music he would learn, and often broke out into extemporary playing, his master wisely letting him do as he pleased.

During this time he taught himself the violin. A soldier assisted him about six weeks; and sometime after Mr. Kinsbury gave him twenty lessons. His favorite instrument was the organ.

He spent a month at Bath, while we were in Wales; served the abbey on Sundays; gave them several voluntaries; and played the first fiddle in many private concerts.

He returned with us to London greatly improved in his playing. There I allowed him a month for learning all Handel's overtures. He played them over to me in three days. Handel's concertos he learned with equal ease, and some of his lessons and Scarlatti's. Like Charles, he mastered the hardest music without any pains or difficulty. He borrowed his Ruth to transcribe for Mr. Madan. Parts of it he played at Lord D.'s, who rewarded him with some of Handel's

oratorios.

Mr. Madan now began carrying him about to his musical friends. He played several times at Mr. W.'s, to many of the nobility, and some eminent masters and judges of music. They gave him subjects and music which he had never seen. Mr. Burton, Mr. Bates, &c, expressed their approbation in the strongest terms. His extemporary fugues, they said, were just and regular; but they could not believe that he knew nothing of the rules of composition.

6

Several companies he entertained for hours together with his own music. The learned were quite astonished, Sir J. H. cried out, Inspiration! inspiration!' Dr. C. candidly acknowledged, He has got that which we are searching after;' although at first, out of pure good nature, he refused to give him a subject. An old musical gentleman, hearing him, could not refrain from tears.

Dr. B. was greatly pleased with his extemporary play, and his pursuing the subjects and fugues which he gave him; but insisted, like the rest, that he must have been taught the rules.

Mr. S. and Mr. B. expressed the same surprise and satisfaction. An organist gave him a sonata he had just written, not easy, nor very legible. Sam played it with great readiness and propriety, and better (as the composer owned to Mr. Madan) than he could himself.

Lord B., Lord A., Lord D., Sir W. W., and other lovers of Handel, were highly delighted with him, and encouraged him to hold fast his veneration for Handel, and the old music. But old or new was all one to Sam, so it was but good. Whatever was presented he played at sight, and made variations on any tune; and as often as he played it again he made new variations. He imitated every author's

style, whether Bach, Handel, Schobert, or Scarlatti himself. One showed him some of Mozart's music, and asked him how he liked it. He played it over, and said, 'It is very well for one of his years.'*

He played to Mr. Kelway, whom I afterward asked what he thought of him. He would not allow him to be comparable to Charles, yet commended him greatly, and told his mother it was a gift from heaven to both her sons; and as for Sam, he said, 'I never in my life saw so free and degagé a gentleman.' Mr. Madan had often said * Mozart, at that time, was a youth.-EDIT.

the same, that Sam was every where as much admired for his behaviour as for his play.

Between eight and nine he was brought through the small pox by Mr. Br's assistance, whom he therefore promised to reward with. his next oratorio.

If he loved any thing better than music, it was regularity. He took to it himself. Nothing could exceed his punctuality. No company, no persuasion, could keep him up beyond his time. He never could

be prevailed on to hear any opera or concert by night. The moment the clock gave warning for eight, away ran Sam, in the midst of his most favorite music. Once he rose up after the first part of the Messiah, with, Come, mamma, let us go home, or I sha'nt be in bed by eight.'

When some talked of carrying him to the queen, and I asked him if he was willing to go? Yes; with all my heart,' he answered; but I won't stay beyond eight.'

The praises bestowed so lavishly upon him did not seem to affect, much less to hurt him; and whenever he went into the company of his betters, he would much rather have stayed at home; yet, when among them, he was free and easy; so that some remarked, He behaves as one bred up at court, yet without a courtier's servility.'

On our coming to town this last time, he sent Dr. Boyce the last anthem he had made. The doctor thought, from its correctness, that Charles must have helped him in it; but Charles assured him that he never assisted him, otherwise than by telling him, if he asked, whether such or such a passage were good harmony; and the doctor was so scrupulous, that when Charles showed him an improper note, he would not suffer it to be altered.

Mr. Madan now carried him to more of the first masters. Mr. Abel wrote him a subject, and declared, 'Not three masters in town could have answered it so well.'

Mr. Cramer took a great liking to him, offered to teach him the violin, and played some trios with Charles and him. He sent a man to take measure of him for a fiddle; and is confident a very few lessons would set him up for a violinist.

Sam often played the second, and sometimes the first fiddle, with Mr. Treadway; who declared, Giardini himself could not play with greater exactness.'

Mr. Madan brought Dr. N. to my house, who could not believe that a boy could write an oratorio, play at sight, and pursue any given subject. He brought two of the king's boys, who sang over several songs and choruses of Ruth. Then he produced two bars of a fugue. Sam worked this fugue very readily and well, adding a movement of his own; and then a voluntary on the organ, which quite removed the doctor's incredulity.

At the rehearsal at St. Paul's Doctor Boyce met his brother Sam; and showing him to Dr. H., told him, This boy will soon surpass you all.' Shortly after he came to see us, he took up a jubilate which Sam had lately written, and commended it as one of Charles's. When we told him whose it was, he declared he could find no fault in it; adding, There is not another boy upon earth who could have

composed this;' and concluding with, I never yet met with that person who owes so much to nature as Sam. He is come among us dropped down from heaven."

From the Presbyterian.

HENRY BLACK.

COMPARATIVELY few individuals ever attain a knowledge of their own capabilities. The desire of whiling away the passing moments with the greatest possible amount of ease, and the least possible expenditure of exertion, is seemingly so inherent in human nature, that we are convinced ninety-nine individuals in a hundred go out of the world for the most part ignorant of the full range of their faculties. Man is essentially Epicurean in his dispositions. Carpe diem,' (seize the passing enjoyment of the hour,) as far as animal enjoyment goes, is the guiding maxim of his life; and it is, generally speaking, only by the occurrence of some convulsive crisis that he is startled into the knowledge and use of the abilities with which nature has endowed him. To hear people talk, one would be led to conclude that the Almighty is excessively partial in the distribution of mental gifts; while instances are every day occurring around us to prove the imagined discrepancy rests almost entirely with ourselves. How often have we smiled at such and such a one being pointed out as a remarkably clever man; while we were aware that, had circumstances permitted him, he would never have been in the slightest degree distinguished among his fellows.

that

It is a melancholy truth, that the motives which stimulate most men to exertion, and lead them to a discovery of their own talents, are either such as are condemned by the principles of correct morals, or originate in circumstances which they most unwillingly submit to. Vanity, ambition, avarice, necessity-all are powerful agents in the good work; but how few proceed upon the only truly commendable principle-the duty incumbent on them to make the fullest and best use of powers with which they are gifted! How few voluntarily apply themselves to the disciplining and improving of their own minds, as if they imagined the process was merely one of trouble and inconvenience, without any immediate equivalent benefit, or enjoyment accruing therefrom! For example, we know many men whose necessary occupations-requiring little or no mental exertion, be it observed-do not engage more of their time than from nine in the morning till four in the afternoon, (that is to say, seven hours out of the twenty-four,) the other seventeen are consumed in eating, drinking, sleeping, and desultory amusements. Yet these individuals regard themselves, and are indeed regarded by the world, as fulfilling respectfully all the purposes of life. They are moral in their behavior, punctual and attentive to business, and maintain themselves in independence-some of them in affluence-and what more can be demanded of them? How have we regretted to think that there are among them more than one who, did they but dedicate one fifteenth part of their leisure time to study and self improvement, are qualified by

nature to become the brightest ornaments of society, and attain distinction in any department of literature, art, or science, to which they might direct their attention; but who will go down to the grave perfectly undistinguished, and ignorant in themselves of the fine gifts which they have suffered to remain uncultivated and unemployed. It was a beautiful, an animating theory of the philosopher,* and one which, however visionary it may be reckoned, it were well if it was acted on as if true; viz. that there are gradations of happiness in futurity, to which the souls of men will be raised, according to the state of moral and intellectual excellence they have attained in the body; meaning thereby, that those who have made the greatest progress in self improvement on earth, will experience (as they will be capable of appreciating) a more refined and exalted species of bliss hereafter, than others who have neglected the same opportunities.

Why so large a portion of the human race should come to regard the cultivation of their faculties, and improvement of their minds, as an irksome task, and the intervals of escape from these as the only periods of enjoyment, would lead us into an investigation far too lengthy and metaphysical for our pages. But unquestionably, independent of the natural pre-dispositions of the human mind to idleness, much, very much, is to be attributed to errors in early training. That system is yet too much in practice which naturally leads a boy to infer that his hours of study and instruction are periods of harsh penance and unnatural restraint. The boy who is taught to consider the hours of play as the only seasons of delight, and to look upon the prolongation of it as a reward, inevitably carries forward with him the same feelings into the more advanced and perilous stage of life. Necessity, indeed, may compel him to exert himself for subsistence; but he who works from a sense of compulsion, seldom works to permanent advantage. He performs his duties with reluctance and disgust, and flies from them whenever he can; and, unless he happily acquires more correct views of life, it is odds that he either altogether sinks, or drags out his existence a discontented, unsettled, and poverty-stricken man, painfully drudging through one hour, that he may have the means of idling away the next. But even should fortune prove favorable to him, there still remains the great moral evil which we have been endeavoring to point out. He considers his exertions in the necessary occupation of life as the only call imperative upon him; he neglects all the finer qualities of his nature, and remains totally unacquainted with the extent of his own faculties, the sacred duty and advantage of cultivating them, and the refined enjoyment that flows from doing so.

In illustration of these remarks, we will here give an instance, where a young man of talent and principle was happily rescued from the consequences of indolence and bad early training, and awakened to the knowledge and exertion of his faculties. Many years have now elapsed since the circumstance took place; but the principles of human nature are as invariable as they are unlimited; and we may mention that the anecdote was told us by one who was personally acquainted with the parties concerned.

*See Duncan's Logic.

It is now upward of fifty years since a young man, named Henry Black, was attending the classes of the Edinburgh university. His parents were highly respectable, but extremely poor; and the cost of his maintenance and education was defrayed by a rich uncle, to whose wealth, in the absence of all other relatives, it was natural to suppose he would become heir. Knowing this, Henry Black adopted the idea which most young men in his situation are apt to do-namely, that, seeing he had the certainty of an ample fortune before him, it would be but a waste of time and labor to vex himself with hard study, and learning things which he would never have any use for. In this humor he passed easily through his classical cruriculum, for little was exacted from the students then beyond personal appearance in the class room; but as decency required him to fix upon some profession as an ostensible means of subsistence, at the end of his course he selected that of medicine. At that time, a young physician in Edinburgh had lately begun a somewhat rare circumstance in those days -to give a course of private lectures; and so fast had his reputation risen, that it soon was considered by the students an indispensable part of their professional education to attend him for a season. Henry Black, of course, became a pupil; but he soon found reason to regret taking out his ticket. His new instructer was a very different man from the easy-going, indulgent professors. He instituted a system of rigorous and frequent individual examination upon the subjects of his lectures, not by the usual mode of appointing fixed days for that purpose, but calling upon the students indiscriminately, and when least expected, so that they were necessitated always to be in their place and on the alert. The effects of poor Black's indolent habits and indifference to his studies were soon visible; and he soon became conspicuous in the class for his ignorance and inattention. The teacher was stern and unrelenting, and would not be satisfied with the invariable reply of not prepared,' with which his pupil endeavored to shelter himself from his interrogatories. On the contrary, he redoubled his calls upon him, and his reprimands became more and more severe, until Henry at last thought proper to wait upon him, and state that his attendance at the class was merely by way of pastime, that he had no intention of following out his profession; and, in short, explained his situation and future prospects with no small degree of self importance. The physician listened to him with a smile of contempt; but said nothing. In the class next day, however, he took occasion to advert to the mean spirit of some young men, who, because born to a competency, reckoned themselves entitled to forego all personal exertion -to sit down in sloth and ignorance, and basely content themselves with feeding upon the earning of others. He expatiated at great length upon the sinfulness as well as degradation of such conduct, illustrating his remarks by the parable of the slothful servant, who hid the talent given him by his master in the earth. The lecturer did not speak of Henry Black by name, but the allusions were too pointed to . be misunderstood; and, in fact, the confusion manifested by the pupil would have betrayed him. The young man retired from the class room, burning with shame and indignation; but the latter feeling soon obtained the mastery of the former; and in his foolish rage he wrote a violent letter to the physician, demanding an apology. This only