but some sixteen thousand or so. Let those who doubt women's genius take this to heart, and picture to themselves these charming Indian maidens, in the dawn of time, singing in scales that were their very own, love-songs like this:
"While the soft gale of Malaya wafts perfume from the beautiful clove-plant, and the recess of each flow'ry arbour sweetly resounds with the strains of the colila mingled with the murmurs of the honey-making swarms, Heri dances, O lovely friend, with a company of damsels in this vernal season; a season full of delights, but painful to separated lovers."
China, too, the country which is not to be outdone, possesses records which tell of a supernatural female who performed for them the same musical office as Saraswati for the Hindoos. If any sceptics are inclined to doubt these statements, there is certainly much probability in the suggestion that folk-songs, which have played so large a part in the development of music, were in many instances the invention of women, who sang them, perhaps, as cradle-songs, or in order to amuse the children.
Whatever the cause, women have certainly not fulfilled the promise of their early start in music, but Shakespeare's "words" have fallen on long dormant seeds of genius, and have set them "a-growing."
"Under the Greenwood Tree" was made into a glee by Maria Hester Park, a woman distinguished for her scientific and literary attainments, as well as for her musical talent. In 1790 she also wrote music to "Come away, come away, death." Mrs. A. S. Mounsey Bartholomew, with a truly venturesome spirit, wrote a four-part song to "Blow, blow, thou winter's wind," which the famous Dr. Arne might be supposed to have settled forever. She even carried her forces into the Africa of the sonnets, a region which few musicians have explored. However, she was well equipped, for she had been taught by the famous Logier,—a wonderful teacher, according to Spohr, who tells us, in his autobiography, of his visit to Logier's Academy, in London, where little girls of seven could write music in four parts, and answer the most difficult problems in counterpoint.
