Franklin Square Song Collection - online songbook

200 favorite songs and Hymns for Schools, Homes Lyrics & Sheet Music

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	FRANKLIN-SQUARE SONG COLLECTION.
	Musical Heredity.—Heredity shows itself more markedly, it would seem, in the arts than in the sciences. Taking music we find some remarkable instances. The Bach family, which took its rise about 1550 and became extinct in 1800, presents an un­broken series of musicians for nearly two centuries. The head of the family was a baker of Presburg, his two sons were the first who were musicians by profes­sion. Their descendants " overran Thuringia, Sax­ony, and Franconia," says Papillon. " They were all organists, church singers, or what is called in	Germany, 'city musicians.' When they became too numerous to live all together, and the members of this family were scattered abroad, they resolved to meet once a year, on a stated day, with a view to maintaining a sort of patriarchal bond of union. This custom was kept up until nearly the middle of the eighteenth century, and oftentimes more than a 100 persons bearing the name of Bach—men, women, and children—were to be seen assembled. In the family are reckoned twenty-nine eminent musicians, and twenty-eight of a lower grade." Rossini's family
	SPEAK GENTLY.	D. Bates. W. V. Wallace.
	often played music at fairs; Beethoven's father and grandfather were musicians; Mozart's father was Capellmeister to the Bishop of Saltzburg.—Cornhill. It is night now, and here is home. Gathered under the quiet roof, elders and children lie, alike at rest. In the midst of a great calm the stars look out from the heavens. The silence is peopled with the past—sorrowful remorse for sins and short-com­ings, memories of passionate joys and griefs rise out of their graves, both now alike calm and sad.	Eyes, as I shut mine, look at me that have long since ceased to shine. The town and the fair landscape sleep under the starlight, wreathed under the Autumn mist. Twinkling among the houses, a light keeps watch here and there, in what may be a sick cham­ber or two. The clock tolls sweetly in the silent air. Here is night and rest. An awful sense of thanks makes the heart swell and the head bow, as I pass to my room through the sleeping house, and feel as though a hushed blessing were upon it.— Thackeray.