the wind agitated the eddying fire and smoke, or to move with the motion of the torches. "The weavers were mustering at the old castle. They were compressed between a church of antique and gigantic architecture, and ramparts, recently half destroyed by fire. They set forward, and such were their numbers that they seemed rather turning upon themselves than proceeding, when the head of their column appeared entering the market place by a dark and narrow street. Presently they stopped, without any perceptible cause. Loud cries arose. "Philippine clasped her hands, and for a moment seemed engaged in prayer; then raising her beautiful head, she murmured, 'I will stay them.' "She sprang upon her horse with the grace and lightness of a daughter of air. Her white robe floated in large folds over her courser's back; her tresses fell in curls upon her shoulders. Pale, but not timid, she urged her steed amidst the throng, forbidding all attendance. "When Philippine reached the spot, the column was again in motion. The weavers had driven back a body of enemies who had opposed their progress, and the conflict was raging round the palace of the Counts of Flanders. She saw the butchers and fishmongers, who guarded the palace, hurling large stones at their assailants. She heard battle cries and groans of pain. But it was impossible to make way through the infuriate mass of the draper's faction, and for a moment the young Countess forgot her purpose, whilst gazing on the spectacle that now fixed her attention. A party of carpenters, smiths, and tilers, had undertaken to penetrate into the palace, by throwing a sort of bridge across from the roof of a neighbouring house to one of the turrets. Thrice they succeeded in placing beams across, upon which the boldest immediately sprung; but every time their enemies overthrew their bridge, and with it were seen to fall those who had trusted to its support. But the assailants were not discouraged. A fourth attempt was made. A longer beam was more securely placed, and a throng of brave spirits rushed on to the tottering bridge. Again some fell, but many reached the turret; and immediately large planks afforded a passage to their comrades. A shout of triumph resounded through the adjacent streets. The body of the column pressed on. The palace of the Counts was won! "Philippine could now urge her horse forward, and she arrived in the palace court just as de Koning, released from his dungeon, was lifted up in triumph on a shield. "Insignificant in person, old, and blind of one eye, there was nothing in the appearance of the deacon of the drapers that could awe, flatter, or dazzle. He was a low-born man, with ordinary features, an ignoble carriage, a hard and sharp eye; but the indomitable resolution stamped on his bald and bony forehead recalled to the imagination those antique bronze statues. unchanged by time or tempest. His fetters had been broken, but some links still hung upon his arms, which, with looks of the fiercest resentment, he was displaying to his avengers. Those who bore him in triumph, almost all wounded and covered with blood, presented such contrasts as only popular commotions can offer. Here was a plaisterer white with lime, there a smith with blackened hands and face; weavers, dyers, fullers, all differently dressed and armed, but all alike robust, bold, and eager. Some prisoners of the hostile trades, who had been brought to the deacon's feet, seemed condemned to certain death. Most of them were on their knees ejaculating their dying prayers; but a few, more intent on braving their enemies than on the salvation of their own souls, stood upright, with threatening looks and insulting words, defying the revenge of their conquerors. "What shall we do with them, de Koning? inquired some of the leaders. "To death with them! To death with them!' shouted the impatient crowd. "And the deacon, his heart still ulcerated, seemed to smile at the idea of their execution. He bowed his head in token of assent; his lips moved to pronounce the fatal word. But a voice, to which every nerve in his frame vibrated, murmured, 'de Koning!' He shuddered, raised his eyes, and met the severe gaze of the young Countess. "The cheeks of the proud draper were crimsoned with shame. Of what mud is man's soul formed," exclaimed he bitterly, that for petty quarrels I should every minute betray the cause to which I have dedicated my existence!' And springing down from the buckler, he resumed in a loud voice. "No more honours, no more authority for me! Behold her whom we must all obey!' "All eyes were already fixed upon Philippine, who appeared amidst the ferocious multitude as a being of a higher nature. At first, the superstitious notions of the populace mingling with the illusive charm spread over that pure, white, and aerial form, they shrank from her in mute alarm. But when the name of Philippine of Flanders had been pronounced, all pressed around her whose misfortunes had excited so much interest and compassion. The offences imputed to her father were forgotten, together with the municipal enmities of the different trades, and innumerable voices enthusiastically raised the battle cry of her house, Flanderen den Leeuw-The Lion of Flanders!" Having thus awarded to M. Moke his due meed of praise, and given a fair specimen of his talents, we shall further prove our opinion of his merit, by pointing out some of the faults which we should wish him to avoid whilst pursuing the career so happily begun, uninterrupted, as we trust it may in future be, by such hors d'œuvre as his Battle of Navarino. His characters are exaggerated, and that sometimes to a degree of coarseness; and he unscrupulously deviates from the species of historical truth, which we expect in a historical novel, i. e. truth of characters and manners. In fact we think that the best style of historical novel, in which the historical personages are well interwoven with the story, the hero and heroine being fictitious, as in Ivanhoe, and indeed as in M. Moke's own Gueux des Bois. This is our taste. Nevertheless we would not quarrel with our author for rescuing Philippa, or as he pleases to call her, Philippine of Flanders, the affianced bride of Edward II. of England, from the premature death to which the remorseless Philip the Fair is said to have doomed her in his own palace as the surest way of preventing her marriage; nor yet for sinking this resuscitated princess into the inamorata of a French knight. But why, to take our example from the same novel, has he loaded with obloquy the memory of a queen, Jeanne de Navarre, of whom the last and ablest French historian, after ransacking, as in duty bound, all sources of information, expressly says, "History has preserved nothing respecting her that can enable us to judge of her character or of her influence with her husband;"-? And yet more, why has he done this, falsifying the date of her death to effect it, for the sake of diminishing the odium that rests upon her husband, Philip the Fair, one of the most contemptibly detestable of modern tyrants; the ruffianly virtual Sismondi, Histoire des Français, vol. ix. p. 170. Critical Sketches. assassin of an aged pontiff, whose chief faults sprang from partiality to that very Philip; the legal plunderer and murderer of the whole order of Knights Templars; in a word, for we have no leisure to enumerate his crimes, the cowardly robber, who effected by gross frauds, by the tricks of a pettyfogging attorney, those spoliations of his neighbours and vassals, which he had neither courage nor skill to achieve as a conqueror? Further, descending to minutiæ, and still confining our remarks to his last production, why has M. Moke given the Heiress of Navarre a brother, (who must have unheiressed her,) in her cousin, Robert of Artois? Or why has he made the name of the deacon of the weavers unplebeian by the addition of the French preposition, de? ART. XVI.-1. Verhandelingen over de Vraag: Welke Verdiensten hebben zich de Nederlanders vooral in de 14e, 15e, en 16e eeuw in het vak der Toonkunst verworven ; en in hoe verre kunnen de Nederlandsche Kunstenaars van dien tijd, die zich naar Italien begeven hebben, invloed gehad hebben op de muzijkscholen, die zich kort daarna in Italien hebben gevormd: Door R. G. Kiesewetter en F. J. Fétis. [Discussion of the question: What services have the Netherlanders, especially in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries, rendered to the art of music, and how far could the Netherlandish artists of that period, who went into Italy, have influenced the schools of music, which shortly afterwards arose there? By R. G. Kiese wetter and F. J. Fétis.] 4to. Brussels, 1830. 2. Curiosités Historiques de la Musique, complément nécessaire de la de la Revue Musicale. IN 1824, the foregoing question, was proposed by the fourth Class of the Royal Institute of Literature and the Fine Arts of the Netherlands, as the subject of a prize essay. It produced, among other answers, one in German, by M. Kiesewetter, of Vienna, and one in French, by M. Fétis, of Paris, which that learned body justly esteemed worthy of the gold and silver medal. Both candidates hold, we believe, appointments in royal or national libraries, and they therefore came to their task with those advantages of access to ancient MSS. which were indispensable to its successful execution. The result of this investigation, which has been upon both hands sufficiently diligent, is highly honourable to the genius of Flanders, and proves satisfactorily that the of that nation, if not the discoverers of counterpoint, were composers the first who turned its resources to their legitimate ends-expression and refinement. With the honour of producing the first practical application of the principle of florid counterpoint, they may be well content; and a view of contemporary compositions of various nations during the era of their most celebrated masters, renders their title to it unquestionable. To us, the examples and illustrations which have been industriously collected by M. Kiesewetter furnish the most va VOL. VII. NO. XIII. S 1 luable part of the volume. They prove that from the time of Ockeghem and Josquin des Pres (whose country, by-the-bye, is not satisfactorily determined,) to Orlando di Lasso, the Flemings were supreme in the musical art; and the Italians, whom we are accustomed to look upon as the regenerators of music in Europe, have with native frankness and candour been the first to acknowledge their obligations. The school of Italy was, in fact, much the younger one, commencing only with Palestrina, in the latter half of the 16th century, during the career of Orlandus Lassus, one of the last of the eminent musicians of Flanders. Such was the reputation of the latter school from the time of Ockeghem, to that of Lassus, that its masters or their pupils stocked all the foreign courts, and certainly with the happiest influence upon the taste for composition. Josquin appears to have been a prodigious man; his writings are the earliest extant, in which are found an instinct of the poetical, as regards conception and design; and he is remarkable, too, for expression at a time when his contemporaries were too much occupied with rules, and calculations, to believe imagination, or feeling, necessary to music. He was the admiration, of the Italians, for the constant variety of plan in his compositions; every one of which seemed to extend the domain of art. Nothing need be said beyond this in proof of his great genius. Roland Lassus, better known by his Italian cognomination, Orlando di Lasso, flourished about a hundred years later than Josquin, under the happiest circumstances that could befall a musician; and a life of ease and competence enabled him to leave a name as imperishable as the art itself. Many of his compositions are sought with delight at the present day, from the grace and elegance of their style. Palestrina, the founder of the Roman school, the first great name in the church music of Italy, and the contemporary and rival of Orlando di Lasso, was the disciple of Claudius Goudimel, a Fleming. M. Kiesewetter divides the history of Flemish art into three epochs-the age of Josquin, from 1450 to 1500; that of Hadrian Willaert from 1500 to 1540, and that of Orlando di Lasso from 1540 to 1590: from this period the genius of the Flemish masters declined. It is convincingly clear, that, for a century and a half, the composers of the Netherlands took precedence of those of civilized Europe, and that their contemporaries, gene. rally, could not pretend to equal their skill in the higher order of counterpoint. We wish M. Kiesewetter had been satisfied with showing this, with out attempting to prove that music was in a manner born in Flanders. In our opinion, he would not have deserved the gold medal the more, for labouring to show, that Melpomene came down from Heaven, via Holland, and landed in Flanders from a treckschuyt. Truth is the grand object in historical inquiry,-not the flattery of national vanity. Who the first discoverer of counterpoint, or rather of the combination of musical tones, was, cannot be known, nor is it important. Tinctoris, one of the earliest and most reputable authorities upon music, ascribes the origin of this art to England; but M. Kiesewetter, who will hear of no partition of honours with that classical territory, the history of whose performances he is examining, quotes the authority of Dr. Burney in opposition. It is a matter of the most perfect indifference, since counterpoint has been discovered and brought to perfection, what country has the majority of conjectures in its favour. The love of displaying knowledge, particularly where nothing can be known, is a foible in historians, which has provoked the good-humoured laugh of satirists from the time of Cervantes to the present. To our mind, the reeds and rural pipes of Ovid and Lucretius are worth a hundred pages of dry disquisition upon the origin of music. The essay of M. Fétis does not manifest any important variation from that of his fellow-labourer. He ascribes, however, to the Flemish, the honour of forming the organ school, for which Germany has become celebrated. The volume entitled Curiosités Historiques de la Musique is a piece of genuine book-making. It has no more connection with La Musique mise à la portée de tout le Monde than if it were an essay on the steam engine. One volume having sold off quickly, M. Fétis thought it expedient to try his fortune with another. He has accordingly reprinted several essays from the Revue Musicale, his letters on the state of music in England (not omitting the falsehoods contained therein), and joined to these certain extracts from a general biographical dictionary of musicians, which he is about to publish. This the complément necessaire to La Musique mise à la portée de tout le Monde! The author means that the profits are a complément necessaire to his pocket. ART. XVII. John Pettersson's fullständig Hebreisk Grammatika efter egna forskningar och ny åsigt af ordens grundformer. (John Peterson's Complete Hebrew Grammar, &c.) Lund. 1829. 8vo. GRAMMATICAL treatises are showered down upon the world as thick as bail-stones. Every man who sets up for a teacher seems to think he must establish his title by the publication of a School-book or a Grammar. This is particularly the case in Germany, where it is difficult to say whether the class of writers or of readers is the most numerous. Amidst the shoals of books upon languages, there are few worth rescuing from obscurity; they are generally dull repetitions of one another— amidst a century of which, not one ray of novelty throws out even a momentary brightness. We could mention a man who has written four Grammars of the same language, all unlike one another, yet each of course pretending to be the desideratum. Nay, in an Italian Grammar just published, the illustrious and candid author confesses that if he had understood the subject as well when he began his work as he did when he had completed it, he should have made a much better book. As soon as he had ended his task his notions changed, both of the fundamental character and the component parts and affinities of the language; and he should therefore have felt it his duty, had he been thoroughly acquainted with the topic, to give his production eine ganz-andere Gestalt-quite another shape. It would seem that the literary rule was not to write because you understand-not to write because you have knowledge; but |