By pursuing this method, the difficulty of performing in these clefs is instantly removed. Authors have endeavored to get rid of them. Clementi has substituted the bass for the tenor in his edition of the Creation; and Dr. Clarke, in his edition of the Messiah, discarded them both, by which he has committed the fault of writing the alto and tenor an octave too high. A more correct plan is that which the author has adopted in the Sacred Melodies, namely, to consider the soprano and alto parts the same as the first and second violin in the G clef, and the vocal tenor as the viola; the advantage of which is, that we have but one language for the instruments and the voices. To sing expertly at sight requires a thorough knowledge of harmony, which can only be learnt upon the piano-forte, and the constant practice of singing the interior parts of concerted pieces. This will teach the eye to read, and the voice to maintain itself, without the aid of an instrument.

CHAPTER XXI.

ECHOES.

In the whole hemisphere of sounds, there is no circumstance more strikingly curious than that of an

echo. To hear one's own voice returned, as if it were the voice of another, is perhaps more surprising than the reflection of one's self in a glass. Indeed there is so close a resemblance between the effects of light and sound, that we might almost suppose them governed by the same laws. Sound is not only reflected in the same way, but it may also be converged into a point like light. An imperfect experiment of this kind may be tried upon Westminster-bridge in the night-time. If a If a person whisper in one of the alcoves (the form of which produces the effect), he will be distinctly heard in the opposite one, though at so great a distance; but a still more striking instance, of a similar kind, takes place in the whispering gallery that encircles the inside of the dome of St. Paul's.*

Echoes are produced by the voice falling upon a reflecting body-as a house, a hill, or a wood. These objects, at seventy feet distance from the speaker, will distinctly return a monosyllable; and, for every forty feet farther from the reflecting body, a syllable more. In Italy, where the atmosphere and the country are so favorable to echoes, you meet with many of extraordinary duration. Some repeat whole strains of music, which have given rise to those puerile repetitions, or symphonies, to be met with in early writers of that country. So

* From the figure of the cupola the sounds are so concentrated, that you hear a constant boiling noise, similar to that of a sea-shell when applied to the ear.

perfect is the echo, that the ear is often deceived in not distinguishing the reflected sounds from those which are direct. In listening to the ringing of bells, when an object so intervenes as to cut off the direct rays, we hear the sounds as if they came from the other side of the street, and imagine the church to be in an opposite quarter. In whistling, or calling to a dog, you find him so deceived by this circumstance, as sometimes to run away from you. It is this reflex of sound that contributes so much to the musical excellence of a well-constructed room; and it is a mistaken notion, that curvatures, circular walls, or arched roofs, add to its perfection. On the contrary, they injure the general effect, by converging the rays of sound into large portions, and throwing them into particular parts of the room. The best figure for a concert-room is a parallelogram, or long square, in which the sounds are equally diffused.* Our cathedrals partake of this form, and are the finest buildings in the country for the display of musical effects.t

* Two cubes placed together are considered a good proportion. Drapery should never form part of the furniture; it utterly destroys the reverberation of sound by absorbing it. The writer sensibly felt a damp cast upon the voice of a singer in a small room upon the entrance of a tall lady, habited in a long woollen cloak. In the American war, the army was separated from the out-posts by a river, not so distant, but a centinel could observe a drummer actively employed with his arms in beating a drum; yet not a note reached the ear, in consequence of a coating of new-fallen snow, which produced the phenomenon of a muffled drum.-Quarterly Review, No. 88.

†The writer was admitted to the rehearsal of the first grand per

The sublimest operations in nature, which strike us with awe and wonder, are to be referred to the sound of distant echoes, as we hear them in thunderstorms.

We have two kinds of atmospheric electricity,one in which the fluid plays between an upper and lower tier of clouds; the other in which it darts from the cloud to the earth. The former is the most common, and not at all dangerous, though it is accompanied with a more appalling sound than the latter, which carries with it destruction and death.

The vertical shaft strikes the highest objects, and is to be distinguished more by a crackling noise, than the tremendous roll.

The thunder, which follows the horizontal shaft, may be explained upon the following principles :As the fluid darts from one side of the heavens to the other, it actually produces but one shock, or instantaneous sound; but, by the reflection of the upper tier on the lower tier, or stratum of clouds, the echoes are continued in one incessant roll, as if a heavy carriage was furiously driven over-head.* formance in York Cathedral, 1823, composed of six hundred performers, when only five auditors were present. Upon the first burst of the voices and instruments on the words Glory be to God,' the effect was more than the senses could bear, so much was the sound augmented by the vast space of this noble building; nor was it till those overpowering concussions ceased, that the imagination could recover itself, when the retiring of the sounds could only be compared to the distant roll and convulsion of nature.

* Since the above was written, the author has met with the following

From the duration of the roll, it is not difficult to ascertain that the shaft of lightning darts eight or ten miles across the heavens in an instant of time.* On the lake of Ulleswater is heard an imitation of these effects. On firing a cannon at the head of the lake, the report is so bandied about, from mountain to mountain, as to produce an effect like thunder, which continues for a length of time, expiring in the distance with a noise not louder than the crumpling of a piece of paper.

'There is a charm connected with mountains, so 'powerful, that the merest mention of their magnifi'cent features kindles the imagination, and carries 'the spirit at once into the bosom of their enchanted regions. How the mind is filled with their vast 'solitude! Whoever has not climbed their long and 'heathy ascents, and seen the trembling mountain'flowers, the glowing moss, the richly-tinted lichens 'under foot; and scented the fresh aroma of the 'uncultivated sod; heard the wild-cry of the mountain-plover, the raven, and eagle; and seen the remarks in the Quarterly Review, No. 88, which fully confirm this theory. The French astronomers, in making their experiments on 'the velocity of sound, observed, that under a perfectly clear sky, the ' report of their guns was always single and sharp; whereas, when a 'cloud covered a considerable part of the horizon, the report was ' attended with a long and continued roll like thunder.'

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* The sound of the great meteor in 1783, was not heard till ten minutes after it had appeared: though one hundred and twenty miles high, from its rapid motion it appeared so low, as scarcely to clear the roofs of the houses. It was seen all over Europe, and was in size supposed to be as large as the island of Great Britain.—Quarterly Review, No. 88.