Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 333, July 1843. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ one of whom Lafontaine never exhibited a suspicion. His nature was chivalrous, the rencounter between us he regarded as in the strongest degree a pledge of brotherhood; and he allowed me to bask in the full sunshine of his fair one's smiles, without a thought of my intercepting one of their beams. In fact, he almost formally gave his wild bird into my charge. Accordingly, whenever he was called to London, which was not unfrequently the case, as the business of the emigrants with Government grew more serious, I was her chosen companion; and as she delighted in galloping over the hills and vales of Sussex, I was honoured by being her chief equerry; she repaying the service by acting as my cicerone.

      "Come," said she one day, at the end of an excursion, or rather a race of some miles along the shore, which put our blood-horses in a foam, "have you ever seen Les Interieurs?"

      "No."

      "I saw you," she remarked, "admiring the Duchesse de Saint Alainville at our little ball the other night."

      "It was impossible to refuse admiration. She is the noblest looking woman I ever saw."

      "One of the noblest, sir, if you please. But, as I disdain the superb in every thing"——She fixed her bright eyes on me.

      "The fascinating is certainly much superior." A slight blush touched her cheek, she bowed, and all was good-humour again.

      "Well, then," said she, "since you have shown yourself rational at last, I shall present you to this superb beauty in her own palace. You shall see your idol in her morning costume, her French reality."

      She touched the pane of a window with her whip, and a bowing domestic appeared. "Is her Grace at home?" was the question. "Her Grace receives to-day," was the answer. My companion looked surprised, but there was no retreating. We alighted from our horses to attend the "reception."

      The cottage was simply a cottage, roofed with thatch; and furnished in the homeliest style of the peasants to whom it had belonged. We went up stairs. A few objects of higher taste were to be seen in the apartment to which we were now ushered—a pendule, a piano, and one or two portraits superbly framed, and with ducal coronets above them. But, to my great embarrassment, the room was full, and full of the first names of France. Yet the whole assemblage were female, and the glance which the Duchess cast from her fauteuil, as I followed my rather startled guide into the room, showed me that I had committed some terrible solecism, in intruding on the party. On what mysteries had I ventured, and what was to be the punishment of my temerity in the very shrine of the Bona Dea? My pretty guide, on finding herself with all those dark eyes fixed on her, and all those stately features looking something between sorrow and surprise, faltered, and grew alternately red and pale. We were both on the point of retiring; when the Duchess, after a brief consultation with some of the surrounding matronage, made a sign to Mariamne to approach. Her hospitality to all the emigrant families had undoubtedly given her a claim on their attentions. The result was a most gracious smile from Madame la Presidente, and I took my seat in silence and submission.

      "Is France a country of female beauty?" is a question which I have often heard, and which I have always answered by a recollection of this scene. I never saw so many handsome women together, before or since. All were not Venuses, it is true; but there was an expression, almost a mould of feature, universal, which struck the eye more than beauty. It was impossible to doubt that I was among a high caste; there was a general look of nobleness, a lofty yet feminine grace of countenance, a stately sweetness, which are involuntarily connected with high birth, high manners, and high history.

      There were some whose fine regularity of feature might have served as the model for a Greek sculptor. Yet those were not the faces on which the eye rested with the long and deep delight that "drinks in beauty." I saw some worthy or the sublime spell of Vandyke, more with the magnificence of style which Reynolds loved, and still more with the subdued dignity and touching elegance of which Lawrence was so charming a master.

      On my return to French society in after years, I was absolutely astonished at the change which seemed to me to have taken place in the beauty of high life. I shall not hazard my reputation for gallantry, by tracing the contrast more closely. But evil times had singularly acted upon the physiognomy even of the nobles. The age of the roturier had been the climacteric of France. Generals from the ranks, countesses from the canaille, legislators from the dregs of the populace, and proprietors from the mingled stock of the parasite and the plunderer, naturally gave the countenance, formed by their habits, to the nation formed by their example.

      Still there were, and are, examples of this original beauty to be found among the élite of the noble families; but they are rare, and to be looked on as one looks on a statue of Praxiteles found in the darkness and wrecks of Herculaneum. In the words of the old song, slightly changed—

      "I roam'd through France's sanguine sand,

      At beauty's altar to adore,

      But there the sword had spoil'd the land,

      And Beauty's daughters were no more."

      ENGLISH MUSIC AND ENGLISH MUSICIANS

      Musical taste, as we observed in a former article, has undergone fewer mutations in England, than in most other countries where the art has been cultivated and esteemed. In order, therefore, to acquire an accurate knowledge of the state of musical taste and science which now prevails among us, it will be necessary to take a brief retrospect; and as much of the music still popular was composed during the earliest period of the art in England, we shall rapidly trace its history from the times of those early masters, whose names are still held in remembrance and repute, down to the present century.

      When England threw off the Papal yoke, music was little known beyond the services of the church. Though the secular music of this period was barbarous in the extreme, yet masses were universally sung, and music had long formed a necessary element in the due performance of the services of the Romish church. During the reign of Henry VIII. few alterations were made in public worship; and the service continued to be sung and carried on in the Latin language, as before. From Strype's account of the funeral of this monarch, it appears that all the old ceremonies were observed, and that the rupture with Rome had caused no alteration in the obsequies performed on such occasions. In the reign of his successor, the church service was entirely changed, and the Protestant liturgy was first published for general use. Four years after this event, on the accession of Mary, the "old worship" was again restored. But when, at length, the reformed religion was firmly established by Elizabeth, and the ritual permanently changed, the music of the old masses, suited to the genius and structure of the Romish service, was no longer available for the simpler forms of worship by which it was replaced. During the holiest and most solemn portions of the ancient worship, the organ had for centuries been heard in the cathedrals, while the choruses of praise and adoration resounded through the aisles. Men's opinions may undergo a change, but the feelings and ideas created by early association, and fostered by habit, are far more lasting and enduring. The poet must have lamented the loss of the music, which, in the stern ascetic spirit of Puritanism prevailing at a later period of our history, he assisted to banish from our churches, as he sang—

      "But let my due feet never fail

      To walk the studious cloisters pale,

      And love the high embowed roof,

      With antique pillars, massy proof,

      And storied windows richly dight,

      Casting a dim religious light,

      There let the pealing organ blow

      To the full-voiced choir below,

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