Music And The Masonic Ritual.—No. I.

recommended to his study . Granting the importance of architecture , wc also put in a pica for a revival of musical knowledge among our brethren ; and we arc induced to do this from analogy , for it must be veil known , that in the religious revival before alludecKo , while architecture has been fostered and encouraged , music has no less been studiedand on this assumption we claim to go hand in hand with

, the architectural revival now happily commenced in our own body . By the permission of the conductors of the Freemasons' Magazine , wo purpose to present our readers with several papers on music , showing how it lias boon employed as an accessory in tho chief reli g ions and mysterious rites of the ancients , as well as the character

of such music as AVC think should be applied to our ritual—and we hope to do justice to the subject . Appropriate illustrations will from time to time be given in music type , so that every Lodge will be j ^ i'ovided with A selection of music applicable to each and every one of its ceremonies , in which all that portion of the various component parts of our ritual that can bo illustrated by sweet sounds will be found ready for our brethren ' s wants , and , we hope , prove

that" A thing of Jjo . iiity is n joy for over . " We arc not about to write an essay on theoretical or practical music—nor do we intend to say much of its antiquity , but shall strictly confine ourselves to the matter in hand—yet we must beg our reader ' s forbearance for a time , as iu the present paper we feel it necessary to give some idea of the science itself , to show that music

is fairly entitled to the rank and position whicli we claim for it , aud without further preface we proceed to speak of it ns an art . Music is both an art and a science . It is an art from its being acquired by certain laws whicli require skill and cunning to overcome . It ranks as a science , because it is a portion of the hi gher mathematics , ancl it is demonstrable that its principles are founded on certain general and universal laws , into which all that wc discover , in the material world , of harmony , symmetry , proportion , and order , can be resolved .

Music , as a source of intellectual pleasure , lias great superiority over the sister arts of painting and sculpture—inasmuch as they are merely imitative : for , however imaginative in subject or design a representation either by the pencil or the chisel may be , it must convey to the eye some form with which it is acquainted ; and if the delineation of that form lias no prototype in our knowledge of

nature , the artist is compelled to present it to ns under some shape with which wc arc acquainted . Should we discover any of its parts to be " out of drawing , " we instantly exclaim , " How unnatural !" showing that pictorial art is dependent for its cllccts on that close —imitation of natural objects whicli constitutes its chief beauty . In music there is little beyond it-self to which we need , or indeed can , refer to hei ghten its charms . If we investigate the princi ples of