The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1857-08-27

music is we'll said to be the speech of apsels:
IN fact, nothing among the uttersnces allowed
to man is felt to be 80 divine. 1t brings ma near
| to the Infinite we look for moments across the
cloudy elements into the eternal Sea of Light.
| when song leads and inspires us. Serious ma
| tions-all nations that can still listen to the
mandates of nature-have priced song and
| music as the highest as a vehicle for worship,
| for prophecy, and for whatsoever in them was
| divine. Their singer was admitted to the coun-
| ell of the universe, friend Of the gods, and
| choicest benefactor to man. Reader, it was
actually so in Greek, in Roman, in Moslem,
| Christian, most of all in old Hebrew times !;
and, if you look how it is now, you will find
change that should astonish you. Good heavens |
| from psalm of Asaph to a seat in the London
Opera in the Haymarket--what a road have
men travelled The waste that is made in music
is probably among the saddest of all our squsn
derings of Gods gifts. Music has, for long
| time past, been avowedly mad, divorced from
sense and fact and runs about now as an open
bedlanite, for good many generations back,
Dragging that she has nothing to do with sense
| and fact, but with fiction and delirium only :;
| and stares with unaffected amazement, not able
to suppress an elegant burst of witty laughter,
at my suggesting the old fact to her. Fact
nevertheless, it is; forgotten and fallen, ridicu.
lous as it may be.
| ITO sing the praise of God that, You will
| Ind, II you can interpret old words, and see
what new things they mean, was ALWAYS and
will always be the business of the singer. BE
who forsakes that business, and. wasting our
| divinest gifts, sings the praise of chaos, what
shall we say of himH David, King of Judah.
soul inspired with divine music, and much
other heroism, was wont to pour himself in song:
he, with seer's eyes and heart, discerned the
yndl 10 mid q hal L
an echo of the sphere harmonies, and are still
felt to be such. Reader, art thou one of thou.
sand able still to read a psalm of David, and
catch some echo of it through the old dim
centuries, feeling far off, in thine own heart,
what 1t once was to other hearts, made as thine
10 sing 1t, attempt not, for it is impossible in
this late time; only know that it was once sung.
Then go to the opera, and hear, with unspeak.
able reflections, what men now sing. OF the
Haymarket Opera, my account, in fine, is this:
Lustres, candelabrss, painting, gliding, at dis
cretion; hall as of the Caliph Araschid, or
him that commander the slaves Of the lamp
hall as if fitted up by the genii, regardless of
expense. Upholstery and the outlay of human
capitai could do no more. Artists, too, as they
are called, have been got together from the ends
of the world, regardless, likewise, of expense, to
do dancing and singing; some of them even
geniuses in their craft
"All of them had aptitudes, perhaps, of a dis
tinguished kind, and must, by their own and
other peoples labor, have got training equal
or superior, in toilsomeness, earnest assiduity.
and patient travail, to what breeds men to the
most arduous trades. 1 speak not of kings.
grandees, or the like show figures but few
soldiers, judges, men Of letters, can have had
such pains taken with them. The very ballet
girls, with their muslin ssucers round them,
were perhaps little short of miraculous whirlng
and then suddenly fixing themselves motionless,
each upon her left or right great toe, with the
other leg stretched out at an angle of ninety
degrees, as if you had suddenly pricked into the
floor, by one of their points, a pair, or rather
multitudinous cohort of mad, restessly Jump
ing and clipping scissors, and so bidding
them rest, with open blade, and stand still, in
the devils name! A truly notable notion
marvellous, almost miraculous, were not the peo-
pie there 80 used to it motion peculiar to the
opera; perhaps the ugiest, and surely one of
the most difficult ever taught female in this
world
"Alas and of all those notable or noticeable
human talents, and excellent perseverance, and
energies, backed by mountains of wealth, and
led by the divine art of music and rhythm,
vouchsafed by Heaven to them and US, what
was to be the issue here this evening? An
hours amusement, not amusing, either, but
wearisome and dresry, to a highdzened select
populace of male and female persons, who
seemed to me not much worth amusing. Could
any one have pealed into their hearts, once, one
true thought and glimpse of self.vision high
dizened, most expensive persons, sristocracy so
called, or the best of the world beware, beware
whatproofs you are giving here of BITTERNESS and
bestness. And then the salutary psngs of con-
science in reply. A select populsce, with money
in it's purse, and drilled little by the posture
maker good heavens if that were what, here
everywhere in Gods creation, am, and world
all dying because | am, and show myself to be,
and to have long been, even that John, the
oarrisge-the carriage, swirl Let me go home
in silence, to reflection, perhaps to sackcloth
and ashes /! This, and not amusement would
have profted these persons. Of
heavens when l think that Music, too, is con.
demned to be mad, and to burn herself to this
end on such funeral pile, your celestial opera
house grows dark and Internal to me. Behind
its glitter stalks the shadow Of eternal death
through it, too. l look not 'up into the divine
eye as Richter has it, but down into the bot
tomless eye. socket not upward, toward God,
heaven, and the throne of truth, but, too truly,
down, toward falsity, vanity, and the dwelling.
place Of everlasting despair"
IN SOURT.-W6 observe mat q
prize is offered this year by Harvard College, of
$500, to any pupil who shall be decided by the
Corporation to have attained the greatest skill
in mathematics. The person who offers the
prize, which is only proposed for this year, is
Uriah A. Boyden, civil engineer, of Boston.
This gentleman was concerned in a suit, last
year, brought by him in the Supreme Court of
Massachusetts, against the Atlantic Cotton
Mills, of Lawrence, which was of very inter
esting character, but has never, so far as we
are aware, come before the public Mr.. Boyden
had agreed to make a turbine water wheel for
the Atlantic Mills, which should save, or util.
ixe," at it is termed, seventy-six per cent. Of
the water power. If he succeeded in saving
that per centage, he was to have $4,000; if
not, he was to have nothing; and for every
one per cent. above that, he was to receive
$3.50. Mr.. Boyden went to work and produced
a wheel which saved, as he affirmed, ninety sir
per cent. The labor involved In this result may
be imagined, from the fact that Mr.. Boyden
spent more than $4,000 in the mere mathemat-
ical calculations. The company had provided
no sufficient means OF testing the question prac.
tioally and as the per centsge claimed by Mr..
Boyden was altogether unprecedented, they
contested the claim.
The case went into court. No jury on the
globe could comprehend the question, and the
learned Bench also found itself entirely at fault.
The case was accordingly referred to three we'll
chosen parties Judge Joel Parker, of Cam
bridge; Professor Benjamin Peirce, the mathe-
maticisn; and James B. Francis, of Lowell,
the agent Of the United Companies of Lowell
in the management of the common water DOW
or. Professor Parker furnished the law, Mr..
Francis the practical acquaintance with by
draulics, and Professor PIERCE the mathemati.
cal knowledge. That learned geometer had to
dive deep and study long before the problem