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 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 273.: FLOWER'S SONGS OF THE MONTHS [2] EXAMINER, 4 JAN., 1835, P. 4 - The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIV - Newspaper Writings January 1835 - June 1847 Part III

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Subject Area: Political Theory
Collection: The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill

273.: FLOWER’S SONGS OF THE MONTHS [2] EXAMINER, 4 JAN., 1835, P. 4 - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIV - Newspaper Writings January 1835 - June 1847 Part III [1835]

Edition used:

The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIV - Newspaper Writings January 1835 - June 1847 Part III, ed. Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson, Introduction by Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986).

Part of: Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, in 33 vols.

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273.

FLOWER’S SONGS OF THE MONTHS [2]

EXAMINER, 4 JAN., 1835, P. 4

Having in No. 248 (20 Apr., 1834) noticed the publication of the first four of Eliza Flower’s Songs of the Months, Mill here seizes the opportunity to eulogize the separate publication of the completed series. He almost certainly refers to this review in asking Fonblanque on 25 Dec., 1834: “Could you insert the enclosed in your next paper?” (EL, CW, Vol. XII, p. 246.) It appeared in the “Music” section of the Examiner, headed: “Songs of the Months. A Musical Garland. [London:] J.A. Novello, and Charles Fox. [1834.]” The songs for May to December are: “A May Day Memory” (May; words by Alexander Hume); “A Summer Song for the Open Air” (June; words by Catherine Partridge); “The Wanderer’s Lullaby” (July; words by Sarah Flower Adams); “The Harvest of Time” (August; words by Harriet Martineau); “An Autumn Song” (September; words by Mary Howitt); “Falling Leaves” (October; words by Sarah Adams); “ ‘Come to My Home’ ” (November; words by Sarah Adams); and “Winter Minstrelsy” (December; words by Charles Pemberton). It is described in Mill’s bibliography as “A notice of Miss Flower’s ‘Songs of the Months’ in the Examiner of 4 January 1835” (MacMinn, p. 43). There is no bound volume of the Examiner in Mill’s library after that for 1834.

this is a republication of the beautiful songs which have appeared in the successive numbers of the Monthly Repository for the year now closed; and the first four of which we noticed on a former occasion. As now reprinted, they form one of the most agreeable of Christmas presents to a lover of music.

The words of the songs (except those for July and August) are characteristic of the months to which they belong; and the music is in all cases characteristic of the words. The song for “March” (formerly noticed by us) and that for “August,” are among the most impressive and elevated compositions which have recently appeared, and only require to be generally known, in order to assume, at once, in the estimation of all judges of the art, the high rank which belongs to them. “July,” “October,” and “November,” each of consummate beauty in its kind, are easier of execution, and likely to be greater favourites with the more numerous class. “May” is a sweet and simple ballad. We have expressed our high admiration of “February” in a former paper. “September” is an elegant and graceful duet. “June” (also intituled “A Summer Song for the Open Air”) is a chorus for children’s voices.

We cannot with justice omit to observe that the songs are more truly songs, that is, better adapted for music than almost any which have appeared since those of Scott, the great master in this (and perhaps in no other) kind of poetical composition.1

We hope that the sale of this “musical garland” will afford an ample remuneration to the conductor2 of the excellent and perpetually improving periodical in which both the poetry and music originally appeared.

[1 ]In his Autobiography, writing of his boyhood, Mill says that he did not care for any of Dryden’s poems except Alexander’s Feast, “which, as well as many of the songs in Walter Scott, I used to sing internally, to a music of my own: to some of the latter indeed I went so far as to compose airs, which I still remember” (CW, Vol. I, pp. 19-21).

[2 ]W.J. Fox.