hear the filing of saws with an accompaniment of wet fingers on a window-pane.  The Germans, on the other hand, have an equal contempt for Italian music.  For them, Donizetti is melodramatic, Bellini puerile and silly, and even Rossini (who has written as many melodies as any composer, save Mozart) is only fit to compose for hand-organs.  The American musical public can and do render to both schools the justice they deny each other,—­and this because we appreciate the aim and direction of both.  The tendency of modern German music is more and more in what we might call a mathematical direction; the Teutonic listener examines the structure of a movement as he would a geometrical proposition; he notices the connection and dependence of the several parts, and at the end, if he like it, he thinks Q.E.D.; his pleasure is quiet, but sincere.  The Italian, on the other hand, makes everything subordinate to feeling; for him the music must sparkle with pleasure, burn with passion, or lighten with rage; borne upon the tide of emotion, the under-current of harmony is a matter of little moment; there may be symmetry of structure, and learning in the treatment of themes; if so, well; if not, their absence is not noticed as an essential defect.

For lyrical purposes the Italian style will always take the precedence, because music must primarily be addressed to the feelings.  But it may happen, if ever we have great composers here in America, that to the instinctive grace and beauty of this Southern school the magnificent orchestral effects of the North may be added, and thereby a grander and more perfect whole be produced.  At least, we can continue to be eclectic, and in due time we may develope music which, like Corinthian brass, shall contain the valuable qualities of all the elements we appropriate.

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LITERARY NOTICES.

Biography of Elisha Kent Kane.  By WILLIAM ELDER.  Philadelphia:  Childs & Peterson.

If Dr. Kane’s character had not been free from any taint of imposture and vainglory, and if his reputation had not been of that kind which can be submitted to the austerest tests without being materially lessened, he would have suffered much in having so frank and truthful a biographer as Dr. Elder.  Nobody could have been selected for the task who would have worse performed the business of puffing, or the work of recognizing and celebrating lofty traits of character and vigorous mental endowments better.  He is a friendly biographer,—­and well he may be; for he declares that his researches into Dr. Kane’s private correspondence and papers revealed not a line which, if published, would injure his fame.  It is, of course, impossible for so genuine a man as Dr. Elder to refrain from hearty eulogium where not to praise is the sign of a cynical rather than a critical spirit; but his panegyric has the raciness and sincerity which proceed from the