[5] "Melody is the essence of Music," said Mozart to Michael Kelly; "I compare a good melodist to a _fine racer_, and counter-points to _hack post-horses_." I think I can, in some degree, account for the fashion these composers have gained, and why, I fear, they are likely to maintain it. It is that the _public have become too musical_. Every female, from the highest to the lowest, whose parents can purchase a piano-forte, and pay a master, _must_ learn music; the number of teachers and pupils are multiplied without end; and out of either class how many are there qualified by nature as singers? Not two in fifty. What follows? By labour and attention _science_ may be acquired, although _voice_ cannot. The voiceless teacher may instruct his voiceless pupil in the foppery of an art, the _spirit_ of which is unattainable by either; pieces merely scientific are placed by him on her piano--are performed to the credit of both, with vast execution, as far as respects the science and the harmony---but as for the singing, as singing ought to be, 'tis "Worse than the howling of Irish wolves against the moon." Well--_Miss_, from the expense and pains bestowed upon her, must, of course, be the musical oracle of the family; the father must forego his favourite old songs, written by "_honest_ Harry Carey," (as Ritson insists on his being called); the mother is laughed to scorn if she mentions "Auld Robin Gray," "Mary's Dream," "Oh, Nanny, wilt thou gang wi' me?"--or such obsolete stuff;--and even the brothers, who might stickle a little for Moore's melodies, "With thoughts that breathe and words that burn," are silenced with, "Pooh! any body can sing them." Thus is the family taste made up; and this extends to the patronage of singers in the style alone deemed correct, as it is the quantity of public patronage which must influence the manager of either theatre or concert in the persons he engages. And thus has the great extension of musical taste been injurious to music.