvellous intricacy of fugue, and the giddy rush of an overture, are to such a one possibly imposing, certainly bewildering, and frequently wearisome. If he is a man of superlative and unnatural honesty he will admit this. If he is merely possessed of the average amount of courage he will say nothing about it. He will humbly accept the verdict of connoisseurs, and will go to classical concerts much as he goes to church, from a dim sense of duty and because it is the thing to

do. He will scan the programme with apparent satisfaction; but when it contains an item described as Op. 56, he will be conscious of inward misgivings, and though his external demeanour during its performance may be decently expressive of enjoyment, he will be secretly yearning for the conclusion.

On the other hand, there are very few persons who are wholly insensible to the magic of a Tune: many who have no power of reproducing half a dozen notes with their proper intervals can readily distinguish their favourite tunes and find a genuine enjoyment in hearing them and in beating time more or less incorrectly with head or hand. Charles Lamb, who was by his own account organically incapable of a tune,' and who had been furtively practising "God save the Queen" all his life and never arrived within many quavers of it,' declared that it would be a foul selflibel to say that his heart had never melted at the concourse of sweet sounds.' Squire Western, too, though he always excepted against the finest compositions of Mr. Handel,' made a practice every afternoon, as soon as he was drunk,' of hearing his daughter play over the tunes he loved.

6

The influence of tunes may be considered as twofold: in the first place there is the gratification of the simple sense which we call ear,' to which a tune is pleasing as warmth to the body and colour to the eye. The gratification thus derived from tunes may perhaps be distinguished as emotional; though, indeed, the perception and enjoyment of music is often accompanied by such physical effects as to point to the conclusion that its action on the body might be even described as mechanical. David, the cunning minstrel, chased away the dark spirit that troubled his royal master; Annot Lyle did like service for Allan McAulay when the gloom was heavy upon him; and a traveller in Columbia describes how a tribe of North American Indians regularly employ music as a cure for certain bodily complaints. Dodwell, a nonjuring writer of the Revolution period, throws valuable light on this part of the subject. He defends the use of instrumental music in churches on the ground that the notes of the organ have a power to counteract the influence of the devil on the spinal cord. To explain this view he remarks there is high authority for the opinion that the spinal marrow, when decomposed, becomes a serpent. Without necessarily adopting the theory of this ingenious writer, there is little difficulty in recognising the direct influence of music, and especially of tunes, on the religious sentiment. Music, as an

element in public worship, has been adopted by almost every sect, but its effects are especially marked in what are known as religious movements. Wesley estimated very highly the value of this influence, and prided himself on the singing in the congregations of the Methodist Connexion; while in more recent times, revivals,' such as those led by Messrs. Moody and Sankey and the Salvation Army, have owed much of their success to the employment of simple but striking hymn-tunes.

The value of music, and especially of tunes, as a stimulant to the military spirit is also sufficiently obvious. Even Plato, whose taste in music, or at least in musical instruments, was deplorable, admitted some sort of military music into his ideal state; though, as if in anticipation of the modern fife and drum abomination, he would only tolerate the flute. The minstrel Taillefer chanted the Song of Roland as he rode, like a mediæval Tyrtæus, before the Norman fort at Senlac. The Parliamentary troops raised a psalm, doubtless with a nasal twang, as they charged the Cavaliers at Newbury; and the Covenanters lifted up their voices in like manner in the fight at Bothwell Brigg. Even the peaceful citizen of modern times is sometimes conscious of a thrill of military enthusiasm as he watches, perchance from his own shop-door, the passing of a regimental band. His soul is stirred by the martial strains, and he feels that he too is, or might be, capable of heroic deeds.

Considerable, however, as is the power possessed by tunes of directly affecting the emotions, it is in another quality that their most potent influence is to be sought: namely, as ready vehicles of association. Few persons can have failed to notice the facility with which associations group themselves around a tune, and the rapidity with which whole trains of possibly long-buried memories are awakened by the familiar sounds.

It is this quality in tunes that will sometimes make maids and even matrons grow pensive when they catch the strains of a familiar waltz. It is this that suddenly straightens an Englishman's knees when he hears in a foreign country the first few bars of 'God save the Queen,' and that prompts the expatriated Scotchman to grasp the hand of a comparative stranger, and in extreme cases to mount upon the table and there wave his glass, to the accompaniment of Auld Lang Syne.'

It is this that causes, it is said, the Swiss mountaineer, when he hears in exile the well-known Ranz des Vaches,' to fall into a

melancholy so profound that he often pines away and dies of mere nostalgia. It was this, perhaps, that the Jewish captives felt when by the waters of Babylon they sat down and wept, and hung their harps upon the trees that were therein: they could not sing the songs of Zion, captives and in a strange land. It is this, too, that gives to such familiar tunes as the Christmas and Easter hymns a value in the estimation of many quite disproportionate to their intrinsic musical merit. Like the battered furniture of an early home, such tunes are often endeared to us by the memories they carry with them. They are as kindly magicians at the sound of whose voice the doors of the temple of memory open wide and enable us to step in a moment from the glare of the Present into the dim cool twilight of the Past.

The readiness with which tunes become the vehicle of associations has led to their frequent adoption as national or political badges. Whatever be the nature of the force which draws and holds men together, some external symbol is instinctively sought which shall represent to themselves their common hopes and aims, and to the world their corporate character. The nation boasts its flag, the regiment its colours and its uniform, the college its gorgeous ribbon, and the Pickwick Club its coat. But it is not only by definite and organised bodies, such as the regiment and the college, that such badges are employed.

The varying fortunes of the Stuart family in England formed the theme of a whole literature of songs and ballads, often set to music, the influence of which in sustaining the enthusiasm of the Jacobites, especially among the lower orders and in the remoter parts of the kingdom, was considerable. In estimating the amount of this influence, it would be easy, of course, to fall into the error of attributing to the tune alone an effect which was in reality due, partly or wholly, to the words. The tune is no doubt originally merely the vehicle of the words; it gives them, however, vitality, and greatly intensifies their effect: the multitude will not, as a rule, take the trouble to learn or even understand a political ballad, and for one who appreciates the words a dozen will probably pick up the tune. It is noticeable, too, that when a tune has once acquired a political significance, it is frequently adapted to several sets of words, a fact which appears to show that it is the tune rather than the words which obtains the strongest hold upon the popular fancy. This was especially the case with a song which was closely associated with the history of the Stuarts during