most of the English nobility. He died at his house in Whitehall, in the year 1554, and was buried with much solemnity. In the reign of James I., Cornelius Jansens arrived in England from Holland, and painted the king and nobility; but his talents being soon after eclipsed by Vandyke, he returned to his own country. Sir Anthony Vandyke received the first rudiments of the art from Vanbalen of Antwerp; but afterwards became the pupil of Rubens, under whose excellent guidance he made such rapid progress in the art, that a portrait he painted of his master's wife, even at that period, is ranked among the best of his productions. Leaving Rubens, he made the tour of Italy, and at his return to Antwerp, was invited to England by Charles I., by whom he was knighted. He married the beautiful daughter of Lord Ruthven, Earl of Gowrie. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great founder of the English school, was born at Plymton, near Plymouth, on the 16th of July, 1723, and was the pupil of Hudson. In the year 1750, he went to Rome, where he remained two years prosecuting his studies. At his return to his own country, he received that patronage which was due to his extraordinary talents. Sir Joshua died in London, at the age of sixty-nine, and was buried in St. Paul's cathedral with great funeral pomp.

THE CARTOONS.

These celebrated paintings are so called from the Italian word cartone, a kind of pasteboard on which they are painted. While Raphael was in the employ of Leo the Tenth, his holiness employed this distinguished painter to make designs of the Acts of the Apostles, for the purpose of having them copied on tapestry. As soon as these tapestries were completed, the Cartoons remained neglected at Brussels, till they were purchased by Rubens for Charles the First of England, and in a dilapidated state (for they had been cut to pieces to facilitate the work of the weavers) they were brought to England. In the reign of William the Third, the pieces were put together in a most careful manner, and a gallery was built at Hampton Court for their reception, where, after one or two removes, they are now finally deposited.

SIGN PAINTING.

Sign Painting is of very ancient date, and, by some, is supposed to have its origin prior to any other painting. Many of the first masters were sign painters, for instance Ribera, or Il Spagnoletto,* was a sign painter, and in Cumberland's life of him we are told, that a Cardinal, one day passing in his coach, observed a tattered figure employed in painting a board, affixed to the outside of one of the ordinary houses in the streets of Rome. *The little Spaniard.

The youth and wretchedness of the spectacle engaged his pity, and the singular attention with which he pursued his work attracted his curiosity. It was Il Spagnoletto, in the act of earning his bread, of which his appearance made it evident he was absolutely in want.

He then proceeds to state, that the Cardinal, after some preliminary conversation, took him home in his coach, and ordered him apartments in his palace, where he pursued those studies that rendered him afterwards so eminent.

Signs and sign painting were first introduced into England in the reign of Edward the Third, from France. London afterwards became famous for its signs, every shopkeeper or dealer having one; indeed, extravagant sums were laid out on this then requisite decoration. They were not then affixed to the house, but were placed on posts, or hung thereon on hinges, on the edge of the footpath.

"Old London's signs did creek, creek, creek,

For every gust of wind did make them speake."

We are told, that in the reign of Richard the Second, a lord mayor of London imported not "cashmeres and laces," but women, from Flanders, and kept stew-houses, where the dainty and squeamish were to deal in this kind of merchandise; and further, that Henry the Seventh also granted his licence to twelve bordillos or stews, having signs painted on their walls, to distinguish them and invite the passenger.

ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF THE CHANDOS PORTRAIT OF SHAKSPEARE.

It was first in the possession of Sir William Davenant, who died insolvent, and afterwards of John Owen, his principal creditor. After his death, Betterton, the actor, bought it. Betterton made no will, and died very indigent; he had a large collection of portraits of actors, which were bought at the sale of his goods by Bullfinch the printseller, who sold them to one Mr. Sykes. The portrait of Shakspeare was purchased by Mrs. Barry, the actress, who sold it afterwards, for forty guineas, to Mr. R. Kech. Mr. Nicol of Colney Hatch, Middlesex, marrying the heiress of the Kech family, this picture devolved to him. By the marriage of the Duke of Chandos with the daughter of Mr. Nicol, it became his Grace's property, and by the marriage of the Duke of Buckingham into the Chandos family, for some time it adorned the collection at Stowe. And at the sale of the Stowe collection it was purchased by the Earl of Ellesmere, who kindly permitted it to be engraved by Mr. Cousens for the Shakspeare Society. A History of this interesting Picture is in course of preparation by that able and indefatigable Shakspearian scholar, Mr. J. Payne Collier.

MUSIC.

" All Nature's full of thee: the summer bower
Respondeth to the songster's morning lay;
The bee his concert keeps from flower to flower,
As forth he sallies on his honied way;

Brook calls to brook, as down the hills they stray;
The isles resound with song, from shore to shore;
Whilst viewless minstrels' on the wings that play,
Consorted strains in liquid measures, pour

To thunder's deep-toned voice, or ocean's sullen roar."
The River Derwent.

The origin of music is lost in the mazes of antiquity; and all hypotheses on the subject are very little better than mere conjecture. The practice of this science being universal in all ages and countries, it is absurd to attribute its invention to any one man, or any particular nation; yet, as no people can carry back their researches into antiquity to so early a period as the Egyptians, modern writers seldom attempt to trace the history of music beyond their era.

Apollodorus gives us an account of the origin of music in that country, which we must, perhaps, only regard as a fanciful idea of the writer, though it is not altogether improbable. He ascribes the origin of the art, and the invention of the lyre, to the Hermes, or Mercury of the Egyptians, surnamed Trismegistus, or Thrice Illustrious; and who was, according to Newton, the secretary of Osiris.

The Nile having overflowed its banks at the periodical period for the rise of that wonderful river, on its subsidence to its usual level, several dead animals were left on the shores, and among the rest a tortoise; the flesh of which being dried and wasted in the sun, nothing remained in the shell but nerves and cartilages, and their being tightened and contracted by the drying heat, became sonorous. Mercury, walking along the banks of the river, happened to strike his foot against this shell, and was so pleased with the sound produced, that the idea of the lyre suggested itself to his imagination. The first instrument he constructed was in the form of a tortoise, and was strung with the sinews of dried animals.

It is probable that vocal music was practised, or at least that the ancients were acquainted with the difference in the tones of the human voice, and its capabilities for harmony, before instruments were thought of; and the latter, without doubt, owed their origin to the observation of effects flowing from natural causes. Thus Diodorus, Lucretius, and other authors, attribute the invention of wind instruments to observations made of the whistling of the wind in reeds, and in the pipes of other plants. The different tones of sounding strings must have been observed very early, and thus have given birth to stringed instruments:

whilst instruments of percussion, such as tabors or drums, probably originated from the sonorous ringing of hollow bodies when struck.

In the first conception all these instruments were rude and imperfect, and would afford little pleasure to the musician of the present day. Indeed, in the first effort, we can fancy the inventors themselves amazed at the effect produced, and starting with surprise or fright,

"E'en at the sound themselves had made."

The progress of improvement, however, was soon visible: and there cannot be a doubt, but that the music of the ancients was of a very high order.

NOTATION.

The invention of Notation, and of musical characters, is of ancient date, being generally ascribed to Terpander, a celebrated poet and musician of Greece, who flourished about the 27th Olympiad, or 671 years before Christ. Previously, music being entirely traditional, must have depended much on the memory and taste of the performer.

LETTERS IN MUSIC.

Gregory the Great (as he is commonly called), about the year 600, substituted the Roman letters ABC, &c., as the names of notes, in lieu of the more complicated Greek ones; by which the study of the science was greatly simplified.-See Dr. Burney's History of Music.

ORIGIN OF DIVIDING MUSIC INTO BARS.

In the 16th century, music began to be considered part of a polite education. In a collection called Queen Elizabeth's Virginal Book, some very difficult pieces of that era are preserved, several of which are by Tallis and Bird, two eminent composers of English sacred music. The English musicians of this period were equal to any of those on the continent; and it is difficult to say whether the Italian, German, or French schools, deserve the preference. At the beginning of this century, the mode of dividing music into bars appears to have been first used.

ORIGIN OF THE DOMINANT IN MUSIC.

The 16th century is remarkable for many improvements in the theory and practice of music, which have led to the present high state of the art. In 1590, a schoolmaster of Lombardy (Charles Monteverde) invented the harmony of the dominant; he was also the first who ventured to use the seventh and the ninth of the dominant, openly and without preparation; he likewise em

ployed the minor fifth as a consonance, which had always before been used as a dissonance. The same professor introduced the double dissonances, and diminished and altered chords. About the same time L'Viadana de Lodi conceived the idea of giving to the instrumental bass a different melody from that of the vocal, to which it had previously strictly adhered. He also invented the figured or thorough bass.

CONCERTS.

The first regular series of Concerts in England was instituted in the year 1710, under the title of "The Academy of Ancient Music," and continued to exist upwards of eighty years. In 1776, the Concert of Ancient Music was established in London, chiefly at the suggestion of the Earl of Sandwich.-An institution intended to preserve the solid and valuable productions of the old masters from oblivion, and of which Mr. Joah Bates was for many years the sole conductor.

In the year 1813, the "Philharmonic Society" was established in London, with a view chiefly to the cultivation of instrumental music. In 1834, a Concert was founded under the name of "The Society of British Musicians;" and another in 1833, called a "Vocal Society," consisting of thirty professional members, who gave six Concerts at the Hanover Square Rooms, consisting almost entirely of vocal music, ancient and modern, of every school.

TRUMPETS.

The invention of the Trumpet has been ascribed to the Tyrrhenians; but others, with greater probability, to the Egyptians, from whom it might have been transmitted to the Israelites. It is usually made of brass, sometimes of silver, iron, tin, and even wood. Moses made two of silver, to be used by the priests (Numb. x.); and Solomon made two hundred like those of Moses (Josephus, lib. viii.), which shows the antiquity of this instrument. Among the Romans, there were various instruments of the Trumpet kind, as the tuba, cornua, buccina, and lituus. The tuba, or long trumpet, called by the Hebrews "The Trumpet of the Jubilee," may be seen in several pieces of ancient sculpture at Rome, particularly on the arch of Titus, or Trajan's pillar, and in a basso-relievo at the Capitol, representing the triumph of Marcus Aurelius. In England, they were sounded before Offa, king of Mercia, A.D. 790.

ORGANS.

The origin of the Organ is obscure. We read of ancient hydraulic and pneumatic Organs, but the water must have been the moving power only, to impel the wind into the pipes. Of