Commerce, in a letter from Canton, it is stated that our commerce has to contend with an overwhelming monopoly which the Chinese government enforces, by confining the regulation and conduct of every branch of foreign trade to a certain number of native merchants in Canton, who compose "the Hong," and are subject to the surveillance of the provincial government, and are even appointed by the government. The writer then proceeds to show that such a monopoly can only be met with its own weapons, as the absolute command of great capital and credit; and, further, he adds, the Chinese "stand in awe of the East India Company alone, which, composed as it is, of a regular succession of civil officers, proceeding, step by step, to rank and responsibility, and thereby becoming thoroughly conversant with the trade in all its bearings, as well as with the dispositions, wiles, proceedings, and views of the Chinese government and Hong merchants,-forms precisely that confederacy of well-combined action, supported by capital, which no arts of the natives can effectually combat or neutralize." Nevertheless, the writer allows that the heavy expenses of such an establishment as the factories at Canton, the equipment of the ships, engaged in the trade, and the support of the discipline maintained in them, all tend to uphold the price of tea in England, the reduction of which is the grand object in

view.

ORIGIN OF MUSIC.

ANTIQUARIES may dispute and quote the earliest authors in corroboration of some favoured theory concerning the origin of musical instruments and of music itself, but their researches like their ideas are extremely limited. They all quote Egypt, the earliest civilized portion of the old world, that strange and mysterious land where history begins upon the ruins of departed nations, and where the antiquary, instead of tracing mankind from a state of rude ignorance, is suddenly plunged into a period resplendent with science, arts, and glory. The various subsequent periods afford him opportunities of tracing the progress of many infant colonies, but Egypt was the lamp which scattered light over the surrounding darkness. To trace music to its earliest source is impossible to those who are unable to trace those fountains whence Egypt derived her sciences. And the only conclusion at which we can arrive, is, that whenever man commenced to exist in a state of society, then music, like an indigenous plant, sprung up and flourished there: the feeling of music is natural; it is innate-its cultivation proceeds with refinement, it is the language of the heart and mind, and consequently became characteristic of the period, and imbibed in its construction and nature

the feelings and tastes of those people who composed and cultivated it. Nor is the wonderful effect of sound or harmony confined to gratify man alone; it has powers over the brute as well as the insect creation. The ancients, aware of that fact, embodied in legendary fable and attributed those powers to Orpheus, which every school-boy knows; nay, so far did they carry their idea of its absolute sway, that the demon ruler of the shades below was fabled to have been moved from his stern resolves, and to have granted to the hazardous lyrist what some men would have deemed unwelcome,-namely, the restoration of his wife, in reward for his musical skill. Spiders are attracted by music; and a friend of ours, who was in the habit of daily practising on the piano, observed a large spider descending the wall, somewhat timidly but evidently attracted by the music. In a few days the spider lost his bashfulness, and, ultimately, whenever the music commenced, issued from his corner, descended the wall hastily, and seated himself on the sounding board; when the music ceased, he contentedly withdrew to his solitude and dead flies. The snakes in India dance to the sound of the flute-and the cobra capéllos, the most deadly of the species, is most susceptible of its powers. We have frequently, when in the West Indies, whistled shrilly and continuously to the basking lizards and chameleons, till we had approached the wary listeners closer than we otherwise could have done, and we have observed them turn their heads on one side, then on the other, like an attentive canary. The war-horse paws the ground, and is ". eager for the fight" when the trumpet sounds-and a pack of hounds obey the huntsman's command, issued through the French horn. If, therefore, music has power over animals and insects-if it affects the natural instinct, it is not wonderful that it has such command and is omnipotent over the feelings of rational beings. The very infant springs with joy in its nurse's arms when a lively, merry air is played; and we have heard of children, who, in the earliest years of infancy, have modulated the keys of the piano. Even language is closely connected with music, and we might venture to assert that language and music are coeval.

It is difficult to describe what music is, because what we may consider noise some deem melody; and if we trace it to its very source, we find that we may denominate any sound produced to be music. The baby and the savage are delighted with a rattle or a drum, and doubtless from so humble a source did music originally spring.

Voyages among uncivilized people are invaluable, inasmuch as they become the primers, the early spelling-books of history, and in the rude attempts of the savage towards refinement, we learn by analogy the

early footsteps of civilization, because what they are we have been.

When Captain Parry visited the Esquimaux, he found them nearly in a state of barbarism; but, nevertheless, fond of music, although they had no instrument, except a drum and a tambourine. They had a dull, monotonous sort of song, without compass, melody, or variety.

The music of the north-west American Indians is very rude and indifferent, and equally devoid of melody and variety. They have some idea of its inspiring effects, and dance to the sound produced by a small drum, formed of a piece of a hollow tree covered with a skin, while others beat time with rattles formed of dried gourds filled with peas. The performers sing, and the dancers join in.

The most primitive musician we can imagine is Mr. Weld's description of an Indian, who, though unable to play any regular air, would sit for hours together beside the embers of his cabin fire, playing over a few wild notes, for every Indian who could bring a sound out of the reed and stop the holes, thought himself a master of it; and the notes they produced were as unconnected and as unmeaning, as those which a child would bring out of a rattle.

The islanders of the Pacific Ocean use flutes made of bamboo, about a foot long, held like our German flutes, but blown through the nose. Their drum, the Adam of all musical instruments, is a hollow block of wood, of a cylindrical form, solid at one end and covered at the other with shark's skin; for want of drum-sticks they beat time upon it with their hands.

The inhabitants of the Tonga Islands appear to have made a few advances in music, vocal as well as instrumental, and it is somewhat curious to remark, that they sing a species of lament over the corpses previous to interment, like the Irish of our present day.

The Indians of Chile used flutes, but they rejected the bamboo; and, like the early Greeks, they used the tibia or shin bones of animals; but those made from the bones of their enemies, slain in battle, were the most valued. The Brazilian Indians also used the same species of horrible music.

In all uncultivated nations we find that wind and percussion instruments were found: stringed instruments but rarely, being the result of some progress towards refinement, and all their airs and melodies are of the wildest and rudest character.

The regions of Africa appear to be more advanced in music, though still so uncivilized, and though it might have been imagined that traces of music handed down from Egypt and Ethiopia might still be found among them, not a trace remains of the proficiency of the ancients in the art; which con

firms our previous position that music, like the chameleon, receives its hue from the colour of the times, and is consonant with the existing feelings of those who practise it.

In Abyssinia, a kingdom next in antiquity to Egypt, the music is extremely harsh and barbarous. They have, however, the sistrum, the lyre, the tambourine, which they say was brought from Egypt; they also use the flute, the kettle-drum, and trumpet, which they acknowledge to be derived from Palestine.

66

The flute, the tambourine, kettle-drum, and trumpet, are the instruments used in war, cere ciere viros"-the sistrum is used in religious ceremonies, as it formerly was among the Egyptians-the lyre is devoted to festivities and happiness, and has from five to seven strings.

The Ashantee tribes, a large and powerful race among the Africans, have a wild and regular music which can scarcely be subjected to the laws of harmony, and yet has a sweetness and animation beyond that of most uncivilized nations. The singing is all recitative; the women join in the choruses, and at the funeral of a female, sing the dirge itself, but the fury of the moment renders it a most violent and discordant yell. In this dirge we again trace the Irish custom of singing over a corpse, commonly called a howl, corrupted from the Latin word ululare. The men who work in the canoes, like the gondoliers, have a chant, which resembles the chants used in cathedrals. Some of the airs are said to be very ancient, and the Ashantees affirm that they were made when the country was formed; these, like all national early music, are entirely traditional, and have been handed down time immemorial from father to son. The Ashantees have an instrument like a bagpipe, which, unlike the Scotch instrument, is really bearable; and they play on flutes as well as stringed instruments.

Among the Empoöngava people, Mr. Bowditch encountered a performer, a negro from the interior country of Imbeekee, as loathsome in appearance as his music was astonishing. He had a harp, formed of wood, with eight strings, made of the fibrous roots of the palm-wine tree, the tone of which was full, harmonious, and deep. He ran through a variety of notes, ascending with his voice beyond the extent of his harp, and all at once burst forth in the notes of the Hallelujah of Handel! Mr. Bowditch says, "To meet with this chorus in the wilds of Africa, and from such a being, had an effect I can scarcely describe, and I was lost in astonishment at the coincidence." Among some of the tribes the ruler has his minstrel, and Captain Laing was frequently not only received by an official song of welcome, but as a mark of favour this minstrel was ordered to attend him, much to

his annoyance; for when he retired to rest the man played outside the door of his hut till he went to sleep, and when he waked the same monotonous sounds greeted his ears.

The Hottentots play on a peculiar instrument, something like a Jews-harp, which being applied to the lips is made to vibrate by strong inspirations and respirations of the player. We cannot say much for the elegance of attitude assumed by the performer, namely, he puts one of his forefingers into his left nostril, holding the instrument with that hand, and the other he puts into his right

ear.

The moors of Sahara still use an instrument like the early Egyptian and Grecian harp, the dichord, or two stringed lyre, and called the Erbeb.

If we touch upon oriental music, we draw upon us such a heap of legends, miracles, and antiquity, that we shrink with diffidence from the task, but we cannot resist the following quotation from the Abbe Roussier:"The Chinese scale, take it which way we will, is certainty very Scottish. It is not my intention to insinuate by this that the one nation had its music from the other, or that either was obliged to ancient Greece for its melody, though there is a strong resemblance in all three. The similarity, however, proves them all to be more natural than they at first seem to be, as well as more ancient. The Chinese are extremely tenacious of old customs, and equally enemies to innovation with the ancient Egyptians, which favours the idea of the high antiquity of this simple music, and as there is reason to believe it very like the most ancient of the Greek melodies, it is not difficult to suppose it to be a species of music that is natural to a people of simple manners during the infancy of civilization and the arts among them."

JAMES SILVESTER.

THE VOICE OF NATURE.

A VOICE o'er the joyous hills prevails,

'er the mighty sea, when 'tis raging high,
Or lull'd in the calm of the summer sky,
That voice is heard; and in storm or shine,
Alike it is awful; alike divine:
For it speaks of the grandeur there displayed,
And wonders in fathomless darkness laid.
It comes where the wildest flowers abide,
Wreathing with beauty the mountain's side;
And over its peaks, where snows appear
Dazzling and pure in the ether clear;-
It speaks through the vales where plenty teems,
And wild flocks feed by unnumber'd streams.
It breathes from the regions of spotless light,
And clouds that bask in their lustre bright;
From the face of beauty, her soul-like eye,
And form of the sweetest dignity;

And man, oh, man! in thy might of mind
It speaks, with thy wond'rous frame combined.
'Tis heard where the torrent its might has shed,
And where the bright rill is through mazes led;
In the thunder's rolling voice above,
In the simplest strain of the vocal grove,
And the lightest breeze that stirs the air;-
That voice is in all, and everywhere.
Beyond the range of each low desire,
Ye children of Earth! whose souls aspire
Hear ye that voice? 'twill lead the thought
Where deathless wisdom and truth are taught;
And, oh! though it tells that all must die,
It speaks of a blest eternity.

I hear it ever; from earth to skies
It speaks of the glory that never dies;
Like a seraph's trumpet voice, it sings
Of the beauty and might of created things;
And spreads through the list'ning world abroad,
The mercy, the wisdom, and power of God.
G. J. N.

New Books.

TRAITS AND TRADITIONS OF PORTUGAL.

WE resume our extract with an entire tradition.]

The Dog of Condeixa.-A Legend of the Peninsular War.

Perhaps no town on the line of road from Lisbon to Oporto is more beautifully situated than Condeixa. As you approach; it from the capital, a tall, stern mountain, whose grandeur of outline and depth of shade are in striking relief against the bright blue sky, towers on your right hand; while on the

In the breeze of spring, in the summer's sigh,
In the calm of autumn's silent sky,
And in winter's tempest, 'tis spread abroad ;-
It is Nature's voice, and it speaks of God.
Awful its breathings, and dread its power,
When roused in the might of the tempest's hour;
Sweeter, and softer, yet not the less
Its power, in the evening's peacefulness;
When leaves hang mute in the stirless air,
And glows the heart with its inward prayer.
No mortal language, no music vies
With this, in the waters, the earth, and skies;
For the ear it hath no sound or tone,-
It speaks to the mind and heart alone,
Of all that may good or lovely be;
And, ah! 'tis the soul of poesy!
Sweetly it comes when the world is still,
And dim shades float round the dusky hill;
And when the bright hosts of starry eyes
Come thick and fast upon evening's skies;
And, oh, in the midnight's awful time,

It comes o'er the heart with a power sublime!

town, to clusters of the gum-cistus; clumps of flowering myrtle; patches of wild geranium and lavender; fences of aloe and prickly pear, inclosing bright fields of Indian corn, with its large weeping leaves, rustling and waving in the wind, like the banners of a fairy host and delicious groves of orange trees, in all their stages of beauty, perfume, and luxury. But the peculiar charm of this fair scene is the bright river, which wanders among these beautiful trees, falling from rock to rock in a series of natural cascades perfectly enchanting; now boiling into a light spray which glitters in the sun like a cloud of liquid silver; now thundering over some unusually bulky impediment, with the roar and hurry of a pigmy avalanche. Higher up, for the town stands on a gentle eminence,

the glad sound of a mill-wheel breaks on the ear; and sheltered in a nook, which would be a fitting home for a dryad, stands the pretty cottage of the miller; I was careful not to enter it, and consequently the illusion was never dispelled. The house was small, brilliantly white, and built in a cleft of rock, by which it was inclosed on two sides: I should think that the worthy miller must have had a daughter, or, at least, a handsome wife-for a female hand was apparent throughout the whole of the locale flowers bloomed in clusters about the portal: a most unusual thing in Portugal, but there they were mountain flowers, perhaps, but only on that account the more lovely; but what delighted me far more than even the bright flowers, were the long, graceful, clinging branches of a wild vine, which, rooted at the base of one portion of the rock, spread its fantastic festoons along the roof of the cottage, and, heaving with every breath of wind, finally wreathed itself among the fissures of the opposite side; it had all the effect of a scenic delusion, save that it was more beautiful! As this wilding child of the mountain never produces fruit, it had to contend only with the weight of its broad bright-green leaves; and never did 1 see anything more graceful. Crossing the bridge, we entered the town, where the hand of war is still fearfully apparent-it is indebted for its beauty chiefly to its situation; but its day of glory is certainly gone by, for the Quintas, which were once the pride and ornament of its suburbs, have nearly all disappeared; the sword and the brand have swept them away..

The ruins still remain; in some cases because their owners lost life or property in the same cause in which their dwellings were sacrificed; in others, because their possessors shrink from the fearful associations with which their site is connected, or have made other homes.

We resided, during our short sojourn in this town, in the house of a widow lady of good connexions and considerable property, whose family consisted, with herself, of an orphan niece, and a venerable-looking priest her confessor. This lady, whose politeness and good breeding were strikingly apparent, insisted on our becoming her guests during our stay; and in a moment of emotion, produced by sad memories of the past, she told us the simple, but authentic, tale which I am about to relate.

Padré André, the confessor, was the only unmanageable member of the family; for the niece was young, pretty, warm-hearted, and unaffected-but the Padré was a poet, and a musician; and a truly original genius in the sister arts. He presented to us, on our arrival, an extemporaneous sonnet of welcome, which I forbear to translate, lest it should cause a smile at the expense of the good

Father's talent, which I would fain spare him in consideration of his good nature. When we left the town, he was busily engaged in setting it to music, in order that his very illconditioned violin might share in the mysteries of his muse.

We walked out in the cool of a delicious evening to the remains of what had once been the beautiful Quinta of our hostess: it was a heap of blackened ruins, and the trees in its immediate vicinity were tinged, to my fancy, impossible as the fact was, with the same dark shade. Donna Anna shed tears as she stood and looked around her in silence, and we began to regret that we had accepted her offer of conducting us to her former home; but after a time she rallied; and when we had seated ourselves upon the loose fragments of some fallen statuary, beside a choked-up fountain, and under the shade of a fine pomegranate tree, she told us her mournful story.

Ere the commencement of the Peninsular War, she was a happy wife, and the mother of two fair children; the eldest was a son; and when he saw his father gird on his sword to lead his regiment to victory against the sworn enemies of his country, under the banners of Wellington, he would not be left behind-he was barely sixteen, but the spirit of his father was within him, and on the same day, she bade farewell to her husband and her son. Isabel, her daughter, was scarcely his junior by a year; and yet, when she hung upon the neck of her father, and kissed the fond lips of her brother on the evening of their departure, how did she envy her weeping mother that she had but two to mourn! Poor Isabel! another went forth to the battle dearer to her even than these. Henrique de los Santos had already received her plighted faith; and Isabel felt as though she were indeed utterly bereft, as these three dear ones rode through the Quinta gate. Henrique lingered the last; he had another whisper for her ear-another kiss for her pale cheek; and, at length, he put his swift horse to its speed, and galloped off without turning his head, as though he feared to trust himself with another look.

The accounts which the bereaved ones received from the army were necessarily uncertain and infrequent; but while they were indulging in their anxious sorrow, war came even to their own dwelling, and they were forced to fly. The extreme beauty of Isabel was an additional peril, of which the heartstricken Donna Anna was fully conscious; and even while she rejoiced at the tidings that the British and Patriot armies were compelling the French forces to fly before them, she yet trembled, as she remembered the near neighbourhood of those dreaded foes. She escaped from Condeixa with her child; and, in the garb of peasants, slowly, timidly, but resolutely, they made their way

to Lisbon. The hurry of their flight had merely enabled Donna Anna to carry with her the small sum of money which chanced to be in the house, and such of her jewels as she could conveniently secrete about her own person, and that of her daughter; consequently on her arrival in Lisbon she felt that her limited means would scarcely suffice for the present necessities of life, and that with its luxuries she could for a time have nothing to do. Under these circumstances, she hired an apartment on the second floor of a mean house, and thither Isabel and herself went meekly and gratefully to await with throbbing hearts some tidings of their absent heroes.

The news came too soon: Donna Anna had walked into the city to gather from the garrulous groups that thronged its streets something of hope with which to cheer her drooping child; and Isabel sat alone, the large tears falling on her pale cheeks, and her thoughts full of Henrique, when a violent scratching at the door of the apartment, and a low whine, which she recognised in an instant, aroused her from her reverie. For a moment she could not believe her senses, but in the next, she sprang from her chair, and gave admittance to a little ill-favoured mongrel, which she instantly caught up in her arms, and almost smothered with her caresses. The dog received the pressure of her small hand, and even of her warm lips, with quiet satisfaction, but he betrayed no symptom of delight; on the contrary, he uttered at intervals a low, wailing, melancholy whine which struck to the heart of Isabel.

"And your master,"—at length she gasped out, as though the little animal could hear and answer her: "he who vowed that for my sake he would never part from you while he had life; though those who knew not your history might sneer at your want of beauty-where is he? is he on his road to his own Isabel?" The dog gave out another low, piercing wail.

The young girl started! A thousand horrible suspicions swept across her brainAnd yet how came the dog in Lisbon, unless brought there by his master? I am aware, even while I write, that many who read this little sketch will hesitate to believe what I am about to declare: but nevertheless it is a fact, that this dog, when his master was taken prisoner by the French, in a wounded and dying state, had followed his fortunes; until after having seen him thrown into his narrow and unnoted grave, he had made his way, first through the French, and afterwards through the British, army, and had then actually traced his former mistress to her obscure dwelling in a back street in Lisbon! I speak of the fact with confidence, for I had it from the lips of an officer of rank; who, on the termination of the war, escorted Donna Anna and the heart-broken Isabel to

their native town; in compliance with the wish of the dying girl, that she should draw her last breath among her own beloved mountains. On their journey to Condeixa, Colonel frequently saw and caressed the dog, while endeavouring to cheer the sinking strength of the beautiful invalid, in whose litter the animal travelled the whole way, and whose side he never quitted for an instant.

When Donna Anna returned from her melancholy walk, she found her daughter with the little animal on her lap, but she caressed him no longer; her head was bent down over him, and her eyes were tearless, yet there was an expression of calm, resigned despair about her, which convinced the mother that a more fitting moment could never arrive in which to impart the miserable tidings which she brought.

"Isabel!" she said gently: "minha querida* Isabel "-and the fair girl looked up with a smile of such hopeless misery, that the mother felt as if her heart would break: "the faithful little brute has come far to see you."

"He has done his errand well;" was the calm reply: "he has prepared me for that which you are about to tell me-Henrique is

dead"

The widow-for even at that moment Donna Anna knew that she was a widow,turned aside, for she could not brook the tone and look of Isabel.

He is happier than we are, mother, for his cares are over-we have but commenced ours. Our Lady of the Flagellation has taught me that I have set up a perishable idol, and that I have loved it beyond my God and my own blood-but you will forgive me, mother, for my altar is overthrown, and my lamp extinguished. We have now but two left over whom to mourn: I ask you not to weep for me-other grief than my own were needless here, and though the sword and the bullet may bring death, we are not quite hopeless while there is a sorrow which kills also!"

"We have no longer two to mourn, my child!" exclaimed Donna Anna, with a burst of grief which would no longer be suppressed. "I am alone with my children !"

"Two! two!" murmured Isabel, as she pressed her hand upon her throbbing temples: "the blow is heavy! but there are no tears in the grave-and my brave brother ?"

"He yet lives-Our Lady be praised!” was the meek reply.

"Poor youth! his sacrifice is not yet completed-mother, mother, this war is a fearful thing! it dyes our hearths with blood, and burns up our brain with fire-nay, nay, tell me not," she added passionately, "tell me not, that they died for their country!—what care we for this? you, who are widowed? and I, who am I scarcely know what I am now-will that country give us back our * My darling,