indifference; it calls forth no feeling, and excites no enthusiasm. It is, indeed, seldom adequately performed. Many of Handel's songs are truly dramatic; but the purists of "the good old school," sternly adhering to their--self-styled classic--insipidity, never condescend to a meretricious display of dramatic power. The Italian and German schools are not understood by the "million." We have on many occasions observed a large audience, who, after having listened with an air of puzzled stupidity to the performance of the most beautiful _cavatine_ by the first singers of the day, would the next moment, one and all, be thrown into apparent ecstasy by a wretched ballad, wound up by the everlasting ponderous English shake. This mode of conclusion, to which true taste is an utter stranger, is still considered indispensable; though, in the Italian school, it has been exploded upwards of a century. Such is the music which calls forth the latent enthusiasm of an English assembly, and a very respectable degree of excitement is often thus produced. There are many, who believe this music to be of the highest class of excellence, and who affect to despise the music of every other school. There are also many, who assert that all other music is artificial and meretricious--who contend that the Italian and German schools are usurping an undue ascendency over the genuine, but modest, merit of our native music. That Bishop, Calcott, Webbe, Arne, and the rest, had reached the perfection of their art, would seem a bold assertion; and their most enthusiastic admirers would probably hesitate to state it as their conviction, that the compositions of their favourites contain the elements of universal popularity. Such, however, is the logical deduction from these premises, and the necessary conclusion from opinions, which those who hold them will not easily evade. If the music of our country does indeed possess the excellence, so fondly asserted by its numerous admirers, we might naturally expect, amid the general demand in Europe for musical entertainments, that its beauties should not be entirely neglected and unknown. But while the Italian opera has found its way over nearly the whole of Europe, and is absolutely naturalized in England, France, and Spain, our musical productions are unknown beyond the limits of their native shores. This, being a negative proposition, is not capable of direct proof. Michael Kelly gives an amusing account of the performance of the celebrated hunting song at Vienna, in which the discordant cries of "Tally-ho, Tally-ho," are said to have driven the Emperor in indignation from the theatre, a great part of the audience also following the royal example. "The ladies hid their faces with the hands, and mothers were heard cautioning daughters never to repeat the dreadful expression of Tally-ho." We have, ourselves, heard a no less air than "Drops of Brandy," performed by a military