antechamber with white, where a second lacquais repeated the ceremony of wiping the shoes, and passed him into a third apartment, in which the walls, floor, bed, tables, chairs, and every article of furniture were white. A tall figure, in a white nightcap and white morning gown, and covered with a white mask, was seated near the fire. As soon as this phantom perceived the surgeon, he cried in a hollow voice, "I have the devil in my body," and relapsed immediately into a profound silence, which he continued to observe during more than half an hour, that he amused himself in pulling on and off six pair of white gloves, which lay on a table beside him. Isissé was greatly alarmed at this extraordinary spectacle, and at his own reception; and his apprehension was not diminished on perceiving that fire arms were placed within the reach of the white spectre. His fears became at length so excessive that he was compelled to sit down. By degrees, however, he gained sufficient courage to ask in a trembling voice, "what were Monsieur's commands," remarking that "his time was not his own, but the public's, and that he had many appointments to keep." To this the white man only replied, in a dry cold tone, "As long as you are well paid, what does that signify to you?" Another quarter of an hour's silence then ensued, when at last the spectre pulled a white bell-rope, and two white servants entered the room. He then called for bandages, and desired Isissé to draw from him five pounds of blood. The surgeon, frightened still more by the enormous bloodletting thus enjoined him, asked in an anxious tone who had ordered the remedy? "Myself," was the short answer. In too great a trepidation to venture on the veins of the arm, Isissé begged to bleed from the foot, and warm water was ordered for the operation. Meantime the phantom took off a pair of the finest white silk stockings, and then another, and then a third, and so on to the sixth pair, which discovered the most beautiful foot and ancle imaginable, and almost convinced Isissé that his patient was a woman. The vein was opened; and at the second cup the phantom fainted. Isissé therefore was proceeding to take off the mask, but he was eagerly prevented by the servants. The foot was bound up, and the white figure having recovered his senses, was put to bed; after which, the servants again left the room. Isissé slowly advanced towards the fire, while he wiped his lancets; making many reflections within himself upon this strange adventure. All of a sudden, on raising his eyes, he perceived in the mirror over the chimney-piece, that the white figure was advancing towards him on tiptoes. His alarm became still more violent, when, with a single spring, the terrific spectre came close to his side. Instead, however, of offering violence, as his movement seemed to indicate, he merely took from the chimney five crowns and gave them to the surgeon, asking at the same time if he was satisfied. Isissé, who would have made the same answer had he received but three farthings, said that he was. "Well, then,” said the spectre, "begone about your business." The poor surgeon did not wait for a second order, but retreated, or rather flew, as fast as his legs could carry him, from the room. The two servants who attended to light him out could not conceal their smiles; and Isissé, unable longer to endure his situation, asked what was the meaning of this pleasantry? But their only reply was, " Are you not well paid? have you suffered any injury and so saying, they bowed him to his carriage. Isissé

was at first determined to say nothing of this adventure; but he found on the ensuing morning, that it was already the amusement of the court and city; and he no longer made any mystery of the matter. The "mot d'enigme," however, was never discovered, nor could any motive be imagined for the mystification, beyond the caprice and idleness of its unknown perpetrator.

It is somewhat remarkable that this adventure should, in its leading feature, bear a great resemblance to one that happened to a casual acquaintance of our own, and which, without being a mystification, had all the effect of one. This gentleman, a surgeon of much practice, residing in a sea-port village in Hampshire, was, one dark winter's night, about the "celebrated hour of twelve o'clock" (to borrow a phrase from a popular novel), called from his bed to visit a patient suddenly taken ill. “Linquenda domus et placens uxor" never reads worse than in the middle of a cold frosty night; but the surgeon (like all other surgeons) comforted himself with the thought of the double honorarium “in that case provided ;" and, huddling on his clothes as fast as he could, he descended in the dark to open the street-door. On again closing it behind him, and proceeding a few paces down the street, he felt himself suddenly seized by a vigorous grasp, while the muzzle of a pistol pressed hard against his breast. His interlocutor, wrapped in an immense cloak, in no very silver tones desired him to follow, and, as he valued his life, to proceed in silence. At the turning of the street a second man started forth from a projecting doorway, and in a low anxious whisper asked, "Have you got him?" "Got him," was the laconic reply, and the three passed on without farther speaking. Farther on another confederate joined them, and "Have you got him?" was repeated in the same way, and produced the same brief half-suppressed "Got him" as before. Thus they proceeded to the outskirts of the village, where they met other men mounted, and holding led horses. "Have you got him?" cried the horsemen under less restraint, and therefore in a louder key. "Got him," more freely breathed the inflexible conductor; and placing the terrified surgeon on the saddle of one of the led steeds, he got up behind him, and the whole company scoured away over fields, heaths, and bogs, occasionally reconnoitred and joined by scrutinizing védettes, after the accustomed "Have you got him?" had assured them that they had "got him," and that all was right. The poor man's anxiety, increasing at every step that led him farther from the "haunts of man," through ways which, though he perfectly knew the country, were still new to him, was now wound up to absolute despair; when suddenly the horsemen paused, and alighted at the door of a lone cottage, in which lay a wounded man stretched on a bed. The surgeon was dismounted and ordered to examine and dress the wound, and to prescribe directions for its management: which being done, the escort took to their horses again, and, replacing the surgeon behind old "Got him," returned in the same order and with the same precautions as before. Towards break of day they arrived at the town's end, where, "Got him" having first paid the surgeon handsomely for his night's work, and threatened him with the severest vengeance if he spoke of this adventure, these "ugly customers" took their leave and departed. In this manner he was, afterwards, several times carried to visit his paVOL. VI. No. 32.-1823.

16

tient, till the convalescence of the sick man made his visits no longer necessary. It is scarcely necessary to add that the parties were smugglers, who had had an engagement with the custom-house officers; and that the secresy of their proceeding arose from the fear of the man's situation leading to detection.

It would be difficult for the malice of the most practised mystifier to have given more pain than was inflicted on our friend the surgeon by this combination of events, arising out of the "social system" of our sea-coasts; but, after all, nature and chance afford the outlines of our brightest inventions, and we are not to be surprised if they should sometimes succeed better than art in advancing them towards perfection.

Of all the mystifications with which man is acquainted, Voltaire thought life itself the greatest. 66 Pourquoi," ," he asks," existons-nous ? pourquoi y a-t-il quelque chose?" But whatever may be thought of life, the remark is just, as applied to society, which, from first to last, is one entire humbug. Lawyers, physicians, and divines, are mystificators of the first order, and nothing can be a more thorough mauvaise plaisanterie, than the persuading men that there is honour in being shot at for sixpence per day. Virtual representation and the sinking fund every one gives up as humbugs, who has three grains of common sense. The Arts are altogether a mass of humbug, theatricals are gross humbugs, churchwardens are humbugs, county petitions are "farces" and humbugs, Whigs are humbugs, Tories are humbugs, and the Radicals themselves are humbugs also. Nay, is not love, divine love, too often a hoax? and woman, the bright oasis in the desert of life, (to make use of an original image) a tormenting mys tifier? Pleasure is a mystification that leads us on from scrape to scrape, and vanishes from our sight at the moment when it seems just within our grasp. Cards and dice mystify us out of our money, wine does the same by our senses, and the tax-gatherer does both. Poetry is professedly a mystification, and friendship scarce a degree better. In short, whichever way we turn, all is one general mystification; and "nothing is but what is not." The shortest way, then, is to give in to the dupery with the best grace you can. "Carpe diem," eat, drink, read the New Monthly Magazine, and be merry. In all circumstances, whether of difficulty or of pleasure, take the thing for what it is worth; remembering that life does not come, like Christmas, "once a year," but only "once in a way;"-and if the joke be a bad one, crying will not mend it. So, with this piece of comfort, which is, after all, as mere a mystification as the rest, for this time I have done; and in plain sincerity bid the reader heartily farewell! C. M.

So Dunder O'Kelly set sail

From Ireland to better himself, And climb'd up the Holyhead mail To ease Johnny Bull of his pelf. To follow of glory the path

And put British beef in his belly,
At Margate, at Brighton, at Bath,
He sported Sir Dunder O'Kelly.

Sir Dunder in dancing was skill'd,
And look'd very neat in his clothes,
But indeed all his beauty was kill'd
By a terrible wen on his nose.
This double appendage, alas!

He thought neither pretty nor proper,
Nature gave him one visage of brass,
And Bacchus two noses of copper.

He dived into Bath for a bride,

The ladies all check'd his advances, And vow'd they could never abide

Loose manners, and straiten'd finances.

One lady alone met his flame,

With a hop, and a jig, and a nod,

I ask'd a blind fidler her name,

And he answer'd me-" Moll in the Wad."

His looking-glass set the poor knight
Oft times in his bed-chamber raving,

His ugliness shewing at night,

And eke in the morning when shaving, He flung himself down on the floor,Was ever unfortunate elf

So terribly haunted before

By a ghost in the shape of himself?

Resolved Charon's eddy to pass,

His pistol he primed, but-oh blunder!

He thought, if he shot at the glass,

"Twould blow out the brains of Sir Dunder.

So bang went the slugs at his head,

At once from this life to dissever;

He shot all the quicksilver dead,

But himself was as lively as ever.

Amazed at the hubbub was he,

And began, in the midst of the clatter, All over to felo de se,

But found there was nothing the matter.

So, glad Charon's eddy to shun,

His sentiments thus he discloses

"Since two heads are better than one, Perhaps 'tis the same with two noses."

To his own Tipperary poor Dun
From scenes of disturbance and bother,
Trudged back, like the Prodigal Son,
And fell on the neck of his mother.
At home he now follows the plough,
And, whilst in his rustical courses
He walks at their tails, you'll allow
He never can frighten his horses.

ON MUSIC.

No. 5.-With reference to the principles of the Beautiful in that Art.

THE principles of the Beautiful in Music, so far as they apply to rhythm and Melody, have hitherto formed the exclusive object of our investigation. We now propose to direct our attention to Musical Harmony, and to ascertain how far that branch of the art is referable to the like principles, in what those principles consist, and how they are brought

into action.

Harmony is the simultaneous exhibition of musical sounds, differing in pitch, but bearing a certain relation to each other. When such sounds are heard at the same time that a melody is proceeding, the melody is said to be accompanied by harmony.

The question whether harmony, in this sense, was known to the ancient Greeks, has long been a subject of the most animated discussions; and although these seem to have at length nearly subsided, persons are occasionally met with who, seduced by a few obscure passages in two or three Greek and Roman authors, maintain boldly that the ancients knew and practised harmony. But the arguments which may be brought forward against such an assertion are numerous and unanswerable. The reader, who wishes to form his own judgment, may consult Dr. Burney or Dr. Forkel's Histories of Music, in which, and above all in the latter, the question is fairly and amply discussed, and, we conceive, fully set at rest.

The proofs which Dr. Forkel has accumulated leave no doubt of the utter ignorance of the Greeks as to harmony. And if they were supposed to have been acquainted with it, it certainly is not to them that we are indebted for even a hint on the subject of that branch of the science. We owe them much in melody, but nothing on the score of harmony; the discovery of which, by Western Europe-by England, in all probability can progressively be traced, from documentary evidence, up to its rude origin in the 10th century.

The word "discovery," after all, is perhaps too high-sounding a term to be applied to the slight and rude traces of the beginnings of a practice, which, during the progress of many centuries, expanded itself, gradually and slowly, into an extended science, resting upon fixed rules, and the successive developement of which affords matter of interest, even in a philosophical point of view. In this respect, and in many others, as we shall hereafter have occasion to remark, harmony -may be compared to the art of colouring, which emerged from the uncouth attempts of adorning a simple outline with a daub of one pigment, rudely and whimsically applied. Between such a monochrome and the Venus of Titian, the distance is as immense, as between the "Descant" of Franco and the harmony in the finale of "Il Don Giovanni." Innumerable and arduous were the intermediate steps which led both the arts to the summit of their perfection. But there was this difference in favour of colouring-and the distinction holds good between painting and music altogether-that in the long career towards that perfection, man had the prototype of imitation, Nature, constantly before him; whereas the laws of harmony, although certainly founded in Nature, lay deeply hidden, and required long and strenuous efforts of the human intellect, to be explored and reduced into a system. Indeed