THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW.
WE do not consider it necessary either to announce or to describe the successive Numbers of the Quarterly Literary Periodicals.. they rarely contain matter which calls for notice, and on the whole possess far too little influence on public opinion to be watched with much vigilance. The Westminster Review is entitled to the benefit of an exception, both because its claims are not so well un- derstood in the world as those of others, and again, for the vigour, originality, and playfulness with which its peculiar views are urged upon the conviction of its readers. The Westminster now most of all possesses the virtue of unity of purpose: its principles are infused into its articles, whether the subject be the laws of Corn or the laws of Harmony. One masterly writer, whose pea seems to have the greatest range of any of the present day, takes a prominent position both in the conduct of the Review and its com- position. His rich and peculiar style is not to be mistaken ; and we probably should not err in attributing as many as four or five articles of the present Number to the author of the Catechism of the Corn-Laws and the Instructions for Tuning the Guitar. The following brief extract is in praise of the writer's favourite in- strument, the guitar: it occurs in a review of GARIIINER S Mune of Nature, to which singular work we have already called the at, tention of our readers.
It is rather hard that, after commemorating every thing that squeaks, or squalls, or hums through the nose, no other mention should have been made of the descendant of the cithara of the ancients, the lute of our well-favoured an- cestresses. A niurrain on the man who hath no leaning towards gentle anti- quity ! If instruments were estimated by their effect, divided by their magni- tude, the guitar with its hundred tones would hold considerable rank. But musicians love to conic forth and call upon their gods;, and think scorn to com- mune with an instrument that brings an orchestra to every man's hearth for about the cost of an alderman's dinner. It is true its scale is not absolutely the purest ; for it is that division of the octave into twelve equal intervals, which . was the subject of great expectation with musician while it was thought diffi- cult and ram. lint this is of small import in an age which finds beauties is uutunealdeness, and believes exact intonation would be an evil end a loss. Its intonation is in some keys-inferior to the pianoforte's; but the pianoforte cannot warble, er articulate, or sigh, or wail, or tremble like the human voice under emu; iou a., the guitar ; it cannot effect that oblivion of worldly ills, which a philose;lier said eras produced on him by a moonlight night, and Lord — by e:t ankle. It may- be assumed, that in every instrument, the power of ex- pre,t,ion will be in proportion to the immediateness of the contact between the , sounding materials and the performer. Hence, of all wind instruments the-bag- pipe is the least sentimental ; and strings are fully conscious of the difference between being touched by a maiden's fingers and by the intervention of a stick. - None but the lute can have the vox liuntana topes,—the distinct soprano, mezzo, contr' alto, and tenor voices,—which reside about the middle of the thinner strings, and the miniature Dragonetti that lurks within the thickest, inter- changeable at will with the cumbrous alacrity of the bassoon. The forte of the lute kind is imitation,—not of beasts or birds or things material, but of musical expressions ;—the conjuring up of all recollections that hang by sounds, from a simple melody to the triumphant " Orquesta" of the Spanish cadet that forsook Ferdinand and a lieutenancy for love—of his guitar. Of all dulcet sounds; none can surpass a duet of Huerta's on the middk of the second and third strings, emerging from a wilderness of notes, deficient indeed in noise,. but giving the. - liveliest idea in miniature of an overture by a full band. It is Lord Byronli image for sweet things,—" the voice of girls." Or the same frail machine can produce a retraite, that would draw two souls out of one adjutant,—an old sol- dier may positively see the little drum-boy straddle, or stir his barrack fire and think upon the dewdrop pendant at the bugler's nose;—varied on the harmonics with a ran plan plan worthy of him who at midnight musters the spectre - guard; with the palpable flavour of parchment as it would come from his mar- . rowless knuckles across the ghastly heath. And then Can come pipes, and reeds, and oaten stops, and distant choirs, priests chanting merrily, or mass, or requiem, and poor lost Italy,—curse on all traitors and justes milieus of the earth !—and fair romantic Spain, and floating forms, and dark mantillas, and: castanets that turn the air to rhythm. All these cannot be had from a spinet., But they require some. husbandry,—a .parlour twilight, or a turret lone, whom gabbling boys are fast abed; and there is one peculiar tone, whatever be the cause, that is never brought out but in the small hours of the morning. Above all, these things are hid from simpletons who seek them in a crowded theatre, and then declare they nothing heard. They might as well line the stage with minia- tures, and view them from the upper boxes. But he has missed the strangest , effect of music, who has not heard the "Carnival of Venice" in the long gallery that leads down to the tombs of the Pharaohs. Organs would have been ?mu- pons mookeries: but the small voice of the guitar said "All flesh is grass,' in- a- way way there was no resisting. It was as if the donuts &rills Plutania was piping the joys and cares that four thousand years have swept inteeternitp. Nothing ever gave a man such a vehement desire to cry;—not even the little duck-tails of Signor Passalacqua's nankin jacket could break the charm. It is herd the. author could tell no story of the guitar. Did he never hear of- the Portuguese' army—would it were Miguers l—that fled and left eleven thousandguitarattPuSi the field? Or of the surprise of quarters in the Succession war an Spesnsees. where the foremost cavalier found. the enem_y's vide.fte tuning his guitar' as b•sat on horseback, and perceiving he did it ill, took it from his hands, and re- turned it, saying, Ahora es Iegaplada (Now it is in tune), and passed cat , There must be some inward grace, where there are no many outward Men have not so forgotten themselves in race and war, without there being something that twined about their souls, in a way that "kists full 0' whistles
or of hammers have not surpassed.. _se
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