affection, friendship, patriotism, pity, grief, courage—whatever generously swells the heart or tenderly subdues it—or purely elevates it—are, of themselves, of their own attuning and accordant graciousness, of a musical inspiration. With what enchantment will a simple strain pierce the silence of the breast, and in every note break the slumber of a thousand thoughts. It is a positive enchantment. Faces long in the clay bloom as they did in youth. An inward ear is opened through the outward—and voices of other times are speaking—and words which you had heard before come to your soul, and they are pleasant in this illusive echo. Your spirit is lost in the flight of days, and insensible to the interval of distance; it is back in other hours, and dwells in other scenes. Such are the mysterious linkings by which music interlaces itself with our feelings—and so becomes an inseparable portion of our sympathy. But sympathy exists only when music answers to the spirit. Give not a merry carol to a heavy heart; although you may give a grave strain to a light one. Music, as rightly used, is, as some one calls it, “the medicine of an afflicted mind.” Joy is heightened by exultant strains, but grief is eased only by low ones. “A sweet, sad measure” is the balm of a wounded spirit. Music lightens toil. The sailor pulls more cheerily for his song: and even the slave feels in singing that he is a man. But, in other forms of labor, we miss in our country the lyric feeling. Most of our work is done in silence. We hear none of those songs at the milking hour, which renders that hour in Europe so rich in pastoral and poetical associations. We hear no ploughman’s whistle ringing over the field with a buoyant hilarity. We have no chorusses of reapers, and no merry harvest-feasts. But if such things can not be naturally, it is vain to wish for them—and it may be even useless to mention them. Better things, perhaps, are in their place—grave meditation and manly thought—and I merely allude to them as elements that accord pleasingly with certain modes of life in countries to whose habits and history they are native. Music in social intercourse is a fine awakener of sympathies, and a fine uniter of them. A violin or a piano is often not less needed to soothe the ruffled spirit of a company, than the harp of David was to calm down the fiend in the turbulent breast of Saul. Music, as we see in the customs of all nations, is used as an antidote to the sense of danger, as well as a stimulus to the passion of combat. And as embattled hosts move with measured tramp to the field of death, music is the magic that is trusted to charm away fear or to call up courage.