would have been centuries instead of years behind.  It may, however, be some consolation to reflect, that we have not been alone in our pupilage; for Italy, herself the pupil of ancient Greece, has in her turn become the preceptress of the modern world in music, as well as the other branches of the fine arts, in all of which her supremacy has been universally acknowledged.  Besides the native musicians whose names we have enumerated, many ephemerae of the genus have fluttered their short hour, and been forgotten.  On turning over the popular music of the early years of the present century, or the music which may, perhaps, have formed the delight and amusement of the last generation, the musician will marvel that such productions should have been ever tolerated.  Native skill has undoubtedly advanced since this period; and however worthless much of our present music may be considered, it is nevertheless superior to most of the like productions of our immediate predecessors.  We have some living composers whose works are not without some merit; but they can scarcely be placed even in the second class.  Their compositions, when compared with the works of the great continental masters, are tame, spiritless, and insipid; we find in them no flashes of real genius, no harmonies that thrill the nerves, no melodies that ravish the sense, as they steal upon the ear.  Effort is discernible throughout this music, the best of which is formed confessedly upon Italian models; and nowhere is the universal law, of the inferiority of all imitation, more apparent.

These observations apply with especial force to the dramatic music, or compositions of the English school.  The term opera, is incorrectly used in England.  The proper meaning of the word is, a musical drama, consisting of recitative airs and concerted pieces; without the intervention of spoken dialogue, it should consist of music, and music alone, from the beginning to the end.  With us it has been popularly applied to what has been well characterized as “a jargon of alternate speech and song,” outraging probability in a far higher degree than the opera properly so called, and singularly destructive of that illusion or deception in which the pleasure derived from dramatic representations principally consists.  Music is in itself no mean vehicle of expression; but, when connected with speech or language, it gives a vast additional force and power to the expression of the particular passion or feeling which the words themselves contain.  It appears, as one listens to an opera, as if the music were but a portion, or a necessary component part of the language of the beings who move before us on the scene.  We learn to deem it part of their very nature and constitution; and it appears, that, through any other than the combined medium of speech and song, the passions, we see exhibited in such intensity, could not be adequately expressed.  The breaking up of this illusion by the intervention