LITERARY MEN AND MUSIC.

Western Star, Issue 1387, 7 September 1889, Page 1 (Supplement)

LITERARY MEN AND MUSIC.

According to Daudet the French novelist, literary men have a horror of music; but this would appear to be more true of his own countrymen than it is of ours. Am mg English memof letters there have been very few who absolutely hated music, though, on the other hand, many have found very little pleasure in listening to it, and still more have known nothing about it as an art. Ur Johnston’s musical perception went only so far that “he knew a drum from a trumpet, and a bagpipe from a guitar.” He did not know one note from another, but confesses that if he had learnt music he is “ afraid that Jhe would have .done nothing else but play.” It was, he said a method of employing the mind without the labour of thinking at all, and with some applause from a man’s self. Sydney Smith was a great lover of music, and could sing a song with no little effect. He was in the habit of saying : “If I were to begin life again I would devote much time to music. All musical people seem to be happy; music is the most engrossing pursuit, almost the only innocent and unpunished passion.” Curiously he had great dislike for mnfic set in the minor key, and when he was in residence at St Paul’s he absolutely forbade any such music being used in the services.

Charles Lamb, as we know from that delightfully playful ‘ Chapter on Ears,’ in the Essays of Elia, had no knowledge of music, but he confesses that he has a liking for the art. “ I even think,” he says “that sentimentally I am disposed to harmony but organically I am incapable of a tune. I have been practising “ God save the King ” all my life whistling and humming it to myself in solitary corners, and am not yet arrived within many quavers of it.

Darwin had no ear for music and could not recognise one tune from another. “ That’s a fine thing ! what is it ?” he would say though he had heard the piece frequently and had as often been told its name. .Notwithstanding all this he had a genuine love for good music, and when anything fine was being performed he would sometimes speak of a feeling of coldness or shivering down his back. On one occasion he was present at a service in King’s College, when a beau tiful anthem was being sung. At the close of the piece he turned round to his companion and with a sigh said, “ flow’s your backbone ?” Charles Kingsley knew nothing of music, though he, too, was fond of it, and was wont to say, “ It is such a fine vent for the feelings.” Carlyle has also to be numbered among music-lovers, his thorough hatred of barrel organs not being sufficient to class him among those who dislike the art. Eosetti found music “ cool unto the sense of pain.” Ruskin is passionately fond of certain kinds of music, including especially that of bells. Browning, it has been said would have been a musician if he had not been a poet. Mr Barham the celebrated author of the ‘ Ingoldsby Legends,’ confesses to a like preference — • You’ll say that my taste is sadly misplaced, But I can’t help confessing those simple old tunes, The duld Robin Gray's ami the i iieenAroons

The Orammackree Mollys and Sweet Bonny Boons Are dearer to me inja tenfold degree Than a ft.no fmtasia from over the sea.” Lord Byroa had no ear for music, al though he liked very much to hear it. Earl Russell tells us of Thomas Moore, that to the last day of his life he would sing or ask his wife to sing the favourite tunes of his bygone days. A fond love of music,” the biographer says, “never left him but with life.” Samuel Rogers was very fond of music but chiefly of simple melodies; a biographer says he would have agreed with the critic who, on being imformed that a brilliant performance just concluded was extremely difficult, ejaculated, “ I wish it had been impossible.” Rogers carried his love of simple natural musicso far that when he dined at home he always had an organ grinder playing in the hall, the instrument—rather we should say, the machine—being set to the “ Sicilian Mariners’ Hymn,” and other popular tunes. He also kept nightingales in cages on his staircase and in his bedroom to sing to him.

Burns as might be imagined, was exceedingly fond of music, though not exactly of the kind in which adepts take pleasure. Writing to Thompson the editor of a collection of national songs, he says, “lam sensible that my taste in music must be inelegant and vulgar, because people of the most undisputed and cultivated taste can find no merit in my favourite tunes. Still because I am cheaply pleased is that any reason why I should deny myself that pleasure 1 ? Many of our strathspeys [Highland dance tunes] give me most exquisite enjoyment where you and other udges would probably be showing disgust.” Sir Walter Scott, unlike Burns had no ear for music, though naturally he loved the ballad airs of his country and the national p : pe. In his autobiography he tells us that his mother desired he should learn at least those tunes used in the church services. “But,” says he, “ the incurable defects of my voice and ear soon drove my teacher to despair.” Again he writes: “I do not know and cannot utter a note of music, and complicated harmonies seem to me a battle of confused though pleasing sounds.” In obedience to the dictates of fashion, he had frequently to attend concerts of high-class music. On these occasions he would often fall asleep, and his excuse on such occasions would be, that he only closed his eyes in order the better to open his ears. He might as well have openly avowed, with Congreve’s Jeremy, that although he had a reasonable ear for a jig, your sonatas gave him the spleen.