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120 National Music of the World.
out of remote places in England, who still think of the French as mainly a nation of dancing-masters.
In the dances of the French there will be found vivacities of measure as curious as the solemnity of Cantilena in their serious song.
The melodies of Auvergne, arranged by Onslow, our countryman, naturalised there, are doleful enough; but from Auvergne we get that dance, the Bourre : a brisk rustic measure which has prompted great composers, and established a tempo in music. Many of Handel's songs are written in Tempo de Bourre. I may instance the charming one in 'Joshua,' 1 Heroes when with glory burning,' and in ' Jephtha,' the delicious first song of Jephtha's daughter, ' The smiling dawn of happier days.' Bach, again, who had a hankering after every foreign style, though he was a man who lived and died among his own people—the most German of Germans—employed the measure bravely.
Other dances may be named as characteristic of France—the Braule, or ' Brawl'—which, it may be recollected, Marie Stuart is said to have led at the wedding of her servant Sebastian, on the night of Darnley's murder—a stately tune in three-four time, resembling the Passacaille and the Pavane—and the |
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