the other evening, and, though my daughter came out strong in the unknown tongues, we could not have had the heart-stirring reel, had there not happened to be present a young lady, who had received little or no instruction in music, who gave us reel and strathspey with all the precision and force of Gow.

I have written to complain of this state of matters. Scotch ladies should be proficient in the singing of their native melodies, and in the performance of the national dance music. On the same principle, Scotch ladies and gentlemen should be able to exemplify in the best style our national dances. The Queen, with great taste and discernment, has given the initiative to the revival of our national dances, and her children are instructed in reels and strathspeys.

When we consider that the great majority of our ladies have not half of the instruction which my daughter received, that their residence in the county town or capital is frequently only for a session, it becomes a question of importance whether the course of lessons in such a case should not be different from that pursued when the instruction is to be continued for years. Thus many a

farmer would be contented with the respectable performance of our national music on the piano, to accomplish which it might not be necessary to undergo that practice of intricate pieces of music which is necessary to a finished performer. The practice, also, of Italian songs and evanescent novelties might be more liberally mingled with that of old national melodies. This is not to be desired solely on the ground of nationality, or even of satisfying the taste of the great body of the people, but on the higher ground of the intrinsic beauty of our music. It is absurd to refer our admiration of it to local association; our English neighbours are alive to its influence; it is more

than absurd to imagine that foreign music will ever eradicate it—it will perish only with our streams and mountains.

And, now that my hand is in, I shall make a few suggestions on points connected with music, which I hope will not appear extravagant. Few ladies, I find, can harmonise or transpose a tune. This, I was glad to see,

is adverted to in Mr Dun's lecture in your first number.* Comparatively few can accompany in a second, from the want of practice in singing in parts. This has been long felt as a barrier to our musical improvement. Good voices are few; and, from the prosecution of the melody by single pupils, a certain number of good singers are produced, who star it in every company. How much would the sympathy and enjoyment of company be heightened, if nearly all could contribute a share to the general entertainment !

Hundreds of good second and

bass voices are never heard, from the neglect of partsinging. The neglect on this head is the more inexcusable, as part-singing can be taught at a much smaller sacrifice of expense. A first-rate master is not necessary to the carrying on of part-singing; and the very circumstance of the combination of pupils which is necessary to the task, renders it more accessible. It would be a desirable thing that governesses should be instructed in part-singing. They might thus in the country be the means of imbuing a whole family with the love of harmony, and of providing them with a new source of recreation.

Again, should not every lady of correct ear be instructed in the art of tuning a piano? I may be writing here in ignorance, but the question may be adventured. In these go-ahead times, many old conventionalities are disappearing, and it has occurred to me that, provided ladies have power

* This article appeared in the first number of the Scottish Educational Journal.

of arm to use the tuning-hammer, there is no reasonable objection to their instruction in tuning, for this accomplishment presupposes no greater musical knowledge than should be given in the teaching of music to pupils. Were the task, however, more arduous than what I anticipate, it should be undertaken, for, independent of the saving, its good effects are manifold. Whole districts of the country are at times lying tuneless and dead, till the periodical visit of some metropolitan tuner awake them again to melody; frequently, in winter, the melody of the drawing-room is silent as that of the grove. Pianos are turned

down for months; they become the depositaries of workboxes, and frequently degenerate into sideboards. Courtships become prosaic; visiting ceases, or loses half its attractions, for visitors who are musicians can scarce suppress a murmur when they evoke such hideous discordancy. To families in the country, a piano out of tune is a family calamity. It completely does away with that practice which is necessary to excellence, and renders the lesson of the pupil tedious and discouraging. It takes off from the pleasure of the family circle, deprives your parties of the luxury of a song, and benumbs the limbs in the dance. No wonder, then, that the news of the approach of a tuner is with us an event of moment: he is equally hailed at castle, hall, lodge, and farm house. He is attended in the drawing-room by bevies of ladies, who gaze with intense interest as he screws up the discordant and lately despised instrument into distinct harmonies. How loud the admiration of the bright-eyed and grateful sisterhood, when, towards the completion of his task, his flying fingers give the coup de grace to the perfected work, and the instrument again stands out in the attitude of restored dignity! Cake and wine await him in every dining-room; happy the house that entertains him for the evening!

A TALE OF CERTIFICATES.

RICHARD ADOLPHUS MONTAGUE, etc., son of a respectable lawyer in Edinburgh,-a spoiled youth, whose distinctive superfluity of names, conferred by a foolish mother, had early marked him out for a career of disappointment and folly, having broken down in the courses of the High School and the University, betook himself, on a strong representation by his father as to the necessity of an immediate reform in conduct and of the choice of a profession, to England, where, having exhausted the little sum which he procured from his mother by the appeal of an everlasting farewell, he enlisted in a corps of strolling players. Not long after, his name turned up occasionally in the pages of a provincial paper as a lecturer on rhetoric; but a year had not elapsed ere his father died, and he arrived penniless and penitent, at the house of his bereaved mother. He was now compelled to look out for some employment; and at last he condescended to become an assistant in an English school of some reputation in the capital, where his services, though not signal, were perhaps equal to the remuneration which he received. The master of the school was not ignorant of the volatility of his new assistant, and accepted his services chiefly for the sake of the father, who had been one of his early friends and patrons.

The acquaintances of the assistant were not such as to reconcile him to his new profession, or to induce that

sobriety of behaviour which is consistent with the character of a teacher. He frequented theatres and hotels; and, by his accomplishments as a mimic and singer, became the delight of a numerous circle, whose main object seemed to be "to taste life's glad moments." The consequent dissipation into which he entered made him rather irregular in his attendance at the school; but his success towards the approach of an examination in furbishing up the pupils in recitation and dialogue, which in those days constituted the main part of an examination, made the teacher connive at his irregularities, and keep him on to the close of the session.

It became necessary, however, to consult what he was to engage in during the ensuing year, and on this point he found a friend and adviser in one of his club companions, a middle-aged gentleman, the principal clerk of an advocate and sheriff of a county. This subordinate was a clever and eccentric fellow-familiar in private with his master, whose opinions and decisions he generally shaped, and at whose table he occasionally met several persons of influence, who were much taken with his shrewdness, and his details of the doings of an inferior society which they publicly affected to despise. The clerk was at the same time, under the rose, the guiding star of a coterie of unfledged youths, who crowded to his favourite tavern, to listen to the secrets of those high in the profession which were given out by this privileged friend. Thus living in two worlds, he led what is called a fast life; for, independent of his professional duties, which were attended to with wonderful punctuality, he would frequently spend the earlier part of the evening in good society, and the latter in one of the clubs above alluded to, where the faculty of scenting the morning air was not so apt as that of the ghost of Hamlet's father. There might thus be a shade of suspicion