English creditors, while another has availed itself of many plausible pretexts for bankruptcies, which have excluded the English speculator from his due returns. This confidence and credit on our parts, has, if we may believe our author, increased instead of diminishing under this important change of circumstances, notwithstanding the principles of dishonesty and immorality which have every where been dis seminated on the continent. It is recommended as a remedy to this evil to confine our commercial dealings to the seaports, which offer much greater security than the towns in the interior of the country. The merchants at Hamburgh, notwithstanding many frauds, which are still said to exist in this port, are allowed to be generally the fairest and most able in Germany. At Hamburgh there is likewise a law which obliges the resident merchants to fulfil their contracts with foreigners, though even here not rigorously enforced. Ignorance is pointed out as a frequent and destructive cause of the losses of our merchants. It appears that a retailer in Germany has no idea of the duties respectively be→ longing to, and to be imposed on an agent or speculator. Upon this subject our author has enlarged very satisfactorily.. The evils to which we are exposed in Hamburgh are said to be the following: 1. Fraud in weighing sugars, &c. 2. The want of a permanent and efficient discount bank. 3. The numerous insurance companies, which, besides underwriters, amount to three dozen, whose nominal fund is thirty millions marcs banco. 4. The general habit of lending capitals on deposit to young merchants, and of lending money on receiving mer chandise, as coffee or sugar for security. 5. The bankrupt laws, by which foreign creditors are robbed, annuities are rendered not liable, and the wifes' fortune is secure, if not married longer than five years. The trade in Hamburgh, it is further stated, has been very much injured from two causes. 1. The immense, unexpected, and sudden importation of commodities (a), from the fondness of the English for consignment, which annuls all foreign orders, and ruins the trade, as its most favourable consequence is that of inducing the foreign merchant to transact a conto meta (b); the immense trade of neutrals with the property of the enemy, and the produce bought of that quarter. 2. The small demand,from different causes (a); the lessened consumptions; (b),the exclusion of the Hamburgh agent,who, as every thing in Hamburgh is sold for ready money only, receives, accepts, and is able to execute very few orders from the interior of Germany. It is unnecessary for us to repeat that the influence of these canses has been much less considerable than our author supposes, if it be even admitted that they have had any influence at all on the general trade of the country. The most important part of this work is that which alludes to the impolicy, to omit the injustice and oppression of the revenue laws as at present existing in this country. We shall conclude by inserting our author's description of the difficulties and danger to which these laws, or their allowed abuse, expose every branch of our commerce, and which are equally injurious and dishonourable to Great Britain. In speaking of coffee, he says, p. 40... After purchase, the casks or bags of coffee must be weighed, which cannot be done so expeditiously as may be wished, as it is done in regular rotation; and, consequently, the purchasers must fre quently submit to a very tedious succession. The coffee lays in warehouses, under the joint locks of his majesty's custom and excise, and is weighed twice by officers appointed by these branches of government, to do justice between seller and buyer. These per sons surely have no interest in giving false weights. The merchant exporter must take the weight as given by these officers, and he is not allowed to attend the weighing himself. The documents for shipping are then found agreeable to the king's weight; and here I shall perhaps, surprize many of my readers both here and abroad, in saying that from one hundred and ten tợ one hundred and twenty documents, papers, certificates, &c. some of them very troublesome, are wanted to export about 15 lots of different marks of coffee, and which proves the distressing truth, that, in so great a mercantile town, the managers of most important branches of commerce, instead of simplifying business, do all in their power, it would seem, to create intricacy, delays, and risks, perfectly inimical to the good of the merchant, and consequently to the state, and which I cannot suppose would be tolerated, if they were known to government. The guardians of such branches of government, as the custom and excise, ought, no doubt, to be extremely jealous of the revenue; but the method of raising it by intricacy and labour, is the worst that can be adopted. The merchant whe abolishes his unnecessary, and simplifies his remaining books and regulations, is not, surely, the worse for it. The merchants in this important line do not seem inclined to make remonstrances to government; for the complaint of one cannot be attended to. It is the office of clerks to make the entries at the custom-house; they labour, which to ameliorate does not enter one's mind any more than the importance of the subject itself, or otherwise the grievances would have been long since removed; for what is of greater impor tance in speculative transactions, than promptitude and simplicity? Many speculations of the fairest prospect have been annihilated, by being often obliged to wait almost a month after purchase before coffee could be shipped; and many a parcel has on this very account been thrown upon the hands of the agents in London, where exclusively these delays take place. 'It cannot be sufficiently regretted that in the custom-house and excise-systems, the convenience of the merchant is the last thing which enters the minds of the managers of those concerns. The business has been done thus, when we imported 2000 casks per annum, and thus it must continue unaltered, although we import now twenty times the quantity which we then did, nor will the country feel it, while the comparison of these trades is principally confined to England, but whenever peace (such a one as the last) again throws this commerce into various other channels, the foreigner will rather give 3or 4 per cent. more to have his coffee from France or Holland, where the regulations of these trades are less clogged. Nor does the government know that by the intricacy of the customhouse, &c. regulations in this article,the revenue is a considerable loser, for the delays which occur in the shipment of coffee, gives peculiar opportunities and leisure to lightermen, watchmen, &c. to rob the merchant and the revenue; for a merchant encounters so much useless labour at the custom-house and excise (that promptitude being a primary object) he is glad to have his coffee in the lighter any how. Whereas, if the business in the offices were easy, he would have more time and inclination to be vigilant in conducting the coffee from the warehouse to the ship. 'For example,what is the use of the searcher(a custom-house officer) weighing, and, if deficient, seizing the coffee, or other goods, on the dock wharf, the moment it is let down from the warehouse, which is under the especial care of other custom-house officers? The custom house thus distrusts their own house, for surely the warehouse is theirs, of which they have the key. A suspicion not equable to common sense. This mistrust does not exist towards the East India warehouses, which are at greater distances from the eyes of the searchers or other custom-house officers, and is therefore not very creditable to the West India Dock Company, and ought to cause their most strenuous remonstrances. If, with the warrant in the hand, (this document being made a final one before the sale, something like an East India warrant) we could receive coffee.on demand, there is hardly a prudent merchant who would not send a confidential person of his own with the lighter until the goods are safe on board. These persons, (or even officers, if the revenue chose to appoint a sufficient number for that purpose) would take care to have the lighters discharged soon; whereas, now they lay, sometimes for days and nights, an easy prey to the plunderers of the revenue and the merchant. Many of these observations will apply to raw sugar and other articles.' 97 1 ART. X-Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, by Alexander Molleson. Glasgow. Chapman. 1806. NEARLY half of these Miscellanies consists of a republi cation of the author's Essay on Music, with remarks upon the various criticisins that have appeared upon it; the most un favourable of these critiques is printed on the page opposite to the author's rejoinder, and the compound is entitled a Critical duett, of which we shall not disturb the harmony. But the Essay itself is so mixed up of truth and paradox that it may be worth the while to make a few remarks upon it., pas The imitative, or, to use a more popular and intelligible term, the expressive powers of melody depend, says Mr. M. upon the similarity between the proportion which musical notes bear to the key-note, and that which the tones of sion have to the ordinary pitch of the voice; in other words, music excites emotion in the mind by copying the impassionèd tones and inflexions of the human voice in speaking. This theory, though by no means new, is ingenious, and perhaps in some degree just. But the continuous sliding powers of the human voice in speech are so delicate that no one has hitherto ventured to trace the fancied resemblance in particular melodies. Mr. Twining has some good remarks upon the subject in his treatise on the imitative Powers of Music, prefixed to his translation of Aristotle's Art of Poetry. But if the above resemblance be the principle of musical expression, it is by no means the only source of the pleasure we receive from simple melodies. The artificial movement of the rhythm has its share in producing the pleasure, if not In exciting the affection. The contemplation of variety combined with regularity, and simplicity with intricacy, has álso a great effect to make melody pleasurable. The antients, it is now generally supposed, were ignorant of the modern arts of complicated harmony, such as figured counterpoint, the resolution of discord,baulking of cadences, &c. Yet we hear of great effects ascribed to their music. Most writers either disbelieve these marvellous stories entirely, or attribute them to the sublimity of the poetry which it accompanied. At any rate Mr. M. makes a very bold inference, when he concludes, on the strength of these vague accounts, that simple melody has greater influence over the feelings than when acompanied. For in the first place,are we perfectly surethat harmony also by different intervals cannot in some degree excite emotions? We believe that the sprightly expression of a major third and the pensive one of a minor third, noticed by Mr. M. are at least as sensible when the notes are sounded together as when in sucCRIT, REV. Vol. 10. January, 1806. H cession. But, omitting this, which if granted would totally overthrow our author's system, are accounts transmitted of the effects of the Grecian modes, upon the Greeks, to be implicitly admitted as the measure whereby we are to judge of the absolute expressive power of their melodies? An ear for eloquence or poetry does not necessarily imply an ear for music, nor can actual impressions form a test of musical expression unless we first know to what degree the ears of the hearer are refined. Play a lively dance to a Laplander and he will caper and dance like one of his own witches, yet the modulation may have little or no intrinsic merit. The truth is that the efficacy of music to excite emotions is in a great measure relative, depending on the hearer's taste still more than on the melody itself. Upon the whole we are Gothics enough to question whether, if Timotheus himself were to rise again in Glasgow and pass from the Lydian to the Dorian mode, it would produce upon Mr. M.'s nerves even an equal effect with the Caledonian rant" or Fy gae rub her o'er wi' strae," aided by the magic of association. That simplicity of expression is too often overlaid by the parade of science in our symphonies, and sacrificed to theharlequin tricks of dexterity in our concertos, every person of any real taste for music will admit with Mr. M. But that therefore all harmony is to be banished from our public concerts and confined to practising parties of professional musicians, and that our melodies would be improved by the humble garniture of mere unisons or octaves, is a paradoxical notion contradictory to universal sense and feeling, and unworthy the pains of refutation. At the same time we acknow ledge that Mr. M. has drawn up his observations with considerable neatness and precision of language. We would recommend to his perusal those letters of Mr. Davy of Onehouse which treat on the subject of modern music: His proposals for the improvement of our concerts are equally free from prejudice on the one hand and paradoxical innovation on the other. The little miscellaneous pieces of poetry and prose which make up the rest of this volume are very so-so performances. His verses on infancy and youth contain here and there some natural thoughts naturally expressed, but not sufficient to redeem the rest. We advise him to consider the two following triplets: Pleas'd, round the childish totum would we run, |