every means in their power: that the pious discharge of these duties will not fail to secure to them the love and esteem of their masters, and of all good men, and the favour and blessing of God; peace and tranquillity at the hour of death, and a never-fading crown of glory in the world to come.' It appears, from a short preface, that the horrid murder of Mr. and Mrs. Bonar by their man-servant led the preacher to the composition and publication of these discourses; which, we hope, will not only be read to servants, but read and considered by them. CORRESPONDENCE. In replying to Mr. Rootsey's communication, on the subject of his New Notation of Music, reviewed in our Number for May last, we shall begin with the concluding paragraph of it, and assure Mr. R. that we have no interest whatever in the old notation, or any other part of the subject; nor any attachment to it which does not arise from a fair opinion of its sufficiency for the purpose to which it is applied. When Mr. R. puts to us the propositions with which he closes his letter, it escaped him, perhaps, to observe that he begs the whole question. If his plan does not offer some substantial advantages, it is not of much consequence that by it music can be printed cheaper than it is at present; and, as to the greater facility of learning, that is a point which, as we stated, we can only concede to a certain extent: because, if simple melody, or even plain counterpoint, can be read more easily in the new mode of notation, (which we do not admit,) we still think that this will never be the case with music of a more complicated description. With respect to one of our reasons for preferring the old notation, viz. because it presents the notes in the relation of high and low, we grant that those terms cannot be applied to the notes in precisely the same sense as they are to the staff; their use with reference to the former is metaphorical: but so it is when we speak of high and losg numbers in arithmetic, of a high wind, of high life, of low company, and in many other instances. They are in fact generally applied to subjects admitting of gradation; and, in the present case, it does not strike us that any good is gained by substituting the terms shrill and grave, the latter of which is also metaphorical, and the former (to our apprehension at least) very unappropriate: since few people would consent to apply the term shrill to the beautiful liquid tones of the upper part of the voices of Mrs. Billington and Madame Catalani *, This reminds us of Guido's lines, "Cæterum tonantis vocis Si ludent acumina, Superabit Philomela, Aut vocalis asina.” Freely translated (by Dr. Burney, we believe,) thus: "At shrillness if he only aim,' The nightingale his strain may shame, Let any terms whatever be used, we think it is an advantage to have a notation which, by its effect on the eye, awakens the ideas of those terms; and into that proposition the whole of this part of the subject resolves itself. Mr. Rootsey conceives that the use of the terms high and low has arisen from the notation, and not the notation from the terms. This seems to us to be of no importance to the argument: but, with respect to the fact which he states, that the contrivers of the notation placed those notes which were previously called high at the bottom of the staff, and those at the top which had been previously called low,' it is quite new to us, if it be meant to say that the ascending scale of tones was ever expressed by a descending scale of notation. It appears to us to be more material that the modern notation was introduced to supersede that which was previously in use; and which consisted of alphabetical letters bearing different denominations, but which was found inconvenient (just as we should have supposed that it would) when the science of music began to extend itself beyond the Canto Fermo of the monks. The invention has been commonly ascribed, but probably on insufficient grounds, to Guido, the monk of Arezzo; and its early adoption and subsequent continued use appear to us strong, though not conclusive, proofs in favour of its utility. That it would admit of improvement, we are ready to grant ; indeed, the reduction of the lines of the staff to five, instead of the Italian staff which had ten lines, is an instance in point; though in that particular, we think, the improvement could not be carried farther; and we had rather, on the score of utility merely, see something done to effect as great an improvement with the least possible change, than be carried back quite to first principles, in order to accomplish an entire change of our practice. With a view to its philosophical accuracy as well as its ingenuity, Mr. Rootsey's plan seemed to us to deserve the favourable report which we gave of it in those respects; and we feel sure that his candour will excuse our differing from him as to its other advantages. * We have to apologize to our readers for this long replication, which we must yet extend farther in order to give Mr. Rootsey an opportunity of explaining himself as to the mode of expressing the value of notes, on which subject an error of the press (as it appears) misled us in reviewing his work. He says: "I was exceedingly sorry to find that I was misunderstood upon the. subject of the value of notes in a bar, because I ground my principal claim to attention upon the precision of my method. An unfortunate error of the press appears to have occasioned this misunderstanding. In the passage cited by you the time is triple, and the measure consists of four notes, which should have been arranged into three times, and omitting the parenthesis they should have stood thus, n m hm; in my copy, the two first of these notes are joined instead of being separated, and in yours the two last are separated instead of being joined. It may be proper for me to observe that always, in writing music, before I put the parenthesis, I take care to have the times of the measure properly separated, and I afterwards insert them so that they may not render the times of the measure inconspicuous; but, in printing, the too great curvature of the types used for a paren parenthesis, occasions some inconvenience which might very casily be remedied. "When I first considered of the application of all the letters in the alphabet and their order to the purpose of musical notation, it became necessary, for me to devise a method of expressing accurately the value of relative duration of the notes. This I first effected principally by figures over several of them, and in this stage I sent it to Mr. Nicholson, who mentions in his Journal, Vol. xxiv. page 153. the cause of its not appearing in that work. It afterwards occurred to me that the most scientific plan would be to supersede all characters for this purpose, by arranging the notes in every measure into times. I am informed that Earl Stanhope, who takes such lively interest in the promotion of the arts, has paid much attention to this subject; and from some of his papers which I have seen, his Lordship's method appears to be coincident with fine, as I presented it to Mr. Nicholson, in the circumstance of expressing the duration by characters in a separate line from the letters. It was from this consideration that I felt myself obliged to mention wherein the novelty of my plan chiefly consisted, not that I conceived its novelty to be an advantage, or that the plan was to be judged of by any other standard than its utility. In what manner I have expressed the absolute and the relative duration of each note, you have not explained in your sketch, and this I consider as the most important part of iny notation. "How I have connected notes of different denominations will appear from example 28. at the syllable twine, where a tie, or a parenthesis, embraces notes of different denominations; for if each time be equal to a crotchet, h will be a crotchet, and g and k two quavers. In the 23d measure of example 27, and in the 4th of example 2, I have shewn how I express semiquavers coming after a pricked crotchet. In the first case, r, because it stands before a note which bears a dot over it, is protracted half its length and rendered cqual to three quavers, and the remaining notes tp become each equal to a semiquaver, to make up the rest of the measure," We must not conclude without noticing an erratum in our article to which this note refers. In page 91. line 10. the expression should have been, and the bass notes, or, more properly speaking, the notes below middle C," &c.: but, in printing, the words in italics Avere misplaced in the subsequent lines, owing to an intricate interlineation in the MS. It will give us real pleasure to comply with the wishes of ‹ A Steady Old Friend,' at the first opportunity. M. B. will find an account of the object of his sollicitude in our next Appendix, if our intentions can be fulfilled. THE MONTHLY REVIEW, For AUGUST, 1814. ART. I. A Journey through Albania, and other Provinces of Turkey in Europe and Asia, to Constantinople, during the Years 1809 and 1810 By J. C. Hobhouse. Second Edition. 4to. 2 Vols. pp. 1168. 51. 58. Boards. Cawthorne. 1813. WE E have in these volumes another example of the effect of the late system of exclusion from France and Italy, in directing the researches of our countrymen to the shores of Greece. Amid the endless variety of new publications which call for the attention of reviewers, we have been obliged to delay our notice of Mr. Hobhouse's work; a circumstance which we should regret, had it not given us the advantage of examining it in the improved shape of a second edition. Mr. H. took an extensive survey of the classic territory, and travelled in company with Lord Byron; whose prolific muse has of late rendered our fair countrywomen so familiar with the manners and scenery of the Levant. These considerations intitle his journal to a notice of some length, notwithstanding the frequency of late publications on the subject, and the promise of a comprehensive performance of a similar description under the superintendance of Mr. Walpole. The leading objects of Mr. H.'s observations were Albania, Attica, the Troad, and Constantinople, to each of which we shall give attention in its turn; bestowing, however, a larger portion of our space on the first-mentioned articles, the Troad having already been a topic of ample discussion, and the wonders of Constantinople having been lately brought before our readers in our notice of Dr. Clarke's Travels. Mr. Hobhouse's narrative begins in September 1809, at which time Lord Byron and he set sail from Malta, and proceeded to the shores of Greece. Being on board a brig of war, which convoyed a fleet of small merchantmen to Patras, the north-west part of the Peloponnesus was the portion of Grecian territory that first attracted their observation. Cephalonia appeared a chain of high rocks to the north, and Zante a level island to the south; while, in front, their attention was fixed on the high mountains of Albania and the Morea; and the fresh VOL. LXXIV. Z freshness of the green plantations of currant-trees afforded a delightful relief to eyes accustomed to the white waste of Malta. After having passed near Ithaca, and viewed, in their progress northward, the far-famed Leucadian precipice, the voyagers anchored off Prevesa, a southern port in Albania, and commenced their tour on the main-land. An apology is made in limine (pp. 5, 6, 7.) for a want of precision in explaining the course of rivers, the direction of the mountains, and the relative position of the antient and modern cities of Epirus. That country was never accurately described by either the Greek or Roman writers, and its frequent change of masters led unavoidably to a perplexing change of names. Strabo avows his inability to specify the limits of the different Epirote tribes; and Ptolemy takes perhaps an unauthorized liberty, when he includes Acarnania and Amphilochia within the boundary of Epirus. M. D'Anville frankly confessed his want of information on this topic; and Mr. Gibbon declared that we are nearly as much acquainted with the nature of the territory in question as with the wilds of North America. To expect such a thing as a map among the Turks would be idle, as they are accustomed to ridicule all statistical calculations. Having described Prevesa, and the adjacent ruins of Nicopolis, Mr. H. proceeds to give an account of the town of Arta, situated inland near the gulf of that name. It was a place of consequence until Ali Pacha made Ioannina the seat of government, and ruled Arta by a dependent under the title of Aga. Mr. H. does not incline to the opinion that Arta is the antient Ambracia, or that the river on which it stands is the antient Aracthos. Holding a northward course from Arta, the travellers reached, on the second day, Ioannina, a city containing not fewer than 40,000 inhabitants, and standing on the western bank of the lake to which M. Pouqueville would give the name of Acherusian. - The houses are, many of them, large and well-built, containing a court-yard, and having warehouses or stables on the ground, with an open gallery and the apartments of the family above. A flight of wooden steps under cover of the pent of the gallery connects the under and upper part of the houses. Though they have but a gloomy appearance from the street, having the windows very small, and latticed with cross bars of wood, and presenting the inhospitable show of large folding doors, big enough to admit the horses and cattle of the family, but never left open, yet the yard, which is often furnished with orange and lemon trees, and in the best houses communicates with a garden, makes them very lively from within, and the galleries are sufficiently extensive to allow a scope for walk. ing in rainy weather. • The |