There is, however, another class of composers whom we must not omit to notice:  we mean the song-writers of the day, the authors of those ballads and vocal compositions, with knights and ladies fair, houris, sentimental peasants, or highborn beauties, as the case may be, lithographed upon the title-page.  This class is entitled to notice, not because of the merit or ability they possess, but because these masters (!) really produce the popular music of the day, and because at present we literally possess no other new music.  The first object of the publisher of a song is, or used to be, to have it sung in public by some popular performer.  This is not done without fee and reward; but the value of the subject of the publisher’s speculation, is greatly increased by the publicity gained by the introduction of the song at the theatre or the concert-room.  When this event takes place, claqeurs are active, the friends of the singer support them, the playbills announce “a hit,” and a sly newspaper puff aids the delusion; copies of the ornamented title-page are distributed among the various music-sellers, to be exhibited in their windows, and the song is popular, and “sells.”  Modest merit is unknown among us now.  Thus songs and ballads without number, which would otherwise remain in well-merited obscurity on the shelves of the publisher, are forced into notice and repute.  The trade, no doubt, benefits by this system, the commercial end of these speculations may indeed be answered, but the public taste is lowered by each and every of these transactions.

We may here notice the extravagant price of music of every description in England.  For a piece of four or five pages, the sum of 2s. is commonly demanded.  Even where there has been an outlay in the purchase of the copyright, this sum can scarcely be considered reasonable; but when the same price is asked for music which has become common property, it is out of all reason.  The expense of engraving four or five pages of music, the cost of the plates, together with the expense of paper and printing a hundred copies of a song of this description, does not amount to L5; therefore the sale of fifty copies will reimburse the publisher; while, if the whole hundred are disposed of, he is an actual gainer of cent per cent upon his original outlay, while the profit upon every copy subsequently struck off is necessarily enormous.  On the Continent, music may be purchased for about one-third the sum which it would cost in England.  In Paris, Pacini’s “partitions,” an excellent edition of the popular Italian operas, are sold for twelve francs each.  The whole set may be purchased at the rate of eleven francs the opera.  While in London, the identical copies purchasable abroad by those not in the trade for about 8s. 6d. of our money, are sold at two guineas each.  The profits of “the trade” on musical instruments, are also enormous.  On the pianofortes of most of the London makers, a profit of at least thirty or thirty-five per cent is realized by the retailer; and on a grand piano, for which the customer pays 130 guineas, “the trade” pockets on the very lowest calculation upwards of L40.