MUSIC and dancing! What of them?-The subject is broad enough; for these are amusements that all men, everywhere, and in all times, have delighted in. Any one who should give us an account of national dances and national music, would write a very extensive chapter of the social history of mankind, and one that would supply a key to some chapters beside. The universal acceptableness of music to the ear is very well put in the saying Landor attributes to William Penn,-that there is "something even in a violin, if played discreetly, that appeareth to make hot weather cool, and cold weather warm and temperate." But it is in keeping with the great Quaker's character that he should be represented as adding a protest, that the chords of music should not have " young maidens tied invisibly to the end of them, jerking up and down in a strange fashion before one's eyes!" The

mental effects of music are confessed by those who simply receive its sound into their hearts, without catching the melody, or having any sense of the harmony to which they listen, as much as by those who intelligently apprehend musical eloquence and passion. Both, thinking a little on their pleasure, recognize that music excites the imagination, warms the feelings, and refreshes the memory. The blank, dull, outlets of the soul, under its influence, disclose the figures and glow with the varied colours of impressions made there long ago; and the halls of life, besprinkled by the fountain of sweet sound, become cool and pleasant to the gratified senses. But the very nature of its influence makes it possible that music should become morally weakening and sensually

corrupting. Into the sacred stream there open many channels through which it may be polluted and poisoned. And it is of such degradation of music, as an amusement for the people, that something is now to be said, as well as of the perversion of music's attendant, dancing, into an incentive to forwardness and licentiousness. In fact, speaking both to and for the large classes that give so much of its peculiar character to the north, these words are directed to the Singing Saloon and the Cheap Ball.

It is not in concert halls, though professedly devoted to music for the million, that one finds the real working-classes, or learns what is the sort of musical entertainment that has the greatest attraction for the lower strata of the "people." It is the singing saloon that is characteristically theirs. Enter one of the most reputable-and what may be seen? A large room, having some pretensions to elegance, well lighted and well warmed; a crowd of working-people, male and female, many of them of a seemingly decent sort, others very suspicious, others plainly dissipated and bad. Beer and tobacco-things that may have their legitimate use-are here partaken freely, under circumstances that invite the abuse of them: At the upper end of the room are the preparations for a musical performance; a piano, a seedy gentleman with a violin, a remarkably easy and assured but debauched-looking young man, who sings comic songs, and one or more female singers, prodigal of their poor and faded charms. The music commences-good enough for most of those assembled, in execution, at least; and consisting mostly of popular and not objectionable songs.

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The young lady knows her audience, and infallibly takes its heart and wins its applauses. There is nothing more than the most washy sentimentalism, or the most dreary pathos; but it proves to be all that is needful to exuberant enjoyment. The beer, or the something more, circulates abundantly, and all present are well plied with solicitations to give their orders:"-many already drinking frequently and deeply. Excitement begins to creep over the audiencee-the excitement of the presence of a crowd-the excitement of a heated atmosphere-the excitement of music that expresses the slumbering passions of the listener -the excitement of powerful stimulants the excitement of contact with select companions. Feverish craving is the mark of such sensuous excitation as this; and it must be satisfied. The comic gentleman now gets a hush for a song. osity, and smiling expectation, and significant looks at each other, tell what the audience expects. His song has a coarse and forced fun; it contains some profanities and dirty jokes, and some indecent allusions, which are always given with a marked slyness and insinuatingness, and which are greeted by the more depraved with clamorous delight. And so the evening wears away-in song without soul, in music without true mirth, and in the gradual spread, under provocatives the most potent, of sensual feeling and heated. passion throughout the crowd. And this is a favourite popular amusement!

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I have been very careful not to exaggerate. I have not touched the vices that almost always associate themselves with, and sometimes broadly appear in the singingsaloon. I have not tried to understand the lurid light of eyes that were lustreless, till they found here companions that have thrown around them their evil toils. I have not followed those who leave the saloon

for places, ever at hand, where such amusement as this, naturally enough, passes over into licentiousness and sin. I have treated these singingrooms simply as amusements popular with multitudes of our people-attended by our Sabbath-scholars, by the young lads of reputable families, and by young women who are to be the wives and mothers of a large and important class of our town population-if this singing-saloon does not strand them before that time come. The so-called amusement of such places we find to be-abandonment to an excitement of the most sensualizing kind, never of less intensity than suffices to degrade the mind, to corrupt the feelings, and to deprave the conscience.

Another popular amusement is the Dancing Academy and the Cheap Ball. Now, whatever may be said of dancing as exercise or as amusement, and however harmless in itself, little but what is of the nature of unmixed censure can be said of public and promiscuous dances. Dancing may be a beneficial part of the physical education of a child. One may admit that it has its place in any complete system of gymnastics that it is an excellent means, sometimes, of keeping down the redundant spirits of young people, or of throwing some animal life into those who are spiritless and indolent, and that it may very pleasantly vary the amusements of home. I know that the good Father, Chrysostom, said that" our feet were not given us for dancing, but to walk modestly, and not to leap impudently, like camels;" but I rather think most people will conclude that their feet were given them for whatever their feet are able to do without wrong. And even if there be absurdity in the amusement, abstractly considered-if to some it seem that these are simply ridiculous and unmeaning movements, through which the dancers so solemnly and earnestly pass-I suppose there are few

now-a-days but would readily admit that it is not in itself sinful-that there is nothing more unlawful in a good man's amusing himself with a dance than with dumbbells-and that there is no immorality in a measured motion to a musical accompaniment. But all dancing in mixed and large companies, is both physically and morally injurious. The unseasonable hours, and the close hot rooms, deprive all such dancing of any claim to be considered an exercise that has hygienic value. In the case of the dancers who figure at cheap balls, there is, besides, generally a devotion of the entire evening to the amusement, with a constancy which seems to indicate (as has been wittily said) that they consider the chief end of man and of woman to be "up the middle and down again "—and with a violence which suggests that such dancing as they practice must have been "studied under St. Vitus." But the objections to this amusement, so much indulged by large numbers of the people in our great towns, lie deeper than in physical considerations. The cheap ball-room is undoubtedly one of the most flowery roads to ruin for our working-people. The dances themselves are often such as are unendurable to persons of refinement, or to unrefined persons with simple and pure minds; and the manner of dancing is not always free from impropriety.

In such

places and performances will be found the unmistakeable marks, in the arrangements and surroundings, of a ministration to the lowest and grossest feelings; and, in the proceedings of the people, the indications of a sensual indulgence and an excitement of the passions, which make the recreation nothing less than commenced licentiousness. Young people prancing wildly in each other's arms, with their hot breath fanning each other's cheeks, are, almost unconsciously to themselves, drawn into a dangerous familiarity; and, where No. 3.-VOL. I.

there is little refinement, especially if there be little of internal moral or religious restraint, it follows that moral injury is suffered, in the stimulation of susceptibilities that should be protected, in the awakening of morbid sympathies and emotions, and in the undue increase of the energy of the passions. In brief, a true reading of this second people's amusement is foolish company, foolish vanity, foolish impropriety-the sources of physical depression, and of the demoralization of the heart, if not of actual immorality in conduct.

The serious side of a low or doubtful amusement that is enjoyed by multitudes is—that it reveals the character of those resorting to it. It is not in the conventional respectability of their business life— not in the order and active labour of the factory-not in the midst of the understood proprieties of the Sunday-school, that we can best discern what our young men and women are made of. In such places, and at such times, they are on their guard, and practise all they know of self-control. But seek them in their amusements, learn their choice of entertainments, and observe their mode of taking pleasure; and as all hours of recreation bring something of self-abandonment, there is the true discovery of the tastes and sympathies, the moral condition and real character. In the singing saloon and cheap ball we see what may start a miserable reflection—that these are an expression of what people around us really are, having been created for, and being able to thrive upon, their tastes and tendencies.

If one has courage to look for a remedy of any kind, it may be suggested that two or three things require to be remembered which earnest religious men sometimes overlook. First, amusements are a necessity to human nature; they will be sought they must be provided

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they ought to be partaken and heartily enjoyed. They have to be improved, elevated, and more abundantly supplied, rather than to be merely denounced and forbidden. Secondly, as long as the masses of the people remain what they are, their amusements will continue to be of the same kind and tendency. We cannot introduce and impose a new and loftier class of recreations, while people are suffered to remain what they are in all other things, out of which the need and desire for amusement spring. It is the idlest of all suppositions that a people's amusements can be purified alone, and apart from the elevation of the people themselves. Efforts to improve their gratifications must root themselves soundly in large and generous purposes for the sound advancement of their whole condition. They ought to have music, and spectacle, and exercise suited to them; but you cannot have these thoroughly pure, innocent, and refreshing, while the

persons for whom they are provided remain ignorant, gross, and sensual. And, lastly, the present amusements of the people will not be improved by a crusade for the suppression of such places as have been described; they cannot be violently displaced by attacking their improprieties and reprobating their influence. And no mistake could be greater than to suppose that the existing pleasuretaking can be transformed into a use of what are called instructive amusements—museums, popular lectures, picture exhibitions, and so on. The very words instructive amusements contradict one another. Whatever is amusement is simply rest, play, and enjoyment; and the presence of a utilitarian suggestion or aim is an end to it. These things may be trifling work, or light study, or desultory culture; but people want complete surrender to play, if they are to be truly amused. Whoever touches the matter practically, must, first and last, remember this.

"When Lazarus left his charnel cave,
And home to Mary's house returned,
Was this demanded-if he groaned
To hear her weeping by his grave?
Where wert thou, brother, those four days?
There lives no record of reply,
Which, telling what it is to die,
Had surely added praise to praise.
From every house the neighbours met,
The streets were filled with joyful sound,
A solemn gladness even crowned
The purple brows of Olivet.
Behold a man raised up by Christ!

The rest remaineth unrevealed-
He told it not: or something sealed
The lips of that Evangelist.”

TENNYSON. THOSE of our readers who are acquainted with the history of this picture will be expecting it to form the subject of our second exposition.

Notwithstanding their surprise that it should ever have appeared as a rival by the side of “The Transfiguration," they will remember the cir cumstances under which it was painted, and feel the necessity that is laid upon us to place these works together again. We should, however, have held ourselves almost excused from hanging this "Raising of Lazarus" in our gallery of great pictures, had we not been assured by Dr. Waagen that it is "the most important specimen of the Italian school now in England," and by another authority that it is "the second picture in the world"

The opinion of these professionals

will perplex many of the visitors of our National Gallery, as they stand before this large dark canvas; there seeming to be only one point in which they, as laymen, can perceive the two works of the rival painters will bear comparison. Both having been intended for altar-pieces, they are evidently, as far as their size is concerned, equally great pictures, measuring exactly twelve feet six inches in height, and differing only a few inches in breadth. The comparison, in our opinion, had better end there.

Most critics concur in believing that "The Raising of Lazarus" was the joint production of Michael Angelo and Sebastian del Piombo, though few of them agree as to the extent to which the master assisted his disciple. Some assert that Michael Angelo furnished the complete design, and others that he actually painted the Lazarus; while those who find that he was absent from Rome when this picture was in progress, seem only to see his hand in the modelling of the Lazarus, and conjecture that he merely gave Sebastian the cartoon of that figure.

The partnership in the picture is a matter of history. There was nothing peculiar in it. Many other paintings of Sebastian were executed from the designs of Michael Angelo, and many other artists, besides Sebastian, were only too glad to be assisted in the same way.

There is sufficient ground to believe that the two painters united their talents in this work, with the view of eclipsing Raphael. It would appear that comparisons were often being instituted between the great master of Design and the great master of Expression, and that, especially after the simultaneous exhibition of their works in the Vatican, discussions were rife as to their relative merits. This party spirit was pandered to by their patrons and their pupils, and Michael Angelo, notwithstanding his high position,

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was not above the besetting sin of his profession; but he appears, with the well-known susceptibility and jealousy of an artist, to have envied the popularity of Raphael, and to have caballed with Sebastian against him. Raphael is reported to have been marvellously free from the power of this evil spirit. This absence of envy is in perfect keeping with his character, and might be almost argued from the spirit and power of The Transfiguration." It is plainly shown by a remark which he made when he heard of the conspiracy, "I rejoice," said he, " at the favour Michael Angelo does me, since he proves therein that he thinks me worthy to compete with himself, and not with Sebastian." While the two conspirators are generally acknowledged to have failed in their object, they are still regarded as having produced between them a remarkable work. This could hardly have been avoided, as the picture is a combination of the finest school of design, with the finest school of colour. It is to this, perhaps, that it owes its preciousness with the profession.

The common effect produced by "The Raising of Lazarus" upon the ordinary spectator is that of oppressiveness and disappointment. It may be that most visitors forget the darkening tendency of time, and come to the gallery unprepared for the obscurity in which centuries have hidden the greater part of the design. The fame, the well-known title, and the equally familiar story of the picture will have naturally excited the highest expectations, and the spectators approach almost certain of seeing our Lord, and being present at the very moment when he is raising Lazarus from the dead. They are doomed to be disappointed.

The point of sight having been placed in the background, spectators are at first carried away by it toward Jerusalem, and it is some time be