LETTER LXXXII.

MUSIC AND THE DRAMA.

Rome, March 27th, 1818. I CAME to Italy expecting to find it the land of song, to hear music wafted in every gale, and every valley vocal with harmony. Great has been my disappointment. I have not only heard very little good music, but very little music at all. During the whole course of the eighteen months that have now nearly elapsed since I first set foot in Italy, during all my travels through the country, and my residence in the towns, the sound of music has seldom met my ear unsought. I find it, indeed, as in all great cities, in public theatres, in crowded assemblies, and stately drawing-rooms; but it is not the spontaneous "voice of the people."

In their constantly recurring Festas, when the streets are thronged day after day with a listless loitering crowd, the sound of music is seldom or never heard. It does not beguile these long days of idleness, nor, as among the Spaniards, the Portu

gueze, and the Germans, is it resorted to after the hours of labour, to charm away their evening cares. Even the artisan, plying his daily task, and "the spinners in the sun," as they sit at their doors, twirling the slow thread on the distaff and spindle, are never heard singing at their work.

The first music that saluted me at Rome, and that was after I had lived nearly a month in it, was the bagpipe.

I was awakened one night from a feverish slumber, by the well-known drone of that mellifluous instrument. I imagined, that being in a fever, I was also in a delirium; but it was by no means an ecstatic delusion, and these real, or imaginary national tones, were so far from proving a regale to my ungratified ears, that when a second bagpipe set up its throat, and a third joined in the droning chorus, I thought I should have gone distracted.

The next night the same horrible disturbance was repeated, and now convinced it was only too real, I found, upon making inquiry, that numbers of Zampognari, or Piferari, as these bagpipers are called, annually come up from Campania before Christmas, to play hymns upon their bag, pipes to the Virgin, who, if she has any ear for music, must be nearly deafened with this piece of their courtesy.

The serenades that had broken my rest, I found were addressed to a Madonna, immediately below my bed-room windows, and for many a night, or, as they call it, morning, (about four o'clock,) did these pious pipers continue to drone out their

strains to this stony image, whose deafness and insensibility I was tempted to envy.

The bag-pipe, as my more travelled friends tell me, is a very classical instrument, and extends not only over Italy, but throughout Greece, and is supposed to be one of the most ancient musical(query, unmusical?)-instruments in the world. I can only say, that if "Music, heavenly Maid!” played upon it

"when she was young,

And first in early Greece she sung,"

I cannot enter into the poet's regret at not having heard her; but, on the contrary, am perfectly satisfied

"With all that charms this laggard age;"

to wit—the strains she gives us now she has grown old.

Some wandering harpers from the south of Italy, too, sometimes visit Rome. Their music is simple, very peculiar, perhaps very ancient, and certainly very sweet. They are called Carciofolari. Excepting these itinerant musicians, and one old blind man, who is stationary, I have heard no street music in Rome, and very little in any town, village, or hamlet of Italy, in which it has been my lot to sojourn ; excepting Naples and Venice. There the voice of music is continually heard at evening, over the calm waters of the Bay of Naples, and the Canals of the Adriatic,-on the Chiaja, and the

Piazza di San Marco. The favourite instrument in both places is the guitar, or viola,-an excellent accompaniment for the voice. When I was at Naples, Ricciordello Antonio, a beautiful playful little air, was the most popular among the Lazzaroni; and at Venice, "Buona notte, Amato bene," met me at every corner; both sung with a spirit and gaiety that gave them an inexpressible charm.

One thing, indeed, I must remark, that whereever one does hear music in Italy, it is really music (excepting the bagpipes)—something deserving of the name.

One's ear is never tortured with the horrible tunes, executed in a still more horrible style, with which it is continually assailed in England, not only in the streets, but in theatres and drawingrooms. But the fact is, music with us is an exotic, and the plant has a sickly and artificial existence. In the great hot-bed of London alone, it comes to any perfection, and there, though fine, it is forced.

If Italy bears away the palm in vocal excellence, Germany far surpasses it in instrumental music, in the refined and universal taste, or rather passion, for music, diffused among all classes, and in the excellence both of the composition and execution. There you may hear the compositions of Mozart, and Haydn, and Beethoven, in the dwelling of every artizan; but in Italy, her own immortal masters are neglected and forgotten, or heard now only in other lands.

Rossini carries all before him, and far be it from me to join in the senseless outcry which has been

raised against him by some of our own amateurs here. I neither think, with some of his own countrymen, that all he has written is perfection, nor with many of ours, that none of it is bearable. I cannot conceive that he can have any soul for music, who does not feel the exquisite beauty of some of the parts of Tancred and Othello, of the Italian in Algiers, the Barber of Seville, and of many other of his works. At the same time, the poor drudge compelled to labour at the bidding of his masters, not at the suggestion of his genius, and forced to manufacture music by the hour and the line, cannot always produce works of equal excellence. Considering the early years of Rossini and the immense quantity of music he has already written, I think it is wonderful there is so little that is bad, and so much that is beautiful. Still, though I would not have heard less of his works, I could have wished to have heard more of my old favourites, Cimarosa and Paësiello, to say nothing of one superior to all Italian masters, I need not say I mean Mozart,-whose exquisite compositions I have literally never heard at all in this land of harmony.

The higher orders have not quite the same strong general passion for music that I expected. It forms no part of the entertainment in their conversaziones, except when a rare accademia renders it the sole purpose of the meeting. Indeed, it seems less generally than with us a source of domestic amusement; but I am not sure that this is to be regretted: It may perhaps be doubted, whe