New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1857-06-19
rob u, and roll Us in the mud. snd it will then be
quite time enough to settle accounts with Albany.

remember the ballad-siDgers chanting in corner,
or loud.mouthed at an execution, or proclaImlng
hoarsely through the mob naval or military
victory. EngIshmen and Americans have been
put into common category BY the dHettant' OF
music. 1t is said that We go to the opera, al
ridiculously high prices, only to applaud in the
wrong places; only TO show off the dresses OF our
wives, sisters and daughters; only, in general
way, TO make fools of ourselves. Perhaps this may
be true. We may not be skillful in detecting and
incontinently Kissing tenor who fats in b, or a
soprano who sharps in c. We do not take of our
shoes and throw them over our heads, as Tuscan
yirtuosi are said TO do, in the ecstasy produced by
q perfect cadenza. But that we are not wholly in
different to the Muses-that We are not absolute
ly incapable of approaching rhythm, melody
and harmony the Anglo Saxon and the Anglo
American has some Emusic in his sou" whether
of the strdent or the liquid kind say not)-that
even here upon our barbarous shores, if not the
shell of Mercury at least the pipes of Pan are
welcome-let the numerous and ever-grlndng or
CANS Of the street let the hundred thousand piano.
fortes of the Republic let the Pierian sOcialtles,
the societies which claim Handel, Haydn, Beet
hoven and Mendelssohn as their gOdfathers, the
Academies, the insolvent Opera-Houses, and the
primy choirs of African Minstrels attest And
above all (if We may offer cumulative evil
dence), let the cheap and humble sheets, which,
futterng from the iron rails of the Park or o.
Trinity, afford u mOdicum of meat to
breechless boys, which are sold for
- koor 70
inherent and everlasting appetite of man, whether
of lofty or of low estate, for rhymed epic of
events for melodious expression of human expe-
rience and of earthly vicissitude, for measured
enunciatiOn of the grOtesqueness of the hour, for
cong, either by poet or poetaster to the immortal
love, heroism or domesticty of the ages We may
be at fault in comprehending the snuOsities of a
score, and quite out in our majors aud minors but
we would net exchange the profound reverence
with which Yorker receives Lilly Dale, or
"WoOdman Spare that Tree, or 1.-The Old Folks
at Home" as, in some sort, stammering utter
ance of hs best hopes and sweetest "reminiscences,
for all the sensuous and deliquescent raptures of
southern shores.
What song is, and BY what rules it should be
ltiudluc W WIS un, III uuoVA'Nu
inscrutable problem. Horace with all his art
poetcal, would have been puzzled to say by what
method he composed "Nunc est Jibendnn,' the
most joyous and fascinating of Latin melodies. Or
all singers it may best be said of the song singer
that be is born and not made. These harmOnists OF
the heart are always bursting upon us like angels,
without the drill of colleges or drum of discipline.
a. A. 40 Sc tho
Of Carey, from the printing house of Beranger,
from shrinking women and from unlettered men,
come the melodies which fasten themselves upon
the life Of the world. The song is written, nobody
knows how when or where. Often, like the
UarseiUaise, it is the accident Of accident.
Often like little founding, it ventures into
the earth without paternity, and first win
Ming by its honest humanity the affection
of the street or the cottage walls IT'S way to the
affection of the palace. Poor Howard Payne, sit
ting in his lonesome LOndoncham hard at work
by manufacture, and adaptation, and Heaven knows
by what other resources, constructing his - Maid
Of Milan for manager greedy of novelties, feels
some old thought come over him of Boston or
New.York, and of boyish trumphs there, marries
bis 'Home, Sweet Home" to Sicilian air, and
the world catches the complaint Of his home-sick
heart and will sing it for century. A young
lawyer in Philadelphia is asked for a song by an
actor whose benefit night does not promise to be of
the most lucratiye he dashes of " Hail Columbia"
and to this day he is chanted by glee singers,
played by brass bands, and whistled upon the fore
castles of ships sailing about Cape Horn. We re-
q D..F nIart onIxt n
we think in one of the " Noctes that Tom Moore
could not write song: yet there is no land upon
this globe that has not listened to "Oft in the
Silly Night" "Marys Tears and There's
Nothing True but Heaven"
The Song floats into existence priceless waif,
mott opulent estray ali anonymous donation, a love
gift of the modest and kindly to the kind and retr
ing The masses, taking up the cheerful carol or
the minor plant, seldom inquire whose master
hand struck the keynote Of their unfathomed cru
dition. How many gallant tars roaring out 1.-The
Bay of Biscay," hnOw who wrote it? How many
grim whiskered soldiers, singing with unusual tears
Annie Laurie" in the trenches of Sevastopol,
have heard Of the pure-hearted woman whose white
hand first wrote "MaxweIton braes are bonniel"
ne singer Oh songs must De content 10 nhd III ais
vocation ''its own exceeding great reward" Not
less, however, should be our gratitude toward those
who have cheered our loneliness elevated hopes
or assuaged our grief
The song is especially the property Of the people
1t is pleasant, therefore, and encouraging to find
that Tie taste Of the people nclnes to the decCrous
the chaste and the aGectOnate and escbews the
coarse, the nbad and the heartless OF dozen bal
ad. rl.rcLas cd ~ Ion, nstariar fund hut