Or any air of music touch their ears,
You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
Their savage eyes turn’d to a modest gaze,
By the sweet power of music.

But as

The sole object of the lives of the Italians is music. They know indeed but two occupations; music and making love. Now love in that country being reduced to a very simple affair—having no wit in it, as in France, nor sentiment in it, as in England, the great resource of the inhabitants is music. It is, indeed, the weapon, if we may so term it, which is handled by both men and women to acquire and keep their conquests. A Neapolitan or Roman lover cannot more highly oblige his mistress than by procuring her a new air made at Bologna, Florence, or Venice. every thing is estimated according to the difficulties conquered, airs that come a greater distance are valued in proportion; and those made at London, Berlin, or Petersburg, are more highly esteemed.

The sums of money spent in this way passes belief. And, as to the lady, whenever she has a mind “to split a heart with tenderness,” her invaluable and only resources are her harpsichord and her voice.

Is it not certain, that the general character of the music of Italy is tender and voluptuous ? Is it not certain that the people of that country are the loosest and most enervated of Europe ? And has not Shakspeare, who, if we mistake not, was as great a philosopher as ever lived — has he not said, immediately after the last lines quoted:

Therefore the poet
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods !
Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage,
But music, for the time, doth change his nature.

Of song-singing, however, it may be said, it is the inseparable companion of good drinking, and the harmony of the table is incomplete without this accompaniment.

We shall conclude this article with the following chanson à boire, or drinking ballad, the first of any

merit in our language, and which appeared in the year 1551.*

I cannot eat but little meat,

My stomach is not good;
But sure, I think, that I can drink

With him that wears a hood.
Though I go bare, take

ye no care,
I nothing am a colde ;
I stuffe my skin so full within,

Of jolly goode ale and olde.

CHORUS.

Backe and side go bare, go bare,
Both foot and hand

go

colde,
But belly, God send thee goode ale enoughe

I am so wrapt and thorougely lapt

Of jolly goode ale and olde
Backe and side, &c.

And Tib, my wife, that as her life

Loveth well goode ale to seeke;
Full oft drinks shee, till ye may see

The teares run down her cheeke;
Then doth she trowle me to the howle,

Even as a mault wome sholde;
And saith “ sweet heart, I took my part

Of this jolly goode ale and olde."
Backe and side, &c:

Now let them drinke till they nod and winke,

Even as goode fellows shoulde do ;
They shall not misse to have the blisse

Goode ale doth bring men to.
And all goode soules, that have scoured bowles,

Or bave them lustily trolde,
God save the lives of them and their wives,

Whether they be young or olde.

The fine satirical moral couched under these verses is sufficiently visible to require comment. Among the million how many go thinly covered and barefooted, from sacrificing too freely to the “rosy god,” who might otherwise support both“ backe, side, and belly," and keep the whole, inside and outside, in respectable and “ good sailing trim.” There is a time to rejoice and a time to be sad, says Solomon; also, “ a season for all things under the sun;" and happy is the man, and those around him, looking up to him for consolation and Christian example, who can nick the time so well in devoting a leisure hour to the society of his chosen friends, that it may not interfere with his business, his health, or his family comforts, and without diminishing in any other respect the harmless hilarity, the enjoyment of which he might have anticipated during his hours of labour, to lighten the burden of toil.

SECTION XVI.

DIRECTIONS FOR THE PRESERVATION OF THE HEALTH

AND COMFORT OF TRAVELLERS, PARTICULARLY IN WARM CLIMATES, AND SEA VOYAGES.

The variety of changes and occurrences, physically and corporeally, which take place in the locomotive actions of travellers, connected with the anxieties of mind to which many of these give rise, and which so frequently interfere with the bodily health, render it absolutely necessary that some rules should be laid down, as far as warranted by experience, to guide such

for the want of such knowledge, be misled as to the consequences which often result from the absence of proper attention to things seemingly in themselves of an indifferent nature, but which are known, frequently when too late, to be of the most vital importance to health.

as may,

I. A traveller ought to be perfectly well acquainted with what agrees or disagrees with his constitution, and observe those rules which custom has established in favour of his health, at least as far as circumstances will admit of. He will act prudently, to pay a strict attention with regard to eating, drink