njustice which can be defended on no pleadable
grounds. The explanation of it seems to be, that most of our great
poets--and this has certainly been the case in England--have had no
love or knowledge, and no true appreciation, of high musical
composition. Milton alone seems to have been an exception; and, we
cannot doubt, that if he had lived in the same age with Handel, he
would have given utterance to his admiration in strains worthy of them
both. The rest of our _vates sacri_, on whom immortality is
proverbially said to depend, seem, generally speaking, to have been
ignorance itself in this department. Several of them, indeed, have
written odes for St Cecilia's day, but this does not prove that they
had a taste for more than rhythm. Pope had the tact to call Handel a
giant, and speaks cleverly of his "hundred hands" as sure to be fatal
to the reign of Dulness.

"Strong in new arms, lo! giant Handel stands,
Like bold Briareus, with his hundred hands,
To stir, to rouse, to shake the soul he comes,
And Jove's own thunders follow Mars's drums.
Arrest him, goddess! or you sleep no more."

But no reference is made to the exquisite beauty of his compositions.
The loudness is all that seems to be praised, and we suspect, that in
private Pope was inclined to laugh with Swift in his disparaging
comparison between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Wordsworth has written
on the "Power of Sound;" but the small part of it that touches on the
musical art, does not impress us with the idea of his knowing or
caring much about it, though in this, as in other things, he has the
sense and philosophy to sacrifice a cock to Esculapius, and to bow
down to what others worship, even where he does not himself feel the
influence of a warm devotion. Collins and Moore, and perhaps a few
others whom we have overlooked, ought to be excluded from this
condemnation; but they have not been led to speak of individual
musicians, or have not had courage to leave the beaten track.

Thus neglected by those who would have been its most faithful
depositaries and most effective champions, the fame of the musical
composer has been left to the guardianship of the few sound and
enlightened judges who thoroughly comprehend him, to the humble but
honest admiration of professional performers, to the practice and
imitation of effeminate amateurs, to the cant of criticism of the
worthies on the free list, and to the instinctive applause of the
popu