Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 006.djvu/76

70 ral octave of the human voice, with which the ascending middle octave of C major, in a piano-forte or organ, is tuned in unison; and that the second is that natural octave of the human voice, with which the descending middle octave of C minor is tuned in unison,—the key of A natural being so only in regard to the artificial arrangement of the tones and keys on the instrument.

It shews that all the doubts and difficulties, in regard to the minor key, are easily explicable on the principle of its being naturally a descending key, the flats and sharps in its ascent being merely artificial; and that the transposition of the last semitone in descent is nothing more than a natural modulation into a major key, after relieving the feelings by the utterance of sounds in a minor octave.

It advances the anatomical theory, that the major key is the natural consequence of a braced fibre, of a braced and contracted larynx; and that the minor key is the natural consequence of a relaxed fibre, of a relaxed and a widened larynx; also, that the tympanum of the human ear is a series of musical fibres capable of being tuned to every possible key of each mood, whose vibrations, elicited by unisons and by concords, give bodily as well as mental pleasure; or if elicited by discords, or sounds out of tune, give bodily as well as mental pain; but, in both cases, pleasure and pain being interwoven, just as the point of a penknife applied to the sole of the foot may either tickle or lacerate.

It shews that the common phrase of being out of tune is literally true, and explanatory of various difficulties; and it reconciles the whole artificial arrangements and variations of different instruments to its own general principle.

I may close by observing, that almost every one of the Musical Queries is in itself a proof of the truth of this new theory.—Yours,

is a posthumous publication, and has been given to the world, we understand, by the author's executors, Mr John Keats, Mr Vincent Novello, and Mr Benjamin Haydon. Such, at least, is the town-talk. We wish that these gentlemen had given us a short life of their deceased friend; but that, to be sure, would have been a delicate task. We have heard it whispered, that they found among his papers a quire of hot-pressed wire-wove, gilt Autobiography. Why not publish select portions of that? Neither have they given us a Face. This was unkind, for no man admired his face more than poor Hunt; and many and oft is the time that we have stood by him, at pond and stream, when he tried to catch a reflected glimpse of his "perked-up mouth" and "crisp curls" in the liquid element. The blame of this omission lies entirely at Mr Haydon's door, and we call upon him to justify himself before the public. A great historical painter like Haydon ought not to paint portraits of ordinary men mere statesmen or warriors your Cannings and your Wellingtons, and so forth; but poets belong to a higher order of beings, and the Raphael of the Cockneys need not to have blushed to paint the divine countenance of their Milton.

But we must put up the beet way we can with the want of a Life and Face, and rest satisfied with the image of the mind. It is not easy to explain why Leigh Hunt, the most fierce democrat and demagogue of his day, and whose habits and courses of life were altogether so very vulgar, should have been so fond of dedications to great people. "My dear Byron," was quite a bright thought; and we have sometimes imagined what "confusion worse confounded" must have reigned in the box at Hampstead, when the maid-servant announced his lordship, more especially if it happened to be washing-day.