Gryll Grange Part 12

(Greek pa.s.sage) Anacreon.

I love not him, who o'er the wine-cup's flow Talks but of war, and strife, and scenes of woe: But him who can the Muses' gifts employ, To mingle love and song with festal joy.

The dinner and dessert pa.s.sed away. The ladies retired to the drawing-room: the gentlemen discoursed over their wine. Mr.

MacBorrowdale p.r.o.nounced a eulogium on the port, which was cordially echoed by the divine in regard to the claret.

_Mr. Falconer._ Doctor, your tastes and sympathies are very much with the Greeks; but I doubt if you would have liked their wine. Condiments of sea-water and turpentine must have given it an odd flavour; and mixing water with it, in the proportion of three to one, must have reduced the strength of merely fermented liquor to something like the smallest ale of Christophero Sly.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ I must say I should not like to put either salt water or turpentine into this claret: they would not improve its bouquet; nor to dilute it with any portion of water: it has to my mind, as it is, just the strength it ought to have, and no more. But the Greek taste was so exquisite in all matters in which we can bring it to the test, as to justify a strong presumption that in matters in which we cannot test it, it was equally correct. Salt water and turpentine do not suit our wine: it does not follow that theirs had not in it some basis of contrast, which may have made them pleasant in combination. And it was only a few of their wines that were so treated.

Lord Curryfin. Then it could not have been much like their drink of the present day. 'My master cannot be right in his mind,' said Lord Byron's man Fletcher, 'or he would not have left Italy, where we had everything, to go to a country of savages; there is nothing to eat in Greece but tough billy-goats, or to drink but spirits of turpentine.'{1}

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ There is an ambiguous present, which somewhat perplexes me, in an epigram of Rhia.n.u.s, 'Here is a vessel of half-wine, half-turpentine, and a singularly lean specimen of kid: the sender, Hippocrates, is worthy of all praise.'{2} Perhaps this was a doctor's present to a patient. Alcaeus, Anacreon, and Nonnus could not have sung as they did under the inspiration of spirit of turpentine. We learn from Athenseus, and Pliny, and the old comedians, that the Greeks had a vast variety of wine, enough to suit every variety of taste. I infer the unknown from the known. We know little of their music. I have no doubt it was as excellent in its kind as their sculpture.

1 Trelawny's Recollections.

2 (Greek pa.s.sage) Anthologia Palatina: Appendix: 72.

_Mr. Minim_. I can scarcely think that, sir. They seem to have had only the minor key, and to have known no more of counterpoint than they did of perspective.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Their system of painting did not require perspective. Their main subject was on one foreground. Buildings, rocks, trees, served simply to indicate, not to delineate, the scene.

_Mr. Falconer._ I must demur to their having only the minor key.

The natural ascent of the voice is in the major key, and with their exquisite sensibility to sound they could not have missed the obvious expression of cheerfulness. With their three scales, diatonic, chromatic, and enharmonic, they must have exhausted every possible expression of feeling. Their scales were in true intervals; they had really major and minor tones; we have neither, but a confusion of both.

They had both sharps and flats: we have neither, but a mere set of semitones, which serve for both. In their enharmonic scale the fineness of their ear perceived distinctions which are lost on the coa.r.s.eness of ours.

_Mr. Minim._ With all that they never got beyond melody. They had no harmony, in our sense. They sang only in unisons and octaves.

_Mr. Falconer._ It is not clear that they did not sing in fifths. As to harmony in one sense, I will not go so far as to say with Ritson that the only use of the harmony is to spoil the melody; but I will say, that to my taste a simple accompaniment, in strict subordination to the melody, is far more agreeable than that Niagara of sound under which it is now the fashion to bury it.

_Mr. Minim._ In that case, you would prefer a song with a simple pianoforte accompaniment to the same song on the Italian stage.

_Mr. Falconer._ A song sung with feeling and expression is good, however accompanied. Otherwise, the pianoforte is not much to my mind. All its intervals are false, and temperament is a poor subst.i.tute for natural intonation. Then its incapability of sustaining a note has led, as the only means of producing effect, to those infinitesimal subdivisions of sound, in which all sentiment and expression are twittered and frittered into nothingness.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ I quite agree with you. The other day a band pa.s.sed my gate playing 'The Campbells are coming'; but instead of the fine old Scotch lilt, and the emphasis on 'Oho! oho!' what they actually played was, 'The Ca-a-a-a-ampbells are co-o-o-o-ming, Oh-o-ho-o-o!

Oh-o-ho-o-o'; I thought to myself, There is the essence and quintessence of modern music. I like the old organ-music such as it was, when there were no keys but C and F, and every note responded to a syllable.

The effect of the prolonged and sustained sound must have been truly magnificent:

'Where, through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault, The pealing anthem swelled the note of praise.'

Who cares to hear sacred music on a piano?

_Mr. Minim._ Yet I must say that there is a great charm in that brilliancy of execution which is an exclusively modern and very modern accomplishment

_Mr. Falconer._ To those who perceive it. All things are as they are perceived. To me music has no charm without expression.

_Lord Curryfin._ (_who, having observed Mr. MacBorrowdale's determination not to be drawn into an argument, amused himself with asking his opinion on all subjects_). What is your opinion, Mr.

MacBorrowdale?

_Mr. MacBorrowdale._ I hold to the opinion I have already expressed, that this is as good a gla.s.s of port as ever I tasted.

_Lord Curryfin._ I mean your opinion of modern music and musical instruments.

_Mr. MacBorrowdale._ The organ is very good for psalms, which I never sing, and the pianoforte for jigs, which I never dance. And if I were not to hear either of them from January to December, I should not complain of the privation.

_Lord Curryfin._ You are an utilitarian, Mr. MacBorrowdale. You are all for utility--public utility--and you see none in music.

_Mr. MacBorrowdale._ Nay, not exactly so. If devotion is good, if cheerfulness is good, and if music promotes each of them in proper time and place, music is useful. If I am as devout without the organ, and as cheerful without the piano, as I ever should be with them, that may be the defect of my head or my ear. I am not for forcing my tastes or no-tastes on other people. Let every man enjoy himself in his own way, while he does not annoy others. I would not deprive you of your enjoyment of a brilliant symphony, and I hope you would not deprive me of my enjoyment of a gla.s.s of old wine.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian_:

'Tres mihi convivae prope dissentire videntur, Poscentes vario multum diversa palate'{1}

1 Three guests dissent most widely in their wishes: With different taste they call for different dishes.

_Mr. Falconer._ Nor our reverend friend of the pleasure of a cla.s.sical quotation.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ And the utility, too, sir: for I think I am indebted to one for the pleasure of your acquaintance.

_Mr. Falconer._ When you did me the honour to compare my house to the Palace of Circe. The gain was mine.

_Mr. Pallet._ You admit, sir, that the Greeks had no knowledge of perspective.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Observing that they had no need of it. Their subject was a foreground like a relievo. Their background was a symbol, not a representation. 'No knowledge* is perhaps too strong. They had it where it was essential. They drew a peristyle, as it appeared to the eye, as accurately as we can do. In short, they gave to each distinct object its own proper perspective, but to separate objects they did not give their relative perspective, for the reason I have given, that they did not need it.

_Mr. Falconer._ There is to me one great charm in their painting, as we may judge from the specimens in Pompeii, which, though not their greatest works, indicate their school. They never crowded their canvas with figures. They presented one, two, three, four, or at most five persons, preferring one and rarely exceeding three. These persons were never lost in the profusion of scenery, dress, and decoration. They had clearly-defined outlines, and were agreeable objects from any part of the room in which they were placed.

_Mr. Pallet._ They must have lost much in beauty of detail.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Therein is the essential difference of ancient and modern taste. Simple beauty--of idea in poetry, of sound in music, of figure in painting--was their great characteristic. Ours is detail in all these matters, overwhelming detail. We have not grand outlines for the imagination of the spectator or hearer to fill up: his imagination has no play of its own: it is overloaded with _minutio_ and kaleidoscopical colours.

_Lord Curryfin_. Detail has its own beauty. I have admired a Dutch picture of a butcher's shop, where all the charm was in detail.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ I cannot admire anything of the kind. I must take pleasure in the thing represented before I can derive any from the representation.

_Mr. Pallet._ I am afraid, sir, as our favourite studies all lead us to extreme opinions, you think the Greek painting was the better for not having perspective, and the Greek music for not having harmony.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ I think they had as much perspective and as much harmony as was consistent with that simplicity which characterised their painting and music as much as their poetry.

_Lord Curryfin._ What is your opinion, Mr. MacBorrowdale?

_Mr. MacBorrowdale._ I think you may just buz that bottle before you.

_Lord Curryfin._ I mean your opinion of Greek perspective?

_Mr. MacBorrowdale._ Troth, I am of opinion that a bottle looks smaller at a distance than when it is close by, and I prefer it as a full-sized object in the foreground.

_Lord Curryfin._ I have often wondered that a gentleman so well qualified as you are to discuss all subjects should so carefully avoid discussing any.