contains, into their several places,--the budding and blooming of the thousand flowers,--the cooing of the tender doves,--the trampling of the heavy beasts,--the flowing of the gentle rills,--the rolling of the mountain waves,--the bursting of light at the Creator's word,--angels praising God,--the noble work of man's creation,--the achievement of the whole,--up to the last grand and glorious chorus,--all is sublimity--all is divine! and the whole soul of the auditor is wrapt in sacred awe, as he follows the beneficent hand of his Maker in its wonderful work, and is lost in rapture and adoration, amid the blaze of glory by which he finds himself surrounded at the close. * * * * * SOME THOUGHTS ON OPERATIVE MUSIC. There are those who institute a comparison between music and poetry, and much to the prejudice of the former. They argue that the intellect has nothing to do with music, and that it is ridiculous and absurd in those who speak no Italian, to pretend to derive any satisfaction from listening, for two hours, to music in a language they cannot understand--affecting, at the same time, to comprehend the sense to be conveyed, by the sounds they drink in with such assumed rapture. I conceive this to be far from just reasoning. Doubtless there is a great deal of affectation in the fashionable world upon the subject of music in general, and of the opera in particular; but we have no right to judge our neighbor's taste by our own--perhaps, after all, it may turn out that our own is defective or false. I am inclined to argue that the intellect has as much to do with music as with poetry. In judging of pieces adapted to music, we should be lenient on the subject of the thoughts, if the design and story have variety enough to afford a basis for a corresponding variety of musical ideas. The most common expression of any passion may be tolerated, when the music, _not_ the poetry, is to form the embellishment. Who cares for the story--the plot--in listening to the Italian opera? Nay, more--are not the finest and most beautiful pieces of that class of music, vulgar and weak as poetical compositions? Is not the musical composer the genius of the piece? While the poet utters some such trash as 'I shall support myself by feasting on your beautiful eyes,' the composer so varies the expression of his music, that, in truth, the thought becomes refined, just as it would if the poet had undertaken to present it in a variety of views. To say, therefore, that the repetitions in music are nonsense, is just to profess a deplorable ignorance of the science. The words convey a sentiment which the musician undertakes to increase--to soften--to embellish, through a series of fine ideas, of which those who have neither musical taste nor ear have not the least conception.