And do all such clergy come from Theological Colleges? If some do, we ought in fairness to ask what sort of people they were when they passed out of the hands of the University, before we lay their want of humanity to the charge of the Theological Colleges. I never heard of one instance of a man being made to care less for any of his fellow men, and to sympathise less with them, by residing among us. Men of widely differing temperaments have told me that one of the great blessings they received through Cuddesdon was the power to understand and appreciate those who differ from them.

"All our students are of one mould."

There must be some simi

One often hears the word

larity as the result of a common training. "Oxfordy" used by Londoners to describe the tone and speech of a young Oxford Fellow; to a certain extent they resemble one another, but the resemblance is not that of new shillings from the Mint. In the same way our students vary infinitely, in spite of their general resemblance. Are all army men and lawyers "all of one mould" in a reprehensible sense? In one sense they are of one mould, as much as, if not more than, our students.

It is further laid against us that the students influence one another. This means, in the mouth of the objector, that, whatever the officers of the college may do, a narrow-minded student can counteract their influence and make other students like himself. Of course this is possible. The influences that I have known at Cuddesdon have been so greatly for good that any very exceptional influence of another kind could not be noticed in the balance against them. It must needs be that offences come, sometimes; but it is not at all impossible to discover the source of baneful example and to counteract it.

Lastly, we hear that our course is too short. To this I heartily agree. Our life at Cuddesdon is crammed full; it is as bad as a busy life at Oxford, perhaps even worse. We sadly want a longer time for what we already attempt. It is all we can do to run rapidly through the Bible, the Creeds and Articles, Church history, the Prayer-book, and the principles of parochial work, to teach voice production, create an intelligent interest in the right methods of charitable relief, and in home, foreign, and colonial mission work. And one year is all too short to form lasting habits of self-discipline and spiritual life. Another year would be a great gain for all this, and it would allow us also to teach Christian ethics in a more systematic way and to touch several other subjects which are now neglected.

But, in my opinion, it would not be for the good of the Church that the professional training through which candidates for Holy Orders voluntarily pass should at this moment be lengthened. What is needed is that this amount of training, at least, should be made. compulsory on all candidates. There can be no doubt in the minds of those who are intimately acquainted with the best men from our

Universities, that, as a rule, no graduate ought to be ordained who has not had a year's special theological and spiritual training at a Theological College, or elsewhere under some other supervision which has episcopal sanction. If at this moment the course at the colleges is lengthened to two years, it will in all probability greatly delay the day when the bishops will find themselves able to enforce this most salutary requirement.

us.

I have only alluded hastily to some of the chief allegations against I sincerely trust that in this brief defence of a work which it is a very high privilege to be allowed to touch, no word has been used which can wound the feelings of our critics.

J. O. JOHNSTON.

GLINKA THE FATHER OF RUSSIAN

OPERA.

I.

"Glinka is the Berlioz of the Russians, the man who attempted something new with definite meaning; but to his countrymen he is still more -namely, the creator of a national musical tendency striving towards independence."-HUGO RIEMANN.

RUSS

USSIAN music is the strangest paradox-it owes more to the music of other countries than any other school, yet no music is more thoroughly individual and unmistakable. It clothes itself after the form and fashion of its neighbours, but beneath its garb peeps out a physiognomy indubitably Slavonic. Its utterances impress us as the most modern-yet the student who would correctly analyse many of its unique characteristics of harmony and modulation is often obliged to take a flying leap backwards over a space of centuries in order to investigate old Church modes or Persian and Arabian scale systems, both so ancient as to be well-nigh forgotten in Western Europe.

Sixty years ago there was no Russian school of music, properly speaking; then suddenly it sprang into being. The wonderful rapidity of its growth almost confuses one. Its exponents at once displayed the astonishing receptiveness common to their race. D'un trait, as the French would say, they appropriated the knowledge and experience which the Italian and German schools had been slowly amassing for centuries. Technique, form, counterpoint-all these they found ready made to their hand, and borrowed them unstintingly. Had they done this and no more, the onlooker might have dismissed them as clever plagiarists, and probably no one would have paid them any further attention. But they had other means at their disposal. Their country contained a treasure-house of native melody and rhythm; a region albeit which few Russians had hitherto thought it worth their while to explore. It is true that, since the middle of the

seventeenth century, tentative excursions had been made in this direction from time to time, chiefly, though, by outsiders settled in Russia, nor had any of their efforts led to very appreciable results. The man who first turned with serious intent to the pent-up musical resources of his own country was Michael Ivanovitch Glinka. He had sufficient strength of purpose to carry out his designs-he became the founder of the modern Russian school of music and the father of Russian opera.

Glinka belonged to a good if not very wealthy family, who lived upon their estate in the government of Smolensk, where he was born in 1804. From babyhood upwards he delighted his friends and relations by his aptitude not for music alone, but also for languages, literature, zoology, botany-in fact, for each and every intellectual pursuit which came in his way. The brilliance of his college course at St. Petersburg was noteworthy. He quitted it to occupy a civil post under Government, a position, however, which he soon abandoned, in order to devote himself solely to music. Like so many other men of genius, he married a woman quite incapable of comprehending his artistic aims and ambitions: to quote the words of a Russian writer, Madame Glinka, née Maria Petrovna, "was only a pretty doll, who loved society and fine clothes, and had no sympathy whatever with her husband's romantic, poetic side." One is glad to state that Glinka never had to struggle with poverty. He died at Berlin in 1857.

Such is the bald outline of his biography. His life-story hardly reflects much significance upon the place which he occupies in the history of nineteenth-century music, and even when we look closer into its details, there seems little connection between Glinka the man and Glinka the musician, for, if Russian music is a paradox in general, then, to all outward seeming at least, is the story of Glinka's career a paradox in particular. His productions were intensely national, his training entirely foreign. Throughout the whole course of his musical studies he never appears to have had a single lesson from a compatriot. Rubinstein would doubtless have told us that in Glinka's day there were no compatriots capable of teaching him. Be this as it may, he obtained his theoretical learning from Germans and Italians; the latter also taught him singing; an Irishman, John Field, instructed him on the piano; and when, at the age of thirty, he resolved to write Russian music, he was urged to his decision by a German, his latest master in counterpoint, the distinguished theorist, Dehn.

Even his physical existence was at direct variance with his mental calibre. He early developed symptoms of chronic ill health, which obliged him to spend many of his most impressionable years in southern lands, where he suffered agonies of nostalgia. We turn to his music, and we find it full of energy and vitality, stamped, as it

were, with the seal of vigour and strength. His temperament was highly wrought and delicately organised; he was extremely nervous, and shunned all social intercourse, notably towards the close of his life; yet he owes his fame to opera-writing, a form of music which, above all others, demands a fund of human sympathy in its composer, as well as a clear insight into the workings of the human heart, such as one hardly associates with the musings of a shy recluse.

Yet every effect must have its hidden cause. In spite of all apparent contradictions and anomalies, Glinka's life-work and tendencies were the natural result of events; his course was directed by the tide of circumstances, as a brief study of Russian history will show. He did for Russian music what his contemporary, Pouschkin, did for Russian literature, each in his own department representing a national movement. Perhaps it is not too far-fetched a theory to trace this movement to the momentous date of 1812, when it fell to the lot of Russia to administer the first check in Napoleon's triumphant career. Ever since the reign of Peter the Great it had been the fashion to ape foreign habits, to speak foreign tongues, to import foreign music, to mimic foreign literature. But when a foreign invader, who had marched all-conquering through the rest of Europe, appeared in serious earnest at the very gates of Moscow, there was a rebound slumbering patriotism awoke with a great shout, and, united by a common danger, all classes gathered together for the protection of their Tsar and their Kremlin. To have repulsed a Napoleon was a mighty deed, which could reveal to the Russians of what stuff they were made. It taught them to rely upon each other and be strong in themselves; and as the art of a nation is invariably the outcome of its history, so the rising generation of Russian thinkers looked inwards rather than abroad. Glinka, Pouschkin, and their followers sought no foreign aid; they represent a Russian Renaissance. They were content, indeed, to abide by the forms universally adopted elsewhere, but the spirit of their art manifestation was Russian to its core. In literature, Pouschkin and Gogol were never weary of delineating their compatriots in every grade of Slavonic society, whilst Glinka took his musical inspirations from his native folk-songs and dance-rhythms-from the historic chronicles of his country or its legendary lore. In reality, the foreign influences and environment with which he came so continuously into contact served more and more to convince him that Russia in her turn had as great a mission in music as any other nation. For thirty years the idea was gradually gaining strength in his mind. "I want," he said to a friend, "to write an essentially national opera, both as regards subject and music; something which no foreigner can possibly accuse of being borrowed, and which shall come home to my compatriots as a part of themselves."