he arrived off Ushant he addressed the following verses to Miss Dumas, a young lady at the Hague, who had made an early impression on the heart of the buccaneer. They may be considered, says his biographer, under such circumstances, as a "psycological curiosity." Were I, Paul Jones, dear maid, the "King of Sea," A coral crown with bays I'd give to thee, A car, which on the waves should smoothly glide along ; And gladly sing in triumph of thy state, Of Liberty the friend, whom tyrant power pursues! With artless looks and breast as pure as thine. As Love or sacred Freedom should our lays inspire. "But since, alas! the rage of war prevails, And cruel Britons desolate our land, For Freedom still I spread my willing sails, My unsheathed sword my injured country shall command. Genius like thine, and wish to be its friend. Trust me, although conveyed through this poor shift, Jones arrived at Groa; and early in the spring of 1780 he proceeded to Paris, where he became the "lion of the day," on account of his recent exploits. He was introduced at court, presented by the King with a superb sword, and the Cross of Military Merit: he was exhausted with splendid fêtes, and in love with every woman - beloved by every woman-in Paris. The biographer says, that next to his desire for fame, which was infinite, the predominant passion of Paul was love!'-' He was always seriously in love, and often with women whom he had never seen.' There was a certain Delia, a young and high lady of the court, who seems to have been past all recovery. She offered all her diamonds to be converted into cash for his men, because she heard that they were excluded from their prize-money; she offered even to follow him to America, and to become one of the lowest of his crew.' Unfortunately all this time the corsair was engaged in a "Platonic liaison" with the Comtesse de Lavendahl, which he endeavored to improve into a more ardent ardent flame: but faithful to her vows. she was married, and, strange to say, Early in the year 1781 Jones returned to America: from that period till 1783 he devoted his attention to the improvement of the republican navy; and before any other employment could be found for him, the independence of the United States was acknowleged by Great Britain. The remainder of his life was spent in Europe, part of it in the service of the Empress of Russia, and the rest in political negotiations and intrigues, which produced no results of any importance. In 1791 he fell into extreme ill health at Paris, and he died there in the June of the following year. The life of this adventurer affords an instructive lesson to those who are disposed to seek their fortunes in foreign ser vice. Though from his early years he had adopted America for his country, yet he was pursued there by perpetual jealousies, and employed, or put on the shelf, like an instrument, as occasion required. His employment by the French government, though it afforded him the opportunity of contending for the reputation which he won by his capture of the Serapis, brought him in the end only mortification, hardship, and disgrace. The Empress of Russia, autocrat as she was, could not maintain him, beyond one short campaign in her navy, against the envious intrigues of her officers: his enterprize was deemed rashness, and his success was imputed to another. His biography exhibits an eminent example of those piratical characters, which belong rather to legendary lore than to history. Those were the heroes whom he sought to imitate: gallant to the sex, prone to the tender mood, restless in idleness, and in action undaunted. His story wants connection: it is too often interrupted by letters; and the latter part of it possesses no interest, in comparison with that period of his career which ended with his escape from the Texel. This is unfortunate: for the romance of the volume he ought to have gone on more adventurous and surprising to the last, and have perished on his favorite element. The matter-of-fact manner in which he expires regularly in bed puts to flight all the poetry of his early life; and we leave him with the impression that he is, after all, nothing more than plain John Paul, of Arbegland, in the stewartry of Kircudbright, Scotland. ART. ART. IX. Concert Room and Orchestra Anecdotes, of Music and. Musicians, Ancient and Modern. By Thos. Busby, Mus. D. 3 Vols. 12mo. London. Clementi and Co., and Knight and Lacey. 1825. THE HIS year has been unusually prolific of works of biography, anecdote, and conversation. A kind of gossip-mania, if we may be permitted to call it so, seems to have seized both authors and readers. There has been an unwonted resuscitation among the dry bones of literature, a regathering and conjoining of the stray gems of genius. Books of reputed mirth in times past are daily plundered, and jokes, venerable as our grandsires, modernized, to meet the avidity of the pub-. lic appetite for this species of mental fare; and, as if this were not enough, we have volumes, not only of the real but also of the imaginary conversations of eminent men, volumes replete with the sayings and doings and triflings of statesmen, orators, poets, historians, and philosophers. When this prevailing taste is borne in mind, it is not surprising that the favorite viands should be subjected to classification. We have accordingly anecdotes of the bar, we have the jests of the green-room, anecdotes of the course and the ring, and the facetia of the Cantabs; and now, in order that the heroes and heroines of the gay science' may be equally immortalized, we are favored with the Concert Room and Orchestra Anecdotes, of Music and Musicians.' But we are far from speaking slightingly of the work. On the contrary, it has seldom been our good fortune to rise from the perusal of three volumes so much instructed and amused. The editor speaks of his labors with diffidence, although it is obvious that these must have been considerable. He has availed himself of the best sources of information, in addition to his own recollections and those of his friends, for forty. years, to render his work pleasing and useful. It is avowedly nothing more than a collection of biographical notices of the most distinguished musicians and amateurs of music, interspersed with interesting and humorous anecdotes of these persons in public life and in retirement, amid the misfortunes that too often attend the spring-time of genius, and amid those smiles of public favor which do not always compensate for the many years of toil and anxiety by which they are won. Every incident in the lives of such men as Handel, Haydn,: Gluck, Mozart, Rossini, Beethoven, and our own Arne, Arnold, Purcell, and others, must be interesting to all the admirers of their compositions, if not practically beneficial to their successors in the art. It is of these individuals, and a vast number of their contemporaries, that the work treats. Handel Handel and Haydn are in music what Newton is in astronomy, what Locke is in philosophy, what Reid is in metaphysics-they are the master-spirits of the science. Handel's Messiah and Haydn's Creation are in music what Milton's Paradise Lost is in poetry: they are chefs-d'œuvre in their different departments; and, what is not a little remarkable, they at first received similar treatment from the public. The Messiah and Paradise Lost were productions beyond the capacity and taste of the times in which they appeared: the last brought its author neither praise nor reward, and the first was scarcely endured on its first performance. This is well known, but it cannot be too frequently adverted to; not for the purpose of raising a blush for the literati and cognoscenti of the capital in former days, but of contrasting this fact with the reception which excellent music meets with at present. What would the fastidious patrons of Handel, or what would the great lexicographer himself, say, who, it is told, relished music as much he did " any other sort of noise" what would he say, could he be told that Weber's Der Freischutz occupied the boards of both the theatres royal several times a-week during an entire season that before its demons, adders, owls, and "goblins damn'd," its blasts of smoke, and fetid incantations, the ancient English drama had to bow its head? We think we see the philosopher in his rage, and hear him thank his fate that he had died so soon. But we are forgetting Handel. The reception of his celebrated piece by a London audience is thus described: Though several of his oratorial pieces were not representative, (as Alexander's Feast, L'Allegro ed Il Penseroso, the Occasional Oratorio, Israel in Egypt, and the Messiah,) for the most part, they wore a dramatic form. And little as the manner of performing oratorios is adapted to the exhibition of dramatis persone, it must be confessed, that no trivial portion of interest is derived from a personification, in which each performer, speaking and singing in his appointed character, sustains, animates, and carries on, a regular and consistent story; and the ultimate and lasting fame of the above particular productions, though an argument in their favor, as sterling and sublime compositions, says nothing in contradiction to this position. The coldness, however, with which the Messiah was at first received (a circumstance, we grant, not very honorable to the taste of England's metropolis,) seems to indicate some latent deficiency; and as that deficiency is not discoverable in the music, we naturally look for it in the words; and, recollecting that they are sacred, are obliged to ascribe to it the want of a consistent and dramatic series of incidents. This transcendent oratorio was first performed at Covent-Garden theatre in the year 1741. Its unfavorable reception determined the composer (whose judgment of its superior merit could not In not be shaken by the injustice of an English audience) to try its effect on the more susceptible feelings of a Dublin auditory. Ireland, it was heard with admiration. The expressive force and pathos of the recitatives and melodies, and the superlative grandeur of the choral part of the work, were equally felt; and the whole was hailed as a wonderful effort of the harmonic art. Taught by the better criticism of the sister-kingdom, England, at his return, discovered the excellence to which she had been so unaccountably blind, and lavished her praises on what she had before dismissed with disgrace, or without approbation. His next sacred production was Samson, founded on the Samson Agonistes of Milton. The London amateurs, rendered wise by their former error, were alive to the excellence of a piece, which the composer himself never knew whether he ought to place above or beneath his Messiah, and were rapturous in their applause. He continued to delight his audiences with his own performances between the acts; and the favorable reception of a set of six concertos for the organ, which he had recently published, encouraged him to print a second set, consisting of twelve. These pieces, hastily produced, and consequently less elaborate, and of slighter texture, did not support the credit obtained for him by the former work, as a composer of instrumental music; and while the first set continued to be performed at every public and private concert, in every church, and in every chamber, the second lay quietly on the shelf, in comparative oblivion.' As a specimen of the manner in which the humorous articles in the work are blended with its more grave and historical incidents, we quote the following characteristic trait of the same illustrious composer. 'Handel, - whose divine compositions seem to have proceeded from a heart glowing with the fire of a seraph, was, notwithstanding, what some would call rather a gross mortal, since he placed no small happiness in good eating and drinking. Having received a present of a dozen of superior champaigne, he thought the quantity too small to present to his friends; and therefore reserved the delicious nectar for a private use. Some time after, when a party was dining with him, he longed for a glass of his choice champaigne, but could not easily think of a device for leaving the company. On a sudden he assumed a musing attitude, and, striking his forehead with his forefinger, exclaimed, “I have got one tought! I have got one tought !" (meaning thought.) The company, imagining that he had gone to commit to paper some divine idea, saw him depart with silent admiration. He returned to his friends, and very soon had a second, third, and fourth "tought." A wag suspecting the frequency of St. Cecilia's visits, followed Handel to an adjoining room, saw him enter a closet, embrace his beloved champaigne, and swallow repeated doses. The discovery communicated infinite mirth to the company, and Handel's tought became proverbial.' |