'But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.' “Haydn used to say that without melody the most learned and singular combinations are but unmeaning, empty sound. What but the simplicity and tenderness of the Scotch and Irish airs constitutes their charm? This great composer was so extravagantly fond of Scotch, Irish, and Welsh melodies, that he harmonised many of them, and had them hung up in frames in his room. We remember to have heard somewhere of an officer in a Highland regiment, who was sent with a handful of brave soldiers to a penal settlement in charge of a number of convicts; the Highlanders grew sick at heart; the touching strains of '_Lochaber nae mair_.' heard far from home, made them so melancholy, that the officer in command forbade its being played by the band. So, likewise, with the national melody, the '_Rans-des-Vaches_' among the Swiss mountaineers. When sold by their despotic chiefs, and torn from their dearest connexions, suicide and desertion were so frequent when this melody was played, that orders were issued in all their regiments, prohibiting any one from playing an air of that kind on pain of death. _La maladie du pays_,--that sickening after home! But Handel's music has received more lasting and general applause than that of any other composer. By Boyce and Battishall his memory was adored; Mozart was enthusiastic in his praise; Haydn could not listen (_who can?_) to his glorious Messiah * without weeping; and Beethoven has been heard to declare, that were he ever to come to England he should uncover his head, and kneel down at his tomb! * Bishop Ken says, “Sweet music with blest poesy began, Congenial both to angels and to Man, Song was the native language to rehearse The elevations of the soul in verse: And through succeeding ages, all along, Saints praised the Godhead in devoted song.” And he adds in plain prose, that the Garden of Eden was no stranger to “singing and the voice of melody.” Jubal was the “father of those who handled the harp and organ.” Long- before the institution of the Jewish church, God received praise both by the human voice and the “loud timbrel and when that church was in her highest prosperity, King David seems to have been the composer of her psalmody--both poetry and music. He occupied the orchestra of the temple, and accounted it a holy privilege “to play before the Lord” upon “the harp with a solemn sound.” Luther said, “I verily think that, next to divinity, no art is comparable to music.”