MUSIC.

It is not given to all to stir the heart

And sway the soul, with all-inspiring voice.

Or flexile fingers, perfect in the art

That soothes in sorrow, smiles when we rejoice.

But unto all is given the right to love

The harmonies divine that weave a spell

About our lives; foretaste of heaven above,

Sent down to earth from where the immortals dwell.

-J. C. H.

Let me have music dying, and I seek no more delight.

-Keats.

In the germ, when the first trace of life begins to stir, music is the nurse of the soul; it murmurs in the ear, and the child sleeps; the tones are companions of his dreams,-they are the world in which he lives.

-Bettina.

The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils.

-Shakspere.

Music is the medicine of an afflicted mind; a sweet sad measure is the balm of a wounded spirit; and joy is heightened by exultant strains. -Henry Giles.

There's music in the sighing of a reed ; There's music in the gushing of a rill; There's music in all things, if men had ears. -Byron.

A good ear for music and a good taste for music are two very different things which are often confounded; and so is comprehending and enjoying every object of sense and sentiment. -Lord Greville.

Is there a heart that music cannot melt ? Alas! how is that rugged heart forlorn. -Beattie.

The lines of poetry, the periods of prose, and even the texts of Scripture most frequently recollected and quoted, are those which are felt to be pre-eminently musical.

-Shenstone.

Aye.

Give me music;

Flood the air with sound

But let it be superb and grand and high,

Not such as leaves my proud ambition bound. -R. H. Stoddard.

Music is a discipline, and a mistress of order and good manners; she makes the people milder and gentler, more moral and more reasonable.

-Luther.

We have learnt

A different lore: we may not thus profane
Nature's sweet voices, always full of love
And joyance. 'Tis the merry nightingale
That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates,
With fast thick warble, his delicious notes,
As he were fearful that an April night
Would be too short for him to utter forth
His love-chant, and disburden his full soul
Of all its music.

-Sir Walter Scott,

Music, the mosaic of the air.
-Marvell. Music's Empire, 17.

Music cleanses the understanding, inspires it, and lifts it into a realm which it would not reach if it were left to itself.

-Henry Ward Beecher.

How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night
Like softest music to attending ears!

-Shakspere. Romeo and Juliet (Romeo),
Act II., Sc. II.

I think sometimes could I only have music on my own terms; could I live in a great city, and know where I could go whenever I wished the ablution and inundation of musical waves, that were a bath and a medicine.

-Emerson.

Music!-O, how faint, how weak, language fades before thy spell ! -Moore.

Without the definiteness of sculpture and painting, music is, for that very reason, far more suggestive. Like Milton's Eve, an outline, an impulse, is furnished, and the imagination does the rest.

-Tuckerman.

Who hears music, feels his solitude
Peopled at once.

-R. Browning. Balaustion's Adventure.

Nought so stockish, hard and full of rage, But music for the time doth change his nature. -Shakspere. The Merchant of Venice (Lorenzo), Act V., Sc. I.

Not the rich viol, trump, cymbal, nor horn,
Guitar, nor cittern, nor the pining flute,
Are half so sweet as tender human words.

-Barry Cornwall.

Music is the fourth great material want of our natures, first food, then raiment, then shelter, then music.

-Bovee.

Music is the art of the prophets, the only art that can calm the agitations of the soul; it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us.

-Luther.

Music, the greatest good that mortals know, And all of heaven we have below. -Addison. Song for St. Cecilia's Day, III.

Men's muscles move better when their souls are making merry music.

-George Eliot. Adam Bede, Bk. II.,
Ch. XIX.

Some scrap of a childish song hath often been a truer alms than all the benevolent societies could give. This is the best missionary, knowing when she may knock at the door of the most curmudgeonly hearts, without being turned away unheard. For posey is love's chosen apostle, and the very almoner of God. She is the home of the outcast, and the weath of the needy. -Lowell.

How sour sweet music is,

When time is broke, and no proportion kept!
So is it in the music of men's lives.

-Shakspere. Richard II. (Richard), Act V.,