"When the children of Israel passed through the Red Sea." There are, however, no such words in the tenor part of the oratorio.

music must have been unknown. It will be enough to quote from Berlioz's entertaining work the substance of two anecdotes. A young lady― says the French composer whose literary productions every one can admire — buying a piece of music at Brandus's, was asked whether the fact of its being "in four flats" would be any obstacle to her playing it. She replied that it made no difference to her how many flats were marked, as beyond two she scratched them out with a penknife.

Among other unfounded charges made against Prince Bismarck, the illustrious statesman has been accused of describing Beethoven's "Sonata in A flat" as Beethoven's "Sonata in A." In that interesting novel of contemporary political life, For Sceptre and Crown," the Prussian foreign minister (anno 1866) cannot make up his mind to declare war against Aus- Our second anecdote, after Berlioz, is of tria. Much agitated he calls upon the em- a dancer who, rehearsing with the orchesinent pianist and politician, Herr von Keu- tra and finding that something went wrong, dell, to calm him by playing the funeral thought the fault must lie with the musimarch from-as the author, or at least cians. "What key are you playing in?" the English translator, puts it-"Beet- he inquired. "E," replied the conductor. hoven's Sonata in A.'" Prince Bismarck "I thought so," continued the dancer; has declared more than once in the Prus-" you must transpose the air. I can only sian Chamber that he never said "Might before right;" and that his famous remark about the efficacy of blood and iron was not his own, but was quoted from a well-known German poem. It would be interesting to hear from Prince Bismarck's own lips that he never spoke of the piece, which he probably knows as "the sonata with the funeral march," as "Beethoven's 'Sonata in A.'"

Some writers, in dealing with musical matters, commit errors of so simple a nature that one scarcely likes to raise a laugh at their expense. The pedant who makes a mistake ought never to be spared. But there was, at least, no affectation of technical knowledge in the observations addressed to the chief of a French municipality by a secretary, who, commissioned to report as to the manner in which the local theatre was managed, wrote: "The conductor of the orchestra has not played a note since his arrival. If he contents himself with making gestures, I suggest that he be discharged."

Nothing droller than the above is to be found even in that great repertory of moral and musical blunders from which several choice specimens have already been presented. For the best collection of similar mistakes brought together with derisive intention Berlioz's "Les Grotesques de la Musique" should be consulted. It is to be observed, however, that whereas the English writer goes wrong only when he speaks of composers, singers, musical historians, and musical works, without showing any fundamental ignorance of music as an art, the errors which Berlioz thought worthy of his attention are those of persons to whom, musicians as they thought themselves, the first principles of

dance to it in D." What would Berlioz have said could he have seen in one of the most beautiful poems in our language these melodious but inaccurate lines?

All night have the roses heard

The flute, violin, bassoon;
All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd
To the dancers dancing in tune.

It is scarcely necessary to point out that dancers, however perfectly they may dance in time, cannot, unless they make music with their feet, dance in tune. Berlioz, by the way, as a great master of instumentation, might not have liked the composition of the little orchestra - "flute, violin, bassoon." But the bassoon was adopted, years ago, into English poetry, and, thanks to Coleridge and to Tennyson, will remain there.

What, nevertheless, is to be said about Coleridge and his "loud bassoon," except that in the first place the bassoon is not loud? Out of The Ancient Mariner" no one ever heard a "loud bassoon." Having been long accustomed to it, however, people have got to like it, and now would not, on any account, see the "loud bassoon replaced by the "tender trumpet," or the "gentle ophicleide;" which for the rest would suit neither the rhythm nor the rhyme of the poem. There is, however, another solemn and sonorous instrument which might have served the poet's purpose. The trombone, since it has been associated with the statue of the commander, in "Don Juan"-who never speaks except to an accompaniment of trombones has possessed an unearthly character; and, vigorously played, there can be no question as to its being "loud." If indeed it were permitted to take with

Coleridge a tithe of the liberties which | be asked, except in connection with mu every one is allowed to take with Shake- sic? Are not the technical terms of picspeare, some commentator of "The An- torial act abused by critics of painting? cient Mariner" would doubtless have rewritten the last four lines of the "loudbassoon" stanza with "loud bassoon" replaced more or less ingeniously by "loud trombone."

Do not amateur strategists commit blun-
ders in describing the operations of war?
The answer to these questions is that
though every one is liable to make mis-
takes, no one runs the risk of making ridic-
ulous ones unless he travels beyond the
region of what he knows, or has tolerable
reason for thinking he knows. As regards
music, Fielding, without being a musician,
knew that those were impostors who de-
cried the genius of Handel in the interest
of his envious British rivals. Similarly
Thackeray was not to be deceived by the
laudations given by the Bludyers of his
time to Sir George Thrum at the expense
of Donizetti. But neither Fielding nor
Thackeray thought it necessary to go into
ecstasies about the "accord of descend-
ing fifths." Mozart, moreover, Mendels-
sohn, Weber, Spohr, were able in their
letters to speak of musical performances
without resorting to technicalities; and
there are excellent reasons why this rule -
followed as a matter of course by the
great masters in their familiar correspond-
ence should be observed by writers
who know enough about music to employ
musical expressions, but not enough to
avoid employing them incorrectly.
H. SUTHERLAND EDWARDS.

The author of "Music and Morals" supposes the life of Mendelssohn to have been written by a contemporary of Luther. An anachronism, however, is a comparatively mild form of absurdity. Shakespeare is full of anachronisms as of other inconsistencies. From Macbeth to Joan of Arc, all Shakespeare's serious characters quote Plutarch, and all his comic characters allude to affairs of the day-not their own day, but Shakespeare's. The old painters, too, committed anachronisms in regard to costumes and accessories of all kinds - including musical instruments. Apollo, the Muses, Orpheus, are represented playing the violin and other instruments by no means of their date; but at least they play them in a becoming manner. The instruments, too, are correctly drawn, and are those of the period at which the pictures were painted. In Paul Veronese's "Marriage of Cana," in the Louvre, the musicians play on stringed instruments of various kinds, such as the viola and violoncello. Domenichino's "St. Cecilia," also in the Louvre, plays the violoncello; and it is to be observed that she plays from notes which are held for her by a young angel who bears a strange resemblance to Mr. Buckstone. artists in the present day paint impossible A MESSAGE FROM ST. KILDA TO LORD instruments, and represent musicians playJ. MANNERS. ing under impossible circumstances. A WE wonder if Mr. Donald Cameron, of few months ago a picture might have been Lochiel, groom-in-waiting to the queen, seen at Christie's, the work of the late and unopposed member for InvernessMr. John Philip, in which there was a shire, knows where St. Kilda is. If he violin without bridge or strings. Mr. Du does not, as it is probable that, like the BritMaurier exhibited the other day in Punch ish government, the lord-advocate of Scota most gracefully drawn sestet party in land, the postmaster-general, and the mawhich the performers had no music be-jority of mankind he does not, he ought to fore them. Joachim will play his own be "heckled " next time he appears on part in Beethoven's or Mendelssohn's vio- the hustings as to his knowledge of his lin concerto without notes; it is the fashion just now for all our pianoforte soloists to play without notes. But the notion of concerted pieces being executed by all concerned without notes is preposterous. In a

Many

From The Spectator.

own county; and if he does he ought to be "heckled" much more thoroughly as to his neglect of the imperative interests of a most interesting section of his constituents. The people of St. Kilda have been totally forgotten by the British government, and he has not roared in their defence. It is all his fault. So far as we can make out, after much diligent study, the island of St. Kilda is by a legal fiction a part of the parish of Harris, the southAre no mistakes made, it may perhaps ern peninsula of Lewis, from which it is

"Music Party" by an old Italian, Flemish or French painter, it would be as impossible to find players without notes, as to find a violin without bridge or strings.

some thirty miles distant; and as Harris | gular pathos. He found the island inis included in Inverness-shire we presume habited by some seventy-three persons, St. Kilda is in that county too, and if so, remains of a rather larger number who the duty of defending St. Kilda from had been severely visited by the smallofficial oppression devolves on Mr. Don- pox, and who at first were inclined to fear ald Cameron, who will, we trust, when he that he might bring some kind of infechas heard the story, prefer constituents tious disorder with him. The Free Church to conservatism, and either scold or per- of Scotland, however, which, to do it jussuade Lord John Manners into remember- tice, never shrinks from its duty when ap ing that St. Kilda, small as it is, is part of parent to itself, has planted a minister the British Isles, and that to omit any even in St. Kilda, to be guide, philosopart of the British Isles from the purview pher, friend, and king to the poor people; and scope of British postal arrangements and the minister, Mr. Mackay, the only is a grave dereliction of duty. Seriously, man who talks English, does his duty with the omission of St. Kilda from postal ar- a will, standing there, Mr. Sinds says as rangements, though probably accidental, permanent sentry, to keep sin and misforand due to the exclusion of the island from tune out of St. Kilda; and as he exerted post-office maps, involves severe oppres- himself to remove their apprehensions, sion to very worthy Scotchmen, and ought Mr. Sands received a warm welcome, and to be immediately remedied. a great many presents of the only fuel, St. Kilda is a very small-three thou- peat turf. The islanders, indeed, so far sand acres very barren, very remote from becoming savage in their isolation, little island of the Hebrides, planted in a have become refined by it, and form a melancholy and extremely riotous ocean, community resembling in many respects so far to the westward that it has been the Pitcairn Islanders. Crime is absofound inconvenient to include it in the lutely unknown. They are all Free majority of maps, and it has in all serious- Churchmen, and all communicants; they ness been totally forgotten by the British | government. If a murderer appeared among its population, they would have to hang him themselves, if there were wood enough for a gallows-which there is not -for they cannot get to Inverness. Not only is there no official on the place, but no one ever goes there, there is no delivery of the mails - not even once a month or once a quarter-and there is absolutely no regular communication kept up with the county of Inverness, to which the island is legally supposed to belong. The people are too poor to keep a boat large enough to cross the thirty miles of rough sea which intervenes between them and the nearest land, the place is out of the track of steamers, and except for one single day in the year, when an employé of the owner, Mr. Macleod, of Dunvegan, goes to levy £60 of rent, and make what profit he can of fish and feathers, the island is as unvisited as if it were in another planet, except by occasional yachtsmen and tourists, who, however, for generaions back have never remained for more than a few hours. Lately, however, Mr. Sands, an artist with a love for solitude and for out-of-the-way experiences, made his way there, and remained on the island seven weeks, living in a cottage by himself, sketching the natives, and apparently practising for his own solace on the bagpipes; and his account of its people, simple and unpretentious as it is, has a sin

observe the Sabbath with a more than Scotch rigidity; they contribute no less than £20 a year to the Sustentation Fund, a sum equal to a rate of 6s. 8d. in the pound on their rental; and all read the Scriptures. Many of them can repeat from memory long chapters of the Gaelic Bible, they never fight, and they are studiously and almost superstitiously careful about giving offence to each other. They are so united, the six families of the island being of course closely related, that they are able to meet every morning and decide in council on the day's work, and they are unceasingly industrious:

During three months of winter the men weave rough cloth, -tweeds and blanketing, of which, besides providing clothes for themselves, they export a considerable quantity. They vary this sedentary occupation by going to fish when the weather permits. In spring, they scale the crags and visit the adjacent islands for eggs and birds, and cultivate their plots of ground. Wherever one rambles, one little spot of earth on the stony hills that will sees some proof of their diligence. Every yield a crop is enclosed with a stone fence and cultivated. And even where the soil is too thin to be productive in itself, it is artificially deepened, by shovelling on it the thin soil adjacent. These beds or ridges are called "lazy bits," although they are worthy of a better name. They preserve the ashes of their turf fires for manure, mixing with it the entrails and carcases of fowls.

The women are as industrious as the men,

doing all the work which many years ago | a kind of monopoly of the island produce. was done for them by their horses now He and he alone, in his annual visit, buys extinct-herding their eighteen cattle and the fish and the feathers and whatever three hundred sheep, making cheese, spinning thread, snaring puffins on dangerous islets, and doing all the housework. They are fine, stalwart men and women, but they have given up dancing and the singing-matches of which they were formerly fond, have forgotten their legends, and have abandoned all sports, even swimming, and seem, if we understand Mr. Sands' account, stricken with a kind of melancholy natural to people under such circumstances, who have never seen a tree, never tasted fruit of any kind, could not distinguish a horse from a dromedary, and have lived for years under some strange doom as to their children:

Macaulay says, "The St. Kilda infants are peculiarly subject to an extraordinary kind of sickness. On the fourth, fifth, or sixth night after their birth, many of them give up sucking; on the seventh, their gums are so clenched together that it is impossible to get anything down their throats. Soon after this symptom appears, they are seized with convulsive fits, and after struggling against excessive torments, till their little strength is exhausted, die generally on the eighth day." This mysterious illness still prevails, and if the cause is not speedily discovered, this interesting community will soon become extinct.

there is to sell, and deducting the rent and the price of the few articles they require, gives the people the balance, with which they buy the little they attempt to import, and support their church. They buy but little except a few bottles of whiskey for medicine, living on the sea-birds and their eggs for food, weaving their own clothing, and for the ornaments which the women cannot wholly lack beating out copper pennies for brooches, using the island peat for fuel, and for light burning the oil spit at them by the fulmar petrels:

The fulmar petrel is about the size of a medium-sized gull, which, with the exception of the bill (which is strong and hooked at the point), he very much resembles in appearance. He has long wings, which he keeps extended when in the air, and a light, graceful flight. He seldom moves a pinion, but glides in curves and circles, as though to keep aloft did not cost him an effort. He frequents the island of St. Kilda, and chooses a lofty habitat on the stupendous cliffs, and builds his nest on the grassy ledges. This bird lays only one egg, and the young one is ready to fly about the end of July. When caught, the fulmar ejects about a pint of malodorous oil from his nostrils, aiming it at the faces of his captors, who thrust his head into the dried stomach of which they burn in their lamps, and also exa solan-goose, and so preserve the liquid,

As the St. Kilda children, when removed
to Harris, escape the distemper, it is prob-port in barrels.
ably due to the mothers' diet, which con-
sists principally of barley-meal and roasted
sea-birds, the islanders having a prejudice
against fish, which is not, perhaps, so un-
reasonable as Londoners, who eat salt-
water fish chiefly as a luxury, are apt to
imagine. The St. Kildans, fancy, like the
people of the Eastern seas, that fish diet
causes skin-disease, which may possibly
be true. The rank puffin-flesh, however,
seems to strengthen the few children who
survive, for they grow up tall and healthy,
are singularly bold cragsmen, are perfect-
ly sober, a sure sign of health of stomach,
and will dare any precipice in their search
for their game, the sea-birds, with which the
island and the neighbouring rocks abound,
and on which they live. They used to
use the heads and necks of the solan-
geese for shoes, but they have given that
up now as uncivilized, though they still
sweep the floor with a goose's wing. The
women even visit the adjacent islets, and
there, wholly unaided by men, catch the
puffins in hundreds, barrelling their bodies
for winter food and collecting the feathers
for the owner's factor, who has established

These islanders have only one griev ance, the one to which we have alluded, but it is a very heavy one. They are too poor to buy a big boat, and having no communication with Scotland, they are absolutely at the mercy of the factor, who sells them all they require and buys from them all they have at his own prices. He seems to be a decent person, not taking more advantage than might be expected, but the islanders think if they had a boat, or could even send things in a mail-boat, say, once a month to Lewis, they might have more comfortable lives. They are capital oarsmen, and if the post-office would give them a boat would row it for themselves for the monthly communication, and so let poor Mr. Mackay, the minister, have his newspaper a month old, and at all events a chance of a letter from one of the few families who have left St. Kilda for the south or the colonies, and who now have not even a possibility of communicating with their friends. The people pay taxes, buying whiskey, and they are entitled to be recognized by the

post-office, and if we were Mr. Donald | longer time about it than others; but we Cameron, member for Inverness-shire, all, with few exceptions, get over every including St. Kilda, Lord John Manners thing in time, and after the due amount of should have an uncomfortable life of it despair has been undergone, the due numuntil their claim was recognized. Perhaps ber of tears have been shed.. it may be some claim on the postmastergeneral's sympathies that the St. Kildans are all exceedingly polite, so polite that they will on the slightest hint even leave off the luxury of boring. They think it polite to visit a stranger and talk to him: