Up, ye People! or down into your graves! 
      Cowards ever will be slaves!

is to be sung to the tune of Rule, Britannia! the old melody of The Vicar of Bray is to accompany the new Ballade of Law and Order—­which, however, is not a ballade at all—­and to the air of Here’s to the Maiden of Bashful Fifteen the democracy of the future is to thunder forth one of Mr. T. D. Sullivan’s most powerful and pathetic lyrics.  It is clear that the Socialists intend to carry on the musical education of the people simultaneously with their education in political science and, here as elsewhere, they seem to be entirely free from any narrow bias or formal prejudice.  Mendelssohn is followed by Moody and Sankey; the Wacht am Rhein stands side by side with the Marseillaise; Lillibulero, a chorus from Norma, John Brown and an air from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony are all equally delightful to them.  They sing the National Anthem in Shelley’s version and chant William Morris’s Voice of Toil to the flowing numbers of Ye Banks and Braes of Bonny Doon.  Victor Hugo talks somewhere of the terrible cry of ‘Le Tigre Populaire,’ but it is evident from Mr. Carpenter’s book that should the Revolution ever break out in England we shall have no inarticulate roar but, rather, pleasant glees and graceful part-songs.  The change is certainly for the better.  Nero fiddled while Rome was burning—­at least, inaccurate historians say he did; but it is for the building up of an eternal city that the Socialists of our day are making music, and they have complete confidence in the art instincts of the people.

   They say that the people are brutal—­
      That their instincts of beauty are dead—­
   Were it so, shame on those who condemn them
      To the desperate struggle for bread. 
   But they lie in their throats when they say it,
      For the people are tender at heart,
   And a wellspring of beauty lies hidden
      Beneath their life’s fever and smart,

is a stanza from one of the poems in this volume, and the feeling expressed in these words is paramount everywhere.  The Reformation gained much from the use of popular hymn-tunes, and the Socialists seem determined to gain by similar means a similar hold upon the people.  However, they must not be too sanguine about the result.  The walls of Thebes rose up to the sound of music, and Thebes was a very dull city indeed.

Chants of Labour:  A Song-Book of the People.  With Music.  Edited by Edward Carpenter.  With Designs by Walter Crane. (Swan Sonnenschein and Co.)

MR. BRANDER MATTHEWS’ ESSAYS

(Pall Mall Gazette, February 27, 1889.)