abuses, arrive at the conclusion that the art itself is worthless; or, because luxury and effeminacy may have diverted it from its legitimate purposes, and substituted for its inspirations the false and fitful dreams of a laborious visionary, have inferred that it is essentially a conservation of the very effeminacy that paralyzed its best influences.

That inusic may become a benefit or an evil, according to its fitness to the capacity, condition, and circumstances of each one who engages in its practice, is a consideration not to be overlooked. The fact that it has resulted in serious injury to some from bad management, demands the anxious supervision of every parent, especially every good mother. Unhappily, the present course of discipline with daughters is found to expend itself too often on mere display. Intellectual superiority is made to yield its pretensions to the false and seducing charms of external graces and accomplish. ments. Admiration is the potent talisman of the present day; and multitudes who have little or no taste for the pure inspirations of music, affect a passion for its theory, and a devotedness to its prac. tice, as the easiest terms of competing successfully in the race for distinction. It is this glaring and growing folly that we would expose principally the hopeless efforts at what is miscalled ladies' musical education.

Musical education indeed! How much patient and laborious in. struction has been uselessly expended on those who have not sufficient capacity to comprehend the elementary principles of the art! How many precious hours wasted by those who might have devoted them to worthier employments!

It is no uncommon thing to hear extravagant praises awarded to what is called natural singing, in contradistinction to cultivated singing; as if the perfection of vocal music does not consist in presenting it in such a manner as to sink the appearance of studied art in approximating natural beauties. That singing which is overloaded with gaudy ornament is as great a violation of good taste as excess of embellishment in rhetoric, painting, poetry, sculpture, or architecture. The supposition that the capacity of presenting vo. cal music can come by intuition, is about as wise as its sister follies that prompt men to favor impudent pretensions of quackery in other departments. It is yielding to the vulgar opinion, that ignorance is better than knowledge. The very perfection of the art consists in presenting the most finished compositions in the agreeable and pleasant manner which disguises the elaborate process of study through which the vocalist has passed. It is only the second-rate performer that aims at surprising difficulties and exuberance of ornament. The true uses of music are, to present agreeable images, create

pleasant emotions, and to give effect to worthy thoughts. Its highest purpose must of necessity be the most intellectual: appropriate thoughts in appropriate dress. It must be comprehensible. Who speaks well of the oratorical rhapsodist that is not and cannot be understood? So with musical rhapsody. That is false which cannot be comprehended, and worthless which does not create emotions capable of analysis.

It is a lamentable fact, that many otherwise intelligent, and intellectual persons give a preference to the lisping, mouthing, and indistinct inanities of the drawing-room, called music, when not a solitary requisite to a good performance is found. One may as well expect without cultivation to reach the inspirations of poetry, or the grandeur of painting, or the beauty of statuary. Generally, what is worth doing at all, is worth doing well. There can be no severer infliction of penances on the cultivated ear, than to be com. pelled by the conventional rules of society to listen to the jejune and mawkish lullabies that are frequently offered as entertainments.

Limited opportunities of practice is sometimes the consequence of parsimony; but it is parsimony in the very worst place. It is like inviting company to a feast, and then, from motives of mean economy, offering stale viands and poor wines.

There is another objection to much of the music in common use, not so much to the musical arrangement as to the thoughts which the words convey. It is not to be denied that the sentiments of the poetry have generally less consideration than the musical arrangement. Frequently a young lady is heard to sing stanzas from which she would revolt if put into simple prose. A trashy and unmeaning congeries of words that masquerade in musical dresses are less offensive, because nearly harmless. What are the greater part of the love songs that are heard, but mere tissues of sickly sen timentality that do no injury because incapable of analysis? So that this class, after all, is the least offensive. Another class is ob. jectionable, because, being founded on foreign customs, the senti. ments neither recognise the manners of our country nor illustrate the effects of our institutions. The evening serenades of a milder climate, and the descriptive ballads of the troubadours, are as unmeaning here as the peculiarities of the Celestial Empire. A third class is still more objectionable from the lips of ladies, and consists of songs of war and chivalry. It strikes us that it is not quite right for the daughters of our land to be instructed in the contemplation of blood and carnage, by mingling with the enchantments of music thoughts that breathe in war songs. And yet it is a very common thing to hear " March to the battle-field" from the lips even of children. Of a kindred character is Mrs. Hemans'

popular ballad, "The Captive Knight," which, in celebrating the events of the chivalrous ages, is certainly not the worthiest theme of our fair country women. Songs of the sea and of the chase are also equally unfitted for ladies. Who can tolerate to hear a lady sing the masculine song of "The Sea?" Among what are called sacred songs, are many at least equivocal, and convey sentiments of misanthropy, if not of impiety. Take the popular song, "The world is all a fleeting show, for man's illusion given;" translate it into plain prose, and it charges God with creating the world with the design to deceive man. Surely there is a range of sub. jects sufficiently broad to be found in friendship, and rational love, and innocent joys, and home, and its social and domestic blessings. It is for mothers to direct proper subjects. It is incredible that they should neglect a supervision in a matter that may have so much lasting influence on the character of their daughters. The mind, once poisoned by improper thoughts associated with mu sical sounds, will not fail to vibrate to the chord that connects itself with unworthy images. It then becomes irresistible; and this consideration cannot be enforced with too much earnestness. talk of education. Let it not be thought, that, in a matter where so much of early impression and enthusiasm is mingled, this is the weakest part of mental discipline. The thoughts that are associated with home, and a mother's smiles, and days of unclouded happiness, will be the last to fade from memory.

We

Let those who have the means of coming to a just conclusion in this matter, reflect for a moment on the character of the vocal mu. sic of the day; and let mothers particularly see to it, that false im. pressions are not made to survive in the minds of their children when they can no longer control the current of maturer thoughts.

ROSE AND VIOLET.

[Scene. English garden.]

Violet. Lovely, lovely Rose!

Rose. Dear, sweet Violet!

Violet. No wonder that noble creature, man, delights in you, you so charm human beings. Do they not praise God in their temples, for that divine gift, the rose?

Rose. The love that race shows me, consoles me for the ill-will of the tulip, the daffodil, and the peony. Those eyes that visit me day after day, to mark my unfolding, those silken locks I adorn with my buds, give dignity to my short life. The poets put into words the enjoyment I bestow on all mankind. Like the creature man, I am painted, I am carved. My image delights him, like the imitations of his own noble form. Like his, my date is extended, in metal, in marble, on the precious canvass. I gratify the dullest senses; I have a place in every heart. It is degrading to be meanly copied by the Parisians in muslin and paper, to be stiffened out into porcelain in a manufactory; but this is no more than man undergoes when he is basely figured in wax. But with my best honors, your fame, my friend, is more precious than mine; I am admired, you are loved. I am the emblem of youth and beauty; you, of the qualities that distinguish the durable principle in the creature man. You signify memory; you are the symbol of modesty. My lines, when traced on a seal, that sweetest of all depositories, leave not so high a meaning as your impress. A tomb, the most touching of all objects, that house of hope, might review your image on its sealed door; your image, in your noble name, 66 Forget me not." Violet. I should not dream of comparing myself with you,

"Che mezzo aperta ancora, e mezzo ascosa,
Quanto si mostra men, tanto è piu bella."

Half blown, slightly wrapped in your graceful calyx, what is like you? The fragrance which gives fame to our whole race is confined to my branch of the family. The natives of America wonder why we are so bepraised by the English poets, and ascribe their warmth to the exaggerating spirit of fancy. Though my relations there, unlike the violets of India which hold themselves erect, imi. tate the attitude of the European violet, and "lean" inverted, as the American poet Bryant describes them. thev are like the greater part

of the family, nearly scentless. A mere American florist does not comprehend Shakspeare when he talks of

"the sweet south,

That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odor."

One of our travellers indignantly calls the American violets "purple cheats."

Rose. Theirs might return the reproach, for our nymphæa is scentless, while the American species is deliciously perfumed; I wonder the American poets can so neglect this lovely ornament of their waters. If it belonged to us, ours would long since have enthroned it in their lays. Perfume is certainly the greatest charm of us all. I suppose the modest bearing of the scentless violets would have passed unobserved were they not related to you, since modesty does not attract attention, except as the setting off of merit. It is the hanging of your sweet head, lovely one, amidst a cloud of fragrance, which charms the poets.

Violet. The pedate violet of America, with its soft petals, colored with a harmoniously soft blue, and its large orange anthers, deserves a poet for its beauty. But I believe that good gift of sweetness, bestowed on me, has drawn attention even to the humblest of the family. The graceful and various structure common to them with their finer kindred, might otherwise have escaped attention. Even the green violet, which grows up with its long elliptic leaves among the limestone of Pennsylvania, has elegance; so has the brown violet, which, from hiding its dark flowers under decayed wood and leaves in the beechen mountain forests of Pennsylvania, bears the name of Viola clandestina.

Rose. Your leaves have no fixed character like your flowers.

Violet. No, nor our mode of growth. Some of us are lifted up on the main stem, others issue immediately from the earth. I am among the latter, of the lowly statue, but I am not the lowliest. The pigmy violet of Peru nestles among a tuft of linear leaves scarcely an inch high, and hangs from the top of stems, still lower than the leaves, its petals peeping just beyond the white-edged points of the calyx. As to our leaves, they are various indeed-heart-shaped, palmate, pedate, digitate, pinnate, sagittate, dentate, lanceolate, linear, cucullate, orbicular, elliptic.

Rose. All my family send out pinnate leaves except one, a native of Persia, which derives its name from the resemblance of its leaves to those of the sour barberry, the barberry-leaved rose. It is of that color too, yellow, which marks the inferior members of our