vivid picture than can elsewhere be found of the characteristic noises of the streets of London more than two centuries ago. It is easy to form to ourselves a general idea of the hum and buzz of the bees and drones of this mighty hive, under a state of manners essentially different from our own; but it is not so easy to attain a lively conception of the particular sounds that once went to make up this great discord, and so to compare them in their resemblances and their differences with the roar which the great Babel now "sends through all her gates.

The principal character of Jonson's Silent Woman' is founded upon a sketch by a Greek writer of the fourth century, Libanius. Jonson designates this character by the name of 'Morose;" and his peculiarity is that he can bear no kind of noise, even that of ordinary talk. The plot turns upon this affectation; for, having been entrapped into a marriage with the Silent Woman, she and her friends assail him with tongues the most obstreperous, and clamours the most uproarious, until, to be relieved of this nuisance, he comes to terms with his nephew for a portion of his fortune, and is relieved of the silent woman, who is in reality a boy in disguise. We extract the dialogue which will form a text to our paper; the speakers being Truewit, Clerimont, and a Page :

"True. I met that stiff piece of formality, his uncle, yesterday, with a huge turban of night-caps on his head, buckled over his ears.

"Cler. O that's his custom when he walks abroad. He can endure no noise, man.

"True. So I have heard. But is the disease so ridiculous in him as it is made? They say he has been upon divers treaties with the fish-wives and orange-women; and articles propounded between them: marry, the chimney-sweepers will not be drawn in.

"Cler. No, nor the broom-men: they stand out stiffly. He cannot endure a costard-monger; he swoons if he hears one.

"True. Methinks a smith should be ominous.

"Cler. Or any hammer-man. A brasier is not suffered to dwell in the parish, nor an armourer. He would have hang'd a pewterer's 'prentice once upon a Shrove-Tuesday's riot, for being of that trade, when the rest were quit.

"True. A trumpet should fright him terribly, or the hautboys.

"Cler. Out of his senses. The waits of the city have a pension of him not to come near that ward. This youth practised on him one night like the bellman, and never left till he had brought him down to the door with a long sword; and there left him flourishing with the air.

'Page. Why, sir, he hath chosen a street to lie in, so narrow at both ends that it will receive no coaches, nor carts, nor any of these common noises: and therefore we that love him devise to bring him in such as we may, now and then, for his exercise, to breathe him. He would grow resty else in his

cage; his virtue would rust without action. I entreated a bearward, one day, to come down with the dogs of some four parishes that way, and I thank him he did; and cried his games under Master Morose's window; till he was sent crying away, with his head made a most bleeding spectacle to the multitude. And, another time, a fencer marching to his prize had his drum most tragically run through, for taking that street in his way at my request.

"True. A good wag! How does he for the bells?

"Cler. O in the queen's time he was wont to go out of town every Saturday at ten o'clock, or on holyday eves. But now, by reason of the sickness, the perpetuity of ringing has made him devise a room with double walls and treble ceilings; the windows close shut and caulk'd; and there he lives by candlelight."

Was Hogarth familiar with the old noise-hater when he conceived his own 'Enraged Musician?' In this extraordinary gathering together of the producers of the most discordant sounds we have a representation which may fairly match the dramatist's description of street noises. Here we have the milk-maid's scream, the mackrel-seller's shout, the sweep upon the house-top,—to match the fishwives and orange-women, the broom-men and costard-mongers. The smith, who was "ominous," had no longer his forge in the busy streets of Hogarth's time; the armourer was obsolete: but

Hogarth can rival their noises with the paviour's hammer, the sowgelder's horn, and the knifegrinder's wheel. The waits of the city had a pension not to come near Morose's ward; but it was out of the power of the 'Enraged Musician' to avert the terrible discord of the blind hautboy-player. The bellman, who frightened the sleepers at midnight, was extinct; but modern London had acquired the dustman's bell. The bear-ward no longer came down the street with the dogs of four parishes, nor did the fencer march with a drum to his prize; but there was the ballad-singer, with her squalling child, roaring worse than bear or dog; and the drum of the little boy playing at soldiers was a more abiding nuisance than the fencer. Morose and the Enraged Musician' had each the church-bells to fill up the measure of discord.

But London has lost most of its individual noises. In our own days there has been legislation for the benefit of tender ears; and there are now penalties, with police-constables to enforce them, against all persons blowing any horn or using any other noisy instrument, for the purpose of calling persons together, or of announcing any show or entertainment, or for the purpose of hawking, selling, distributing, or collecting any article, or of obtaining money or alms. These enactments are stringent enough to have banished from our streets all those uncommon noises which did something to relieve the monotony of the one endless roar of the tread of feet and the rush of wheels. The street noise

now is deafening when we are in the midst of it; but in some secluded place, such as Lincoln's Inn Gardens, it is the ever-present sullen sound of angry waves dashing upon the shingles. The horn that proclaimed extraordinary news, running to and fro among peaceful squares and secluded courts, was sometimes a relief. The bell of the dustman was not altogether unpleasant. In the twilight hour, when the shutters were not yet closed, and the candles were not yet burning, the tinkle of the muffin-man had something in it very soothing. It is gone. But the legislators have still left us our street music. There was talk of its abolition; but they have satisfied themselves with enacting that musicians, on being warned to depart from the neighbourhood of the house of any householder by the occupier or his servant, or by a police-constable, incur a penalty of forty shillings by refusal. De la Serre, who came to England with Mary de Medici, when she visited the Queen of Charles I., is enthusiastic in his praises of the street music of London:

-“In all public places, violins, hautboys, and other kinds of instruments are so common, for the gratification of individuals, that in every hour of the day our ears may be charmed with their sweet melody." England was then a musical nation; but from that time nearly to our own her street-music became a thing to be legislated against.

In the days of Elizabeth, and of James and Charles, the people were surrounded with music, and imbued with musical associations. The cittern