Notes.—St. Martin’s Summer; or, St. Martin’s Little Summer. From October 9th to November 11th. At the close of autumn we generally have a month of magnificent summer weather. “Expect St. Martin’s summer, halcyon days” (Shakespeare, I Hen. VI., Act i., sc. 2), and, “Farewell thou latter spring! farewell All-hallown summer!” It is also called “St. Luke’s Summer,” and Martinmas, and Martilmasse, because the feast of St. Martin is kept on November 11th. St. Luke’s Day is October 18th. Verse 12, Penelope was the wife of Ulysses. During the long absence of her husband she was several times importuned by suitors to marry them. She told them that she could not marry again, even if she were assured that Ulysses were dead, until she had finished weaving a shroud for her aged father-in-law. Every night she pulled out what she had woven during the day, and so her work made no progress. Ulysses: is a corrupt form of Odusseus, the king of Ithaca. He is one of the principal heroes in the Iliad of Homer, and the chief hero of the Odyssey.
St. Peter’s at Rome. (Christmas Eve.) The great colonnade on either side of St. Peter’s Square is of semicircular form, and is beautifully described by the poet as
“Arms wide open to embrace
The entry of the human race.”
Saul. This is perhaps the grandest and most beautiful of all Mr. Browning’s religious poems. It is a Messianic oratorio in words. The influence of music in the cure of diseases has long been a subject of study by physicians. Disraeli, in his Curiosities of Literature, has an article on “Medical Music.” In Dr. Burney’s History of Music there is a chapter on “The Medicinal Powers attributed to Music by the Ancients.” Dr. Burney thought this influence was partly due to its occasioning certain vibrations of the nerves, as well as its well-known effect in diverting the attention. Depression of mind, delirium and insanity, were anciently attributed to evil spirits, which were put to flight by suitable harmonies. It was for this reason that David was sent for to cure the mental derangement of Saul. The influence of music on the lower animals is often exceedingly marked, and can scarcely in their case, as in our own, be due to the association of ideas. The peculiar and sweet melancholy inspired by distant church bells on a calm summer evening in the country, though difficult to account for, is not less real than is the inspiring and invigorating effect produced by march music on weary soldiers. Life is a harmonious process; where there is most health there is most harmony in the way in which the bodily functions are performed. A great physician has described health as “going easy.” It would be strange, therefore, if animal life were not attuned to sympathy with mechanical harmony. The most modern theory is that “Music is one of the stimuli which regulates the vaso-motor activity employed in tissue nutrition.” (See Lancet, May 9th, 1891, p. 1055.) In another article in the same journal, for May 23rd, the subject is still further treated. The writer says: “The value of music as a therapeutic method cannot yet be so precisely stated that we may measure it by dosage or by an invariably similar order of effects. Of its wholesome influence in various forms of disease, however, there can be little or no doubt. In making this assertion we do not, of course, assign to it any specific or peculiar action. It is no quack’s nostrum, no reputed conqueror of ache or ailment. It is only, as we have already shown in a recent article, one of those intangible but effective aids of medicine which exert their healthful properties through the nervous system. It is as a mental tonic that music acts. Accordingly, we may naturally expect it to exert its powers chiefly in those diseases, or aspects of disease, which are due to morbid nervous action. The evidence of its utility on occasions where fatigue or worry has disturbed the proper balance and relation between the mind and body of the so-called healthy will explain its action in disease. We can readily understand how a pleasing and lively melody can awake in a jaded brain the strong emotion of hope, and energising by its means the languid nerve-control of the whole circulation, strengthen the heart-beat and refresh the vascularity of every organ. We can picture the same brain in forced irritation fretfully stimulating the service of the vaso-motor nerves, and starving the tissues of their blood-supply. Here, again, it is easy to comprehend the regulating effect of quieter harmony, which brings at once a rest and a diversion to the fretting mind. Even aches are soothed for a time by a transference of attention; and why, then, should not pain be lulled by music?” That it sometimes is thus relieved, we cannot doubt. It is especially in the graver nervous maladies, however, that we should look for benefit from this remedy. Definite statistics on the subject may not be forthcoming, but all that we have said goes to show that states of insanity, which are largely influenced by the condition of the sympathetic system, should find some part of their treatment in the hands of the musician. It is, therefore, for such cases especially that we would enlist his services. In nervous diseases music produces a stimulating effect on the trophic nerves, these are so called because they are supposed to govern or control the normal metabolism of their tissues (or the phenomena whereby living organisms assimilate their food into their tissues). Depressing news will impede or even arrest digestion, as is well known; cheerful conversation and music assist the assimilation of our sustenance. The almost total ignorance of the ancients concerning physiological processes caused them to attribute to demons the maladies which they could not comprehend. Music was prescribed for Saul empirically: it mattered little to the patient, so long as he was cured, whether music expelled a demon who was tormenting him, or lubricated the wheels of his nervous mechanism. David took his harp to Saul’s tent, untwisted the lilies which were twined round the strings to keep them cool, and began by playing the tune all the sheep knew, appealing to his mere animal nature, and bringing him into harmony with the lower forms of healthy life; for there are points in our lives touched alike by men and sheep. Then he played the tune which the quails love, and that which delights the crickets, and the music which appeals to the quick jerboa; for there is a bond of sympathy between these creatures of our Father’s hand and ourselves which we do ill to overlook; it is well for us sometimes to allow ourselves to be influenced by those things which God has made to delight the beautiful dumb creatures whom St. Francis of Assisi delighted to call his brothers and sisters. It was another step towards Saul’s recovery when his soul achieved the harmony of a quail and a jerboa. Then he advanced his theme: he led the patient by his melody to the help tune of the reapers; brought before his saddened soul the good friendship of the toilers at their merry-making; expanded his heart in the warmth of brotherliness, the sympathy of man with man. But higher yet! The march of the honoured dead is played,—the praise of the men who have forgotten the faults in the work the man completed. And after that the joyful marriage chant, the abounding life and cheerfulness of the maidens; the march, too, of the comradeship of man in his greater task, the compulsion of the mechanical forces to aid the progress of the race. More exalted strains follow when, in the spirit of the worship of the one God of Israel, the Levites ascend the altar steps to appease Jehovah in sacrifice. By slow degrees the music had done the first part of its work: the sluggish forces of his life began to tremble, the quiverings of returning vital force began to thrill his torpid nerves. The song went forward: the wild joys of living were celebrated, the value of man’s life, the good providence of God, the friendship, the kingship, the gifts combined to dower one head with the wealth of the world,—the stimulus of high ambition, the surpassing deeds, the crowning fame all concentrated in Saul, king of Israel. And the leap of David’s heart voicing itself in the cry “Saul!” went to his wintry soul as “spring’s arrowy summons to the vale, making it laugh in freedom and flowers.” Saul was “released and aware,” the despair was gone; pale and worn, he stood by the tent pole, once more himself; he was recalled to life, but not yet fitted to enjoy it. David pushes his advantage: the future, with its glorious prospect, the reward which God shall give to the successors of the king; and as David sings of the ages to come, which will ring with his praises and the fame of his mighty deeds, the life stream courses through his veins, he begins to live once more, he puts out his hand, touches tenderly the brow of the harpist, and as he looks on David the beautiful soul of the youthful singer goes out to the king in love, the magnetism of his sympathy touches him, and he longs to impart to him more than the past and present; he would give him new life altogether ages hence as at the moment. If he would do this, how much more would God do!
“Have I knowledge? confounded it shrivels at Wisdom laid bare.
Have I forethought? how purblind, how blank, to the Infinite Care!”
If he would fain do so much for this suffering man, would save, redeem and restore him, interpose to snatch Saul the mistake, the failure, from ruin, and bid him win by the pain-throb, the intensified bliss of the next world’s reward and repose, if he would starve his own soul to fill up Saul’s life, surely God would exceed all that David could desire to do, as the Creator in everything surpasses the creature, and as the Infinite transcends the finite. Then, in a magnificent prophetic burst, the singer tells Saul:
“O Saul, it shall be
A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me,
Thou shalt love and be loved by, for ever; a Hand like this hand
Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!”
The singer leaves the tent, goes to his home through the night, but not alone: clouds of witnesses hover around him, angels have come to listen to his prophecy, and the air is full of yearning spirits; the earth has awakened; hell has heard the echoes of his song,—her crews are loosed with alarm at the danger which impends; the stars in their courses beat with emotion; all creation palpitates with excitement; but the Hand which impelled him “quenched it with quiet,” and earth in rapture sank to rest. But the world was the better for the blessed news, “felt the new law”; the flowers rejoiced, the heart of the cedars and the sap of the vines responded to the thrill of joy the brooks murmured, “E’en so, it is so!” (What are known as the Messianic Psalms, or those in which David sings of the Christ, who was to come, are the following: Psalm ii., xxi., xxii., xlv., lxxii., and cx.)—In Longus’s romance of Daphnis and Chloe there occur two passages which may have furnished Browning with the suggestion of this series of tunes. The first is found on pp. 303-4 (I quote from Smith’s translation, in the Bohn edition): “He ran through all variations of pastoral melody; he played the tune which the oxen obey, and which attracts the goats,—that in which the sheep delight. The notes for the sheep were sweet, those for the oxen deep, those for the goats were shrill. In short, his single pipe could express the tones of every pipe which is played upon. Those present lay listening in silent delight; when Dryas rose up, and desired Philetas to strike up the Bacchanalian tune, Philetas obeyed; and Dryas began the vintage-dance in which he represented the plucking of the grapes, the carrying of the baskets, the treading of the clusters, and the drinking of the new-made wine.... Upon losing sight of her, Daphnis, seizing the large pipe of Philetas, breathed into it a mournful strain as of one who loves; then a lovesick strain as of one who pleads; lastly, a recalling strain, as of one who seeks her whom he has lost.” The other is from pp. 332-4: “Daphnis disposed the company in a semicircle; then standing under the shade of a beech-tree, he took his pipe from his scrip, and breathed into it very gently. The goats stood still, merely lifting up their heads. Next he played the pasture tune, upon which they all put down their heads and began to graze. Now he produced some notes soft and sweet in tone: at once his herd lay down. After this he piped in a sharp key, and they ran off to the wood, as if a wolf were in sight.” Again, may not the impulse to write this poetry have been derived from Heber’s Spirit of Hebrew Poetry? On p. 197, vol. ii., of the translation, there is a kind of challenge to poets in general: “Take David in the presence of Saul. More than one poet has availed himself of the beauty of this situation; but no one to my knowledge has yet stolen the harp of David, and produced a poem, such even as Dryden’s ode in the composition of Handel, where Timotheus plays before Alexander. If Browning did accept the challenge, it was only to refute the observation by his success.”—Pall Mall Gazette.
Notes.—The Bible story of David playing before Saul is found in 1 Samuel xvi. 14-23. Stanza i., Abner: the son of Ner, captain of Saul’s host (1 Samuel xxvi. 5). Stanza vi., jerboa: a small jumping rodent animal, called also the jumping hare. Stanza viii., Male-Sapphires: the asterias or star-stone, a semi-transparent sapphire. Stanza xiv., Hebron: the most southern of the three cities of refuge west of Jordan; Kidron: a brook in Jerusalem.