humour of the modern Clown, many of whose
vagaries appear to be the peculiar property
of the Harlequin. We note fewer gymnastic
feats, and mark the absence of " hits " at the
passing follies of the day. But we have
learned to entertain a higher appreciation of
the scenery and mechanical eifects of the
stage a hundred years ago, than we should
hitherto have owned.

The ghostly actors have vanished into
night and silence; the ideal theatre, with all
its visionary scenes, its imaginary lights and
phantom audience, has passed away; and we
are again in our home among the living.
Some of these days we too shall be gathered
to the dead. Will any of our descendants in
the year nineteen hundred and fifty-three,
make a spiritual journey backwards, to see
any one of the Pantomimes of this present
year of grace? Let our Pantomime writers
and actors, our mechanics and scene-painters,
plume themselves with the thought of that
possibility. Such things may be.

     THE HARMONIOUS BLACKSMITH.

Handel's Harmonious Blacksmith may be
supposed to have produced harmony through
the medium of his blacksmithery; the latter
being the object in view, and the former
an incidental and spontaneous accompaniment.
But our harmonious blacksmith (or
whitesmith, for we will not insist upon the
colour) proceeds in an inverse order; his
smithery is only the means to an end, the end
being harmony, or melody, or music, or sweet
sounds. He hammers, or stamps, or rolls
small pieces of metal, until he brings them to
a vibratory state, until, in fact, he infuses the
soul of music into them. In this sense only
is he a harmonious blacksmith; but what a
wide sphere of operation is his—from the
humble Jew's harp to the imperial Harmonium,
through all the intermediate stages
of Accordion and Concertina! All musical
amateurs ought to be, but are not, familiar
with this curious subject of vibrating springs.
Let us talk a while thereon.

A very pretty bit of musical philosophy is
involved in the action of the Jew's harp.
When Tom lays out the penny which his
aunt gave him, and purchases therewith a
Jew's harp; when he places the instrument
to his mouth and makes all sorts of
grimaces, and pursings, and poutings, and
screwings with his lips, he thinks that he
breathes music upon the spring—that the
current of breath has chiefly to do with
the matter. But Tom is wrong: he is merely
converting his mouth into a sounding-box
or resonant cavity; his mouth bears the same
relation to the spring of the Jew's harp
as the body of a guitar or a violin, or the
stretched parchment of a banjo, does to the
strings—it increases the body of sound. In
strictness, however, it does something more
than this; for by varying the capacity of the
mouth, the player modifies the pitch of the
tone produced. All this may be hard
philosophy to Tom; but let him listen and
consider awhile; for Tom may be pleased to
learn that in the Netherlands, in the Tyrol,
among the Greeks of Smyrna, and in other
places, the Jew's harp is a valued and
beautiful musical instrument. The spring of the
little piece of mechanism, then, vibrates to
and fro when touched with the finger, and in
so vibrating it emits a musical sound, definite
in pitch but very faint in intensity. But
when the instrument is held before the
mouth, and the lips and teeth are opened so
as to allow the sound to enter the mouth,
then does the sound increase in loudness, just
as a drum emits a louder sound than a
tambourine, although the parchment may be of
equal diameter; and if the muscles of the
face be so worked that the cavity of the
mouth may be continually varying both in
form and size, then will the pitch of the
sound be altered—becoming more grave as
the cavity is enlarged, and more acute as it
is diminished. This is analogous to the fact
that a big drum yields a lower note than a
little one, and a long mouth-organ pipe lower
than a short one, and so forth. Our nut,
therefore, contains three kernels: first, that
the striking of the spring produces a faint
sound; second,  that the reverberation in the
mouth converts this faint sound into an
audible musical note; third, that variations
in the form and size of the cavity of the
mouth, give all those variations of pitch
which are requisite to the production of a
tune.

If Tom could have heard M. Koch or M.
Eulenstein play on the Jew's harp, he would
have been infinitely delighted. Koch was a
private soldier in the Prussian service under
Frederick the Great. One evening the King
was surprised at hearing soft beautiful music
immediately under his window; and, on
looking out, he saw a sentinel discoursing
sweet sounds; the instrument being a humble
Jew's harp. The impatient monarch ordered
the man to come up stairs and play to him;
but Koch, a true soldier, said that he must
not do so without his colonel's orders. " But
I am the King!" said Frederick. " I know
it. Sire; but if I leave my post to-night, I
shall certainly be punished to-morrow." The
King was angry; but, himself a soldier, he
knew how to respect the firmness and fidelity
of the sentinel. On the following day, he had
Koch to play to him, gave him a liberal
gratuity, and then presented him with his
discharge. Koch had been able to produce
some unusual musical effects by playing on
two Jew's harps at once, the sounds of which
he could so modulate as to produce exquisite
harmony. When Koch left the army, he
travelled through Germany, giving concerts
as a player on the Jew's harp; he made a
moderate fortune by his exertions, and spent
the decline of his days at Vienna—every way