In the north of England, musical taste is much more widely diffused than
in the south. The Committee of the Privy Council on Education, report
favourably also of the musical attainments of the people of Norfolk. Mr
Hogarth, in his excellent and able work, observes, that "in the densely
peopled manufacturing districts of Yorkshire, Lancashire, and
Derbyshire, music is cultivated among the working classes to an extent
unparalleled in any other part of the kingdom. Every town has its choral
society, supported by the amateurs of the place and its neighbourhood,
where the sacred works of Handel and the more modern masters are
performed, with precision and effect, by a vocal and instrumental
orchestra, consisting of mechanics and work people; and every village
church has its occasional oratorio, where a well-chosen and
well-performed selection of sacred music is listened to by a decent and
attentive audience, of the same class as the performers, mingled with
their employers and their families. Hence, the practice of this music is
an ordinary domestic and social recreation among the working classes of
these districts, and its influence is of the most salutary kind." We can
ourselves bear witness to the truth of many of these remarks. In some of
the more rural portions of the manufacturing districts of Lancashire, we
have often listened to the voices of little bands of happy children,
who, while returning home after the labours of the day were over, were
singing psalms and hymns to tunes learned at the national or Sunday
schools. A highly interesting example of the superior musical capacity
of the inhabitants of this county, came under our observation a few
years ago, at a large and populous village situated on the borders of
one of the extensive fields of industry of which we speak. On the
anniversary of the opening of the school, the children frequenting
it--in number nearly 300--had been long accustomed to march in
procession up to the mansion of the neighbouring squire, the founder and