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AMUSEMENTS OF THE PEOPLE. 9
the ratepayera. But I hold that 8 public park should be oonsidered
incomplete without its winter garden and music pavilion,
and naturally the music pavilion is incomplete without the
music. It is well to have places where people may take the
air; but it is better &ill to attract them every summer evening
into the healthy, airy park by the strains of music.
There are many modes by which recreation and culture
may be brought within the reach of the multitude; but it is
my present purpose to point out that the most practicnble and
immediately efficacious mode is the cultivation of pure music.
I have no wish to disparage Theatres, Art Galleries, Museums,
Public Libraries, Science Lectures, and various other social
instituticns, the value and true uses of which I may perhaps
attempt to estimate on some other occasions; but I am certain
that music is the best means of popular recreation. It fulfils
all the requirements. In the first place, it involves no bodily
fatigue, since it can best be enjoyed sitting down. To inspect
a picture gallery or a museum is always a tiring work, neither
exercise nor repose; the standing or stooping posture, the
twisting of the neck, and the straining of the eyes, tend to
produce, after a few hours, a state approaching nervous and
muscular exhaustion, This is not the way to recreate the
wearied mechanic, or the overworked clerk or man of business.
It may be a very improving occupation of time for those who
are holiday-making, and can start in the morning with a good
store of superfluous energy.
With musical entertainments it is altogether different. A
comfortable seat, a supply of fresh air, and a quiet audience,
are requisite physical conditions for the enjoyment of music,
but these being secured, a good musical performance, at least
for thoso who have any appreciation of harmony and melody,
is perfect repose. There is no straining of the nerves or
muscles, no effort of any kind, but mere passive abandonment
of the mind to the train of ideas and emotions suggested by
the strains. And there is this peculiar advantage aboat melody,
tbt, pw ae, it is absolutely pure and remote from tripial ideas.
Tho song and the dance may have their associations, good or
evil ; bat the pm melody in itself is pure isdeed ; it ie gay, or