tive national music may continue wholly uninfluenced by modern culture. The cornemuse has struck the keynote of all really national French music, and cornemuse forms of melody are not only to be found in the modern popular French ballads, but abound in the operas of Auber and Gounod; yet the cornemuse itself remains unchanged, nor are its melodies ever varied in the direction of modern music. Madame Sand, in one of her amusing digressions, gives an account of a conversation she had with a cornemuse player at a French fair. He did not make his tunesthey were all made by the woodcutters in the great forest if a man wished to excel, he must go into the woods and catch the melodies from these wild men. The tunes were handed down from generation to generation, and might be endlessly varied; but there was no development, no change in their structure, nor had there been, as far as she could ascertain, for centuries.

Now, speaking generally, the state of music in Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, and Spain is not wholly unintelligible. Scotland, Ireland, and Wales have no schools, but they have national ballads: music there is a wild germ, that, for some reason or other, has remained undeveloped by civilization. The same thing may be said of Spain and Russia. In France a regular school of music has appropriated the rude popular elements (as a voint du départ), which nevertheless remain alongside of the music-school in all their primitive simplicity. In Italy the same phenomenon has occurred, only the

connection between the Abruzzi mountaineer with his pipe stuck into an inflated goatskin and the Italian opera, is less obvious than that between the cornemuse player and modern French song.

In Germany, however, where music has attained its highest and most truly national development, the rude element will soon have reached the vanishing point; hardly an old melody of mountain or vale but what has received a new setting-our idea of a Volkslied is something in two or three parts by Mendelssohn, or at all events a charming air with a graceful accompaniment. Even the wild airs of Poland have been remodelled by Chopin. The "yodelling" of the peasants is generally heard in combination with delicious harmonies unknown to their forefathers, and the Swiss hurdy-gurdy" is probably the last remnant of barbarism to be found in the direction of Germany.

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IX.

BUT what shall be said of England? We can imagine the nations passing before us, each represented by its popular form of street music. Germany comes with a band of singers, followed by a band of men playing on all kinds of musical instruments. France comes fresh from the woods with her cornemuse. Italy issues from the mountains with that tuneful and fascinating goatskin and pipe, so finely rendered by M. Gounod in Mirella. Spain comes with a mandoline; Scotland

with the bagpipes; Ireland and Wales with harps of well-known national form and proportion. Even Russia sings a good bass tune, and blows a horn well; and England brings up the rear with-a policeman requesting an organ-grinder to move on!

Indeed, that man plays all the favourite tunes. It is true he is not English, but he represents the popular tastes in music. Does he play national melodies? Not many-chiefly the melodies of other countries, or what will pass for them with the million; but he does grind certain English ballads too, claptrap sort of jingles-not especially national, or especially anything; he cannot be said to play them; no fancy, or originality, or taste is displayed, except by the monkey who sits on his shoulder; the performance from first to last is a grind. In the streets of other countries you seldom meet with foreign musicians-at least not in France, Germany, and Italy; but who will deny that the staple of street music in England is organ-grinding? And the grinder is a foreigner, who only grinds a few English tunes under protest. In fact, "He's a Pal o' mine" and "Jolly Dogs," are used as gold leaf, to gild pills like "Casta Diva" and the "Carnival de Venise."

But as the organ-grinder is a great fact, and perhaps in a survey of street music in England the most prominent fact, he deserves a few moments' calm consideration. There are big organs drawn by a donkey, and little organs carried by boys; nondescript boxes with a cradle at the top and two babies, drawn by a woman;

uprights on a stick, with a little handle turned by a crazy old man; chest open in front and shut at the back, or shut in the front and open at the back. There are flute organs, with a wonderful system of wooden pipes, visible through glass; great magnified accordions, played somehow with a handle-horrid things, which grind only the Old Hundredth and a chant on metal pipes. There are tinkling cupboards, which remind one of Dickens' pianoforte with the works taken out, so irregular and uncertain is the effect of the handle upon the tune. There are illustrated organs, with Chinese mandarins performing conjuring tricks in a row, or Nebuchadnezzar's band; and there are organs with a monkey, triangle, bones, tambourine, or whistle obligato. Every man has probably had moments in his life when he has not been sane upon the question of barrel organs. He has perhaps been placed in difficult circumstances. Let us say he occupies a corner house. On one side, at the bottom of the street, commences the " 'Chickaleary Bloke;" on the other side, at the bottom of another street, is faintly heard "Polly Perkins:" both are working steadily up to a point-that point is his corner house-let us say your own corner house. You are in your study writing poetry; nearer and nearer draw the minstrels, regardless of each other, and probably out of each other's hearing, but both heard by you in your favourable position. As they near the point the discord becomes wild and terrible; you rush into the back study, but the tom-tom man is

in the yard; you rush out of the front door to look for a policeman--there is none; you use any Italian words you can recollect; at the same time, pointing to your head, you explain that your father lies dangerously ill up-stairs, and that several ladies are dying in the neighbourhood; you implore the Italian to move on, and the scene ends in No. 1 slowly grinding down the street which No. 2 came up, and No. 2 grinding up the street which No. 1 has just come down. At such moments we are apt to speak recklessly on the great subject of barrel organs, and we sometimes-idle employment!-write letters to the newspapers, which are pardonably one-sided. The fact is, the organ question, like all other great questions, has two sides to it, although we seldom hear but one.

Your

Let not those who write abusive letters to the newspapers, and bring in bills to abolish street music, think they will be able to loosen the firm hold which the barrel-organist has over the British public. cook is his friend, your housemaid is his admirer; the policeman and the baker's young man look on him in the light of a formidable rival.

But, for once, let us speak a good word for him. We know all that can be said against him, let us now plead his cause a little. His sphere is large; he conquers more worlds than one; his popularity is not only wide, but varied-he enters many clean and spacious squares, and little chubby faces, well-born and rosy, look out from high-railed nursery-windows, and as they look out he looks up, and baby is danced