learning to develop out of a little melodic phrase of theme or motive, as from a seed-thought, all the wealth of meaning and of beauty there concealed and waiting for the touch of fairy wand of genius, is at least as good a kind of higher intellectual gymnastics as the transcendental mathematics, or the categorical chains of logic, or the perpetually shifting, vanishing cloud-forms of metaphysics. Good music has a logic of its own; none more severe, more subtile, and surely none so fascinating, for it leads, it charms into the infinite.

Even to contemplate the elementary phenomena in nature, upon which all the wonders of the musical art are founded, is to find ourselves in presence of enchanting facts, of laws so intellectual, so inexhaustible in their suggestion, such startling revelations of an infinitely beautiful organic, all-pervading, living order, that the soul is filled with awe as if the very air were tremulous with Deity. For what is music? Its substance, common air. Its form, vibration. All beauty, in whatever art, is the result, the impressed form of motion,-free, unimpeded, even motion; and motion, movement, is the universal sign and undeniable assertion of force, of power, of inspiration, in a word, of life; and, finally, all free, undisturbed motion is vibratory, undulating, measured, proportionate, rhythmical. Physically, then, music is motion, and it is nothing else. And nothing moves that does not impress upon the air a vibration, or (which is the same thing) a sound, a tone. If I sing to you, a vibration of my soul, my feeling, imparts itself to the atmospheric medium, traveling on until it becomes a vibration in your soul, your feeling. The spiritual fact of music answers to this physical fact. Its business is directly with the motive principle in human life, and not with thoughts, perceptions, memories; for these are passive, prompted by some motive force behind them.

THE

Sylvester Judd.

BORN in Westhampton, Mass., 1813. DIED in Augusta, Me., 1853.

A CHILD'S SUNDAY A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

[Margaret. 1851.]

HE Via Dolorosa became to Margaret to-day a via jocundissima, a very pleasant way. Through what some would consider rough woods and bleak pasture-land, in a little sheep-track, crooked and sometimes steep, over her hung like a white cloud the wild thorn-tree-large

gold-dusted cymes of viburnums, rose-blooming lambkill, and other sorts, suggested all she knew, and more than she knew, of the Gardens of Princes. The feathery moss on the old rocks, dewy and glistening, was full of fairy feeling. A chorus of fly-catchers, as in ancient Greek worship, from their invisible gallery in the greenwood, responded one to another;-"Whee whoo whee, wee woo woo wee, whee whoo, whoo whoo wee-God bless the little Margaret! How glad we are she is going to Meeting at last. She shall have berries, nutcakes, and good preaching. The little Isabel and Job Luce are there. How do you think she will like Miss Amy?"

Emerging in Deacon Hadlock's Pasture, she added to her stock red sorrel blossoms, pink azaleas, and sprigs of pennyroyal. Then she sorted her collection, tying the different parcels with spears of grass. The Town was before her silent and motionless, save the neighing of horses and squads of dogs that traipsed to and fro on the Green. The sky was blue and tender; the clouds in white veils, like nuns, worshipped in the sunbeams; the woods behind murmured their reverence; and birds sang psalms. All these sights, sounds, odors, suggestions, were not, possibly, distinguished by Margaret, in their sharp individuality, or realized in the bulk of their shade, sense, and character. She had not learned to criticise; she only knew how to feel. A new indefinable sensation of joy and hope was deepened within her, and a single concentration of all best influences swelled her bosom. She took off her hat and pricked grass-heads and bluebells in the band, and went on. The intangible presence of God was in her soul, the universal voice of Jesus called her forward. Besides she was about to penetrate the profoundly interesting anagogue of the Meeting, that for which every seventh day she had heard the bell so mysteriously ring, that to which Obed and his mother devoted so much gravity, awe, and costume, and that concerning which a whole life's prohibition had been upon her. Withal, she remembered the murderer, and directed her first steps to the Jail.

She tried to enter the Jail House, but Mr. Shooks drove her away. Then she searched along the fence till she found a crevice in the posts of which the enclosure was made, and through this, on the ground-floor of the prison, within the very small aperture that served him for a window, she saw the grim face of the murderer, or a dim image of his face, like the shadow of a soul in the pit of the grave.

"I have brought the flowers," said she; "but they won't let me carry them to you."

"There is no more

"We know it," replied the imprisoned voice. world now, and flowers don't grow on it; it's hell, and beautiful things, and hearts to love you, are burnt up. There was blood spilt, and this is the afterwards."

"I will fasten a bunch in this hole," she said, "so you can see them." "It is too late," rejoined the man. "I had a child like you, and she loved flowers-but I am to be hanged-I shall cry if you stay there, for I was a father-but that is gone, and there are no more Angels, else why should not my own child be one? Go home and kiss your father, if you have one, but don't let me know it."

She heard other voices and could see the shadows of faces looking from other cells, and hear voices where she could see no faces, and the Jail seemed to her to be full of strange human sounds, and there was a great clamoring for flowers.

"I will leave some in the fence for you to look at," she said, in rather vague answer to these requests.

Now, the faithful guardian of the premises, overhearing the conversation, rushed in alarm from his rooms, and presented himself firmly in the midst of what seemed to be a conspiracy. "What piece of villany is this?" he exclaimed, snatching the flowers from the paling. "In communication with the prisoners!-on the Lord's day!" Flinging the objects of Margaret's ignorant partiality with violence to the ground, Mr. Shooks looked as if he was about to fall with equal spirit upon the child in person, and she fled into the street.

Climbing a horse-block, from which could be seen the upper cells of the Jail, she displayed her flowers in sight of the occupants, holding them up at arm's length. The wretched men answered by shouting and stamping. "If words won't do, we'll try what vartue there is in stones," observed the indignant jailer, and thereupon suiting the action to the word, the persevering man fairly pelted the offender away.

She turned towards the Meeting-house and entered the square, buttress-like, silent porch. Passing quietly through, she opened the door of what was to her a more mysterious presence, and paused at the foot of the broad aisle.

She saw the Minister, in his great wig and strange dress, perched in what looked like a high box; above hung the pyramidal sounding-board, and on a seat beneath were three persons in powdered hair, whom she recognized as the Deacons Hadlock, Ramsdill and Penrose. Through the balustrade that surrounded the high pews, she could see the heads of men and women; little children stood on the seats, clutching the rounds, and smiled at her. The Minister had given out a hymn, and Deacon Hadlock, rising, read the first line. Then, in the gallery overhead, she heard the toot toot of Master Elliman on the pitch-pipe, and his voice leading off, and she walked farther up the aisle to discover what was going on. A little toddling girl called out to her as she passed, and thrust out her hand as if she would catch at the flowers Margaret so conspicuously carried. The Sexton, hearing the noise, came forward and