in England. For a piece of four or five pages, the sum of 2s. is
commonly demanded. Even where there has been an outlay in the purchase
of the copyright, this sum can scarcely be considered reasonable; but
when the same price is asked for music which has become common property,
it is out of all reason. The expense of engraving four or five pages of
music, the cost of the plates, together with the expense of paper and
printing a hundred copies of a song of this description, does not amount
to £5; therefore the sale of fifty copies will reimburse the publisher;
while, if the whole hundred are disposed of, he is an actual gainer of
cent per cent upon his original outlay, while the profit upon every copy
subsequently struck off is necessarily enormous. On the Continent, music
may be purchased for about one-third the sum which it would cost in
England. In Paris, Pacini's "partitions," an excellent edition of the
popular Italian operas, are sold for twelve francs each. The whole set
may be purchased at the rate of eleven francs the opera. While in
London, the identical copies purchasable abroad by those not in the
trade for about 8s. 6d. of our money, are sold at two guineas each. The
profits of "the trade" on musical instruments, are also enormous. On the
pianofortes of most of the London makers, a profit of _at least_ thirty
or thirty-five per cent is realized by the retailer; and on a grand
piano, for which the customer pays 130 guineas, "the trade" pockets on
the very lowest calculation upwards of £40.

English performers next claim our notice and attention. In this new
field of observation we find little to commend; defective training is
the great cause of our inferiority in the practical performance of
music, in all its branches. This is especially manifest in the
home-taught singers of the English school. The voice is never perfectly
formed nor developed, and brought out in the correct and scientific
manner possessed by the accomplished artists of other countries. Some of