ly cultivated as an amusement, should commend it.
But the monstrous proportion, or rather disproportion of life which it
swallows up, even in many religious families--and this is the chief
subject of my regret--has converted an innocent diversion into a
positive sin. I question if many gay men devote more hours in a day to
idle purposes, than the daughters of many pious parents spend in this
amusement. All these hours the mind lies fallow, improvement is at a
stand, if even it does not retrograde. Nor is it the shreds and scraps
of time, stolen in the intervals of better things, that are so devoted;
but it is the morning, the prime, the profitable, the active hours, when
the mind is vigorous, the spirits light, the intellect awake and fresh,
and the whole being wound up by the refreshment of sleep, and animated
by the return of light and life, for nobler services."

"If," said Sir John, "music were cultivated to embellish retirement, to
be practiced where pleasures are scarce, and good performers are not to
be had, it would quite alter the case. But the truth is, these highly
taught ladies are not only living in public where they constantly hear
the most exquisite professors, but they have them also at their own
houses. Now one of these two things must happen. Either the performance
of the lady will be so inferior as not to be worth hearing on the
comparison, or so good that she will fancy herself the rival, instead of
the admirer of the performer, whom she had better pay and praise than
fruitlessly emulate."

"This anxious struggle to reach the unattainable excellence of the
professor," said Mr. Stanley, "often brings to my mind the contest for
victory between the ambitious nightingale and the angry lutanist in the
beautiful Prolusion of Strada."

"It is to the predominance of this talent," replied I, "that I ascribe
that want of companionableness of which I complain. The excellence of
musical performance is a decorated screen, behind which all defects in
domestic knowledge, in taste, judgment, and literature, and the talents
which make an elegant companion, are creditably concealed."

"I have made," said Sir John, "another remark. Young ladies, who from
apparent shyness do not join in the conversation of a small select
party, are always ready enough to entertain them with music on the
slightest hint. Surely it is equally modest to _say_ as to _sing_,
especially to sing those melting strains we sometimes hear sung,