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50 National Music of the World.
1 at ion and more curious anecdote. He points out that whereas, throughout all the circumstances of their dispersion, and persecution consequent on their isolation from the families of Christendom, the Hebrews have retained their individuality by living under the strictest subjection to antique rule and law; the Gipsies have vindicated their peculiar character by irreclaimable lawlessness; and, while wandering about as chartered or unchartered libertines among civilised folk, have clung obstinately to certain characteristic habits, which are merely expressions of lawless disobedience. Whereas the ancient people possesses a grand language and a Book which, apart from its origin, outbuys all the books of the world, the ancient swarm has only a jargon, and what may be without offence called a slang literature, of which little if any written record exists. And this separation of two noticeable families of the human race—a separation as wide as that of day from darkness, howbeit, in one respect the two families are similarly situated—is in no point more signally illustrated than in their dealings with the art here treated. Whereas the Hebrews have inherited or got together a body of religious music distinct in its form, and excellent in its glory; |
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