It is but just to Dr. Stegall to admit that, musically, this is one of the best books on the list. Very few tunes have other than the old rhythmical forms. The exceptions are chiefly from the copies current in the German Protestant churches, in which all the notes of the strains are alike slow. The harmonies are also, with the exceptions last mentioned, generally of the old stamp, and well chosen. 17. The work now under consideration, with its unpronounceable title, is, as it should be, edited by a member of the Welsh Church, and contains 197 tunes of various degrees of merit, but of a generally high melodic standard. Of this number 41 tunes are copied from "Old Church Psalmody," or other works of the Rev. W. H. Havergal; 31 from "Hymns Ancient and Modern" of which 14 are by other harmonists than Mr. Monk; 20 from the Rev. R. R. Chope's "Congregational Tune-book;" 9 from the Weigh-house series of "Congregational Church Music;" 5 from Messrs. Goldschmidt and Bennett's "Chorale Book for England;" and 3 each from the S. P. C. K.'s “Hymns and Tunes," the Welsh "Tune and Chant Book," and the Rev. Samuel Roberts's "Llyfr Tonau Cynulleidfaol." These 115 reprinted tunes may fairly be passed by, the works from which they are taken having already been noticed, or are otherwise well known. The remaining 82 tunes, which alone constitute the peculiarity of the present work, may be thus classified:-37 are Welsh tunes, ancient and modern, with Welsh harmonists; 13 are other tunes with Welsh harmonists; and 32 are other tunes with other harmonists. The latter class consists chiefly of good specimens from the German, though a few are compositions by living or recent writers, as Sir F. Ouseley, the late Bishop Turton, and others. The Welsh tunes form, as might be expected, the chief point of interest in the volume. Some of the older melodies are uncommonly fine, as Erfyniad, Bethel, Christmas, Clod, and others. But of the Welsh harmonization of native and other tunes it is impossible to speak as favourably. Some good work bears the name of the editor, Mr. Evans, as Handel, Aberayron, Gwahoddiad, &c. Less satisfactory settings by the same hand are, however, more frequent; and of the many tunes harmonized by Eos Llechyd there is scarcely one that does not contain the most elementary schoolboy faults of which a harmonist can be capable. As a rule, iambic tunes take the modern form, but a few exceptions may be traced. 18. The work next in order, "The Parish Tune-book," unlike the last and many which preceded it, has no hymnal printed in connection with it. Its compiler is so enamoured of the S. P. C. K. collection that he thinks it unnecessary to produce another. His work must therefore be looked upon as a self-imposed attempt to rival Mr. Turle in his function of caterer to the Society's customers. The work contains 203 tunes of all kinds-good, bad, and indifferent. Mount Ephraim, Shirland, Warwick, and Bartleman's Morning Hymn, jostle the more decorous Abridge and Bishopthorpe, and these again the fine old melodies of older days. And this omnium gatherum is presented to the world as the result of "seven years' preparation." "Little short of two thousand tunes have been sifted" to produce this residuum. Of this number, 20 are presented by their proprietors or composers, while the use of 15 others "has been acquired by purchase." The first of these latter is the now well-known pirated Old 132nd Psalm tune, which is here inserted as Redhead's 29th, with the name REDHEAD in the composer's corner. This is not, as in the case of "Hymns Ancient and Modern " reprinting the tune with a false name, the result of ignorance, but a deliberate act in a work whose preface says,"The musical editing has been conducted entirely by Mr. Redhead "and as such is deserving of all reprobation. Of the other "purchased" tunes, which in a sense must be the most valuable portion of the work, Lindisfarne and Derwent, by E. Sedding, contain consecutive octaves and consecutive major-fifths; and Veni Emmanuel, by Dr. Gauntlett, contains an upward resolved minorseventh, and an unresolved ditto. If the select portion of the book be thus faulty, few will expect the bulk to be much better. Yet marks of care in other matters evidence themselves, and especially is this the case in the preservation of the old form for old tunes, for which Messrs. Chambers and Redhead have our best thanks. 19. In some respects Mr. W. H. Monk improved in the four years which intervened between the publication of "Hymns Ancient and Modern," and of Archdeacon Wordsworth's "Holy Year;" in others he retrograded. Thus, in Hymn 181, he perceived the weakness of his own St. Ethelwald, but in effecting a cure previous to its double insertion in the present work, he made a pair of consecutive major-fifths which did not before exist. But in the case of Redhead No. 29, he wisely declined to make any further "purchase," and accepted the present writer's word for the origin of the tune, and changed its name to Daye. The disingenuousness of the change, without any mention of the previous error, or thanks to his corrector, has been before. alluded to. 20. What Mr. Chambers essayed with respect to the S. P. C. K. book, Mr. Darnton attempts for not only that, but for Morrell and How's, "Hymns Ancient and Modern," Mercer's, Kemble's, the Wesleyan, the Congregational, "Hymns for the Church of England," and fourteen others, without any recognition of the labours of Messrs. Turle, Thorne, Monk, Goss, Wesley, Gauntlett, Steggall, &c. This is, to say the least, taking rather high ground, especially while congregations, who know less of other musical matters than those organist-editors, accept in good faith the little they know on metrical psalmody, and buy their books freely. There is good work in store for a properly constructed book of Comprehensive Psalmody, but Mr. Darnton's is not that book. When the public mind is ripe for it, such a book will, without doubt, appear to satisfy the felt want. The present work, though inadequate to its desired end, is harmonically very passable. The editor eschews generally the use of the third-fourth discord, and causes his parts to move melodiously. But the evil of the modern rhythmical form prevails throughout; and occasional tunes of a very poor character, some of them originals, find admittance. One, a prize tune for "Jerusalem the golden," is inserted. It is a remarkable production, reflecting upon its judges far more than upon its composer. Skips of sixths and sevenths abound in the melody and other parts: one of the latter in the melody occurring downward upon a strong time, followed by an upward sixth to the weak time; and three of the strains commence with discords. What must other competing tunes have been if this be the chosen from among them? and what does it reveal of our nakedness as a musical community! Let it not be thought that the present writer, from the tone of his remarks, has no sense of the great advance made during the last few years in our Church music. Tentative steps, though occasionally false ones, are yet, in the infancy of an art, and still more in its resurrection, necessary. He gave his testimony to the improvement, in taste at least, witnessed by the poorest work now under review, and he gladly repeats it. He has no knowledge of, or feeling against, any one of the writers whom it has been his duty to reprove, and has simply regarded their works from the standpoint which his advantages, not his deserts, have procured for him. S. G. HATHERLY. APOLLONIUS OF TYANA. Apollonius of Tyana, the Pagan Christ of the Third Century. An Essay by HE writer of this book takes for certain much that we shall THE make it our business to dispute. He regards it as a fact that the life of Apollonius of Tyana was written by Philostratus for the express purpose of representing him as another Christ; a person equal or superior to Him from whom the Christians were named. This, however, is but assumption. We have no intimation, either from Philostratus himself, or from any other sure authority, that such was the object of the book. All that Philostratus tells us on this head is, that he was requested by the Empress Julia Domna to draw up, in regular form, a biography of Apollonius from certain memoranda of Damis, one of his friends and followers, which had been presented to her by one of Damis's relatives. Some accounts of the man of Tyana had previously been written by Maximus of Ægæ, a secretary to one of the emperors, and by Moragenes, but these seem to have been but imperfect, and to have made him appear much more of a magician than the Empress and some others liked to think him. Philostratus had also seen a will of Apollonius, but all he says of it is that it showed him to be a divinely-inspired philosopher. But whether the intention, in producing a more complete life of him, was simply to portray him as he was believed to have lived and acted, or to extol him as a Pythagorean, and recommend, through him, the "Philostr. Vit. Apoll.," I., 1, 2, 3, 12. * doctrines and practices of Pythagoras; or, again, to depreciate, by a display of his performances, the character and actions of Jesus Christ, are matters on which, though we have ourselves settled our opinions on them, we shall here bestow a little discussion for the sake of others. If we examine these questions with such attention as we can give them, the investigation may be one of some interest; and if we do not satisfy every one, at the end of our course, that we have taken the right road, we may yet have found something to please or console us in our journey. Let us observe, at the outset, that in the work of Philostratus there is no mention of Jesus Christ, nor any indication that the author was aware of his having been on earth; nor is there any resemblance in his language, except in one passage, to that of the New Testament. We therefore set out on our researches on this point without any bias from that which we are to examine; we may dismiss from our minds, as far as we can, all that has been said on the subject by others, and endeavour to form a conclusion for ourselves. The matters which we shall chiefly have to consider, in attempting to do so, are the state of things in the Roman empire at the time that Philostratus wrote; the character of Philostratus himself; the life and actions of Apollonius, especially as an imitator of Pythagoras; and, last of all, the opinions or suppositions of various writers concerning Apollonius and the object of his biography. We turn our attention first on the Emperor Septimius Severus, who, in A.D. 193, was elected by the legions in Pannonia, being then forty-six years of age; and on his wife, Julia Domna, whom he had married about eighteen years before, at Emesa, in Syria, of which place she was a native, daughter of Bassianus, a person, as we learn from Dion Cassius, of a humble rank in life. Severus, having great trust in astrology, had espoused her on the faith of an astrological prediction that she was destined to be the wife of a sovereign, and, with his superstitious feelings, always allowed her much influence over his proceedings. It was by her advice, as it is said, that he took up arms against Pescennius Niger, who had been chosen by another part of the army as a rival emperor, and, having defeated him, established himself and his wife firmly on the throne, which he held for eighteen years, amply fulfilling the prediction respecting her. At the time that the aspiring Plautianus, a relative of Septimius, elated with his vast riches and distinctions, and abusing his influence with the Emperor, threw contumely on her and her sons, Caracalla and Geta, she is said to have lived much in seclusion, devoting her time to literature and philosophy, surrounded by rhetoricians, grammarians, and sophists, among whom were Dion Cassius, the lawyers Ulpian and Papinian, and Philostratus; and it may have been about this time, |