in botany. See AGARICUS and LYCURGIUS.

To try the quality of mushrooms:—Take an onion, and stripe the outer skin, and boil it with your mushrooms: if the onion become blue or black, there are certainly dangerous ones amongst them; if it remain white, they are good. THE art of combining sounds in a manner agreeable to the ear. This combination may be either simultaneous or successive: in the first case, it constitutes harmony; in the last, melody. But though the same sounds, or intervals of sound, which give pleasure when heard in succession, will not always produce the same effect in harmony; yet the principles which constitute the simpler and more perfect kinds of harmony, are almost, if not entirely, the same with those of melody. By perfect harmony, we do not here mean that plenitude, those complex modifications of harmonic sound, which are admired in practice; but that harmony which is called perfect by theoricians and artists; that harmony which results from the coalescence of simultaneous sounds produced by vibrations in the proportions of thirds, fifths, and octaves, or their duplicates.

The principles upon which these various combinations of sound are founded, and by which they are regulated, constitute a science, which is not only extensive but profound, when we would investigate the principles from whence these happy modifications of sound result, and by which they are determined; or when we would explore the sensations, whether mental or corporeal, with which they affect us. The ancient definitions of music are not proportioned in their extent to our present ideas of that art; but M. Rousseau betrays a temerity highly inconsistent with the philosophical character, when from thence he infers, that their ideas were vague and undetermined. Every soul susceptible of refinement and delicacy in taste or sentiment, must be conscious that there is a music in action as well as in sound; and that the ideas of beauty and decorum, of harmony and symmetry, are, if we may use the expression, equally constituent of visible as of audible music. Those illustrious minds, whose comprehensive prospects in every science where taste and propriety prevail took in nature at a single glance, would behold with contempt and ridicule those narrow and microscopic views of which alone their successors in philosophy have discovered themselves capacious. With these definitions, however, we are less concerned, as they bear no proportion to the ideas which are now entertained of music. Nor can we follow M. Rousseau, from whatever venerable sources his authority may be derived, in adopting his Egyptian etymology for the word music. The established derivation from Musa could only be questioned by a paradoxical genius. That music had been practised in Egypt before it was known as an art in Greece, is indeed a fact which cannot be questioned; but it does not thence follow that the Greeks had borrowed the name as well as the art from Egypt. If the art of music be so natural to man that vocal melody is practised wherever articulate sounds are used, there can be little reason for deducing the idea of music from the whistling of winds through the reeds that grew on the river Nile. And indeed, when we reflect with how easy a transition we may pass from the accents of speaking to diatonic sounds; when we observe how early children adapt the language of their amusements to measure and melody, however rude; when we consider how early and universally these practices take place—there is no avoiding the conclusion, that the idea of music is connotative to man, and implied in the original principles of his constitution. We have already said, that the principles on which it is founded, and the rules by which it is conducted, constitute a science. The same maxims when applied to practice form an art: hence its first and most capital division is into speculative and practical music.

Speculative music is, if we may be permitted to use the expression, the knowledge of the nature and use of those materials which compose it; or, in other words, of all the different relations between the high and low, between the harsh and the sweet, between the swift and the slow, between the strong and the weak, of which sounds are susceptible: relations which, comprehending all the possible combinations of music and sounds, seem likewise to comprehend all the causes of the impressions which their succession can make upon the ear and upon the soul.

Practical music is the art of applying and reducing to practice those principles which result from the theory of agreeable sounds, whether simultaneous or successive; or, in other words, to conduct and arrange sounds according to the proportions resulting from consonance, from duration and succession, in such a manner as to produce upon the ear the effect which the composer intends. This is the art which we call composition*. *See Compo

With respect to the actual production of sounds by voice or instruments, which is called execution, this department is merely mechanical and operative: which, only presupposing the powers of founding the intervals true, of exactly proportioning their degrees of duration, of elevating or depressing sounds according to those gradations which are prescribed by the tone, and to the value required by the time, demands no other knowledge but a familiar acquaintance with the characters used in music, and a habit of expressing them with promptitude and facility.

Speculative music is likewise divided into two departments; viz. the knowledge of the proportions of sounds or their intervals, and that of their relative durations; that is to say, of measure and of time.

The first is what among the ancients seems to have been called harmonical music. It shows in what the nature of air or melody consists; and discovers what is consonant or discordant, agreeable or disagreeable, in the modulation. It discovers, in a word, the effects which sounds produce on the ear by their nature, by their force, and by their intervals; which is equally applicable to their consonance and their succession.

The second has been called rhythmical, because it treats of sounds with regard to their time and quantity. It contains the explication of their continuance, of their proportions, of their measures whether long or short. short, quick or slow, of the different modes of time and the parts into which they are divided, that to these the succession of sounds may be conformed.

Practical music is likewise divided into two departments, which correspond to the two preceding.

That which answers to harmonical music, and which the ancients called melopoeia, teaches the rules for combining and varying the intervals, whether consonant or dissonant, in an agreeable and harmonious manner.

The second, which answers to the rhythmical music, and which they called rhythmopoeia, contains the rules for applying the different modes of time, for understanding the feet by which verses were scanned, and the diversities of measure; in a word, for the practice of the rhythmus.

Music is at present divided more simply into melody and harmony; for since the introduction of harmony the proportion between the length and shortness of sounds, or even that between the distance of returning cadences, are of less consequence amongst us. For it often happens in modern languages, that the verses assume their measures from the musical air, and almost entirely lose the small share of proportion and quantity which in themselves they possess.

By melody the successions of sound are regulated in such a manner as to produce pleasing airs. See Melody.

Harmony consists in uniting to each of the sounds, in a regular succession, two or more different sounds, which simultaneously striking the ear soothe it by their concurrence. See Harmony.

Music, according to Rousseau, may be, and perhaps likewise ought to be, divided into the physical and the imitative. The first is limited to the mere mechanism of sounds, and reaches no farther than the external senses, without carrying its impressions to the heart, and can produce nothing but corporeal sensations more or less agreeable. Such is the music of songs, of hymns, of all the airs which only consist in combinations of melodious sounds, and in general all music which is merely harmonious.

It may, however, be questioned, whether every sound, even to the most simple, is not either by nature or by early and confirmed association, imitative. If we may trust our own feelings, there is no such thing in nature as music which gives mechanical pleasure alone. For if so, it must give such pleasure as we receive from tastes, from odours, or from other grateful stimulations; but we absolutely deny that there are any musical sensations or pleasures in the smallest degree analogous to these. Let any piece of music be resolved into its elementary parts and their proportions, it will then easily appear from this analysis, that sense is no more than the vehicle of such perceptions, and that mind alone can be susceptible of them. It may indeed happen, from the number of the performers and the complication of the harmony, that meaning and sentiment may be lost in the multiplicity of sounds; but this, though it may be harmony, loses the name of music.

The second department of this division, by lively and accentuated inflections, and by sounds which may be said to speak, expresses all the passions, paints every possible picture, reflects every object, subjects the whole of nature to its skilful imitations, and impresses even on the heart and soul of man sentiments proper to affect them in the most sensible manner. This, continues he, which is the genuine lyric and theatrical music, was what gave double charms and energy to ancient poetry; this is what, in our days, we exert ourselves in applying to the drama, and what our fingers execute on the stage. It is in this music alone, and not in harmonics or the resonance of nature, that we must expect to find accounts of those prodigious effects which it formerly produced.

But, with M. Rousseau's permission, all music which is not in some degree characterized by these pathetic and imitative powers, deserves no better name than that of a musical jargon, and can only be effectuated by such a complication and intricacy of harmony, as may confound, but cannot entertain the audience. This character, therefore, ought to be added as essential to the definition of music; and it must be attributed to our neglect of this alone, whilst our whole attention is bestowed on harmony and execution, that the best performances of our artists and composers are heard with little's indifference and obduracy, nor ever can conciliate any admirers, but such as are induced, by pedantry and affectation, to pretend what they do not feel. Still may the curse of indifference and inattention pursue and harrow up the souls of every composer or performer, who pretends to regale our ears with this musical legerdemain, till the grin of scorn, or the hiss of infamy, teach them to correct this depravity of taste, and entertain us with the voice of nature!

Whilst moral effects are sought in the natural effects of sound alone, the scrutiny will be vain, and disputes will be maintained without being understood: but sounds, as representatives of objects, whether by nature or association, introduce new scenes to the fancy and new feelings to the heart; not from their mechanical powers, but from the connection established by the Author of our frame between sounds and the objects which either by natural resemblance or unavoidable association they are made to represent.

It would seem that music was one of those arts which were first discovered; and that vocal was prior to instrumental music, if in the earliest ages there was any music which could be said to be purely instrumental. For it is more than probable, that music was originally formed to be the vehicle of poetry; and of consequence, though the voice might be supported and accompanied by instruments, yet music was never intended for instruments alone.

We are told by ancient authors, that all the laws, whether human or divine, exhortations to virtue, the knowledge of the characters and actions of gods and heroes, the lives and achievements of illustrious men, were written in verse, and sung publicly by a quire to the sound of instruments; and it appears from the Scriptures, that such from the earliest times was the custom among the Israelites. Nor was it possible to find means more efficacious for impressing on the mind of man the principles of morals, and inspiring the love of virtue. Perhaps, however, this was not the result of a premeditated plan; but inspired by sublime sentiments and elevation of thought, which in accents that were suited and proportioned to their celestial nature endeavoured to find a language worthy of themselves and expressive of their grandeur.

It merits attention, that the ancients were duly sen- sible of the value and importance of this divine art, not only as a symbol of that universal order and symmetry which prevails through the whole frame of material and intelligent nature, but as productive of the most momentous effects both in moral and political life. Plato and Aristotle, who disagreed almost in every other maxim of politics, are unanimous in their approbation of music, as an efficacious instrument in the formation of the public character and in conducting the state; and it was the general opinion, that whilst the gymnastic exercises rendered the constitution robust and hardy, music humanized the character, and softened those habits of roughness and ferocity by which men might otherwise have degenerated into fancies. The gradations by which voices were exerted and tuned, by which the invention of one instrument succeeded to another, or by which the principles of music were collected and methodized in such a manner as to give it the form of an art and the dignity of a science, are topics so fruitful of conjecture and so void of certainty, that we must leave them to employ minds more speculative and inventions more prolific than ours, or transfer them to the History of Music as a more proper place for such disquisitions. For the amusement of the curious, Rousseau in his Musical Dictionary, Plates C and N, has transcribed some fragments of Grecian, Persian, American, Chinese, and Swiss music, with which performers may entertain themselves at leisure. When they have tried the pieces, it is imagined they will be less languidly fond than that author of ascribing the power of music to its affinity with the national accents where it is composed. This may doubtless have its influence; but there are other causes more permanent and less arbitrary to which it owes its most powerful and universal charms.

The music now most generally celebrated and practiced is that of the Italians, or their successful imitators. The English, from the invasion of the Saxons, to that more late though lucid era in which they imbibed the art and copied the manner of the Italians, had a music which neither pleased the soul nor charmed the ear. The primitive music of the French deserves no higher panegyric. Of all the barbarous nations, the Scots and Irish seem to have possessed the most affecting original music. The first consists of a melody characterized by tenderness: it melts the soul to a pleasing penitive languor. The other is the native expression of grief and melancholy. Taffoni informs us, that in his time a prince from Scotland had imported into Italy a lamentable kind of music from his own country; and that he himself had composed pieces in the same spirit. From this expressive though laconic description, we learn, that the character of our national music was even then established; yet so gross is our ignorance and credulity, that we ascribe the best and most impassioned airs which are extant among us to David Rizzio; as if an Italian Lutanist, who had lived for a short time in Scotland, could at once, as it were by inspiration, have imbibed a spirit and composed in a manner so different from his own. It is yet more surprising that Geminiani should have entertained and published the same prejudice, upon the miserable authority of popular tradition alone; for the fact is authenticated by no better credentials. The primitive music of the Scots may be divided into the martial, the pastoral, and the festive. The first consists either in marches, which were played before the chieftains, in imitation of the battles which they fought, or in lamentations for the catastrophes of war and the extinction of families. These wild effusions of natural melody preserve several of the rules prescribed for composition. The strains, though rude and untutored, are frequently terrible or mournful in a very high degree. The port or march is sometimes in common, sometimes in treble time; regular in its measures, and exact in the distance between its returning cadences; most frequently, though not always, loud and brisk. The pi-broch, or imitation of battles, is wild, and abrupt in its transitions from interval to interval and from key to key; various and deftly in its movements; frequently irregular in the return of its cadences; and in short, through the whole, seems inspired with such fury and enthusiasm, that the hearer is irresistibly infected with all the rage of precipitate courage, notwithstanding the rudeness of the accents by which it is kindled. To this the pastoral forms a striking contrast. Its accents are plaintive, yet soothing; its harmony generally flat; its modulations natural and agreeable; its rhythm simple and regular; its returning cadences at equal distance; its transitions from one concordous interval to another, at least for the most part; its movements slow, and may be either in common or treble time. It scarcely admits of any other harmony than that of a simple bass. A greater number of parts would cover the air and destroy the melody. To this we shall add what has been said upon the same subject by Dr Franklin. Writing to Lord K———, he proceeds thus:

"Give me leave, on this occasion, to extend a little the sense of your position, 'That melody and harmony are separately agreeable, and in union delightful;' and to give it as my opinion, that the reason why the Scotch tunes have lived so long, and will probably live forever (if they escape being stifled in modern affected ornament), is merely this, that they are really compositions of melody and harmony united, or rather that their melody is harmony. I mean, the simple tunes sung by a single voice. As this will appear paradoxical, I must explain my meaning. In common acceptation, indeed, only an agreeable succession of sounds is called melody; and only the consciousness of agreeable sounds, harmony. But since the memory is capable of retaining for some moments a perfect idea of the pitch of a past sound, so as to compare it with the pitch of a succeeding sound, and judge truly of their agreement or disagreement, there may and does arise from thence a sense of harmony between the present and past sounds, equally pleasing with that between two present sounds. Now the construction of the old Scotch tunes is this, that almost every succeeding emphatical note is a third, a fifth, an octave, or in short some note that is in concord with the preceding note. Thirds are chiefly used, which are very pleasing concords. I use the word emphatical, to distinguish those notes which have a treble laid on them in singing the tune, from the lighter connecting notes that serve merely, like grammar-articles in common speech, to tack the whole together.

"That we have a most perfect idea of a sound just past, I might appeal to all acquainted with music, who know how easy it is to repeat a sound in the same pitch with one just heard. In tuning an instrument, a good ear can as easily determine that two strings are in unison by sounding them separately, as by sounding them together; their disagreement is also as easily, I believe I may say more easily and better distinguished when sounded separately; for when founded together, though you know by the beating that one is higher than the other, you cannot tell which it is. I have ascribed to memory the ability of comparing the pitch of a present tone with that of one past. But if there should be, as possibly there may be, something in the ear similar to what we find in the eye, that ability would not be entirely owing to memory. Possibly the vibrations given to the auditory nerves by a particular sound may actually continue for some time after the cause of these vibrations is past, and the agreement or disagreement of a subsequent sound become by comparison with them more discernible. For the impression made on the visual nerves by a luminous object will continue for 20 or 30 seconds."

After some experiments to prove the permanency of visible impressions, he continues thus:

"Farther, when we consider by whom these ancient tunes were composed, and how they were first performed, we shall see that such harmonical successions of sounds was natural and even necessary in their construction. They were composed by the minstrels of those days, to be played on the harp accompanied by the voice. The harp was strung with wire, which gives a sound of long continuance; and had no contrivance like that of the modern harpsichord, by which the sound of the preceding note can be stopt the moment a succeeding note begins. To avoid actual discord, it was therefore necessary that the succeeding emphatic note should be a cord with the preceding, as their sounds must exist at the same time. Hence arose that beauty in those tones that has so long pleased, and will please forever, though men scarce know why. That they were originally composed for the harp, and of the most simple kind, I mean a harp without any half-notes but those in the natural scale, and with no more than two octaves of strings, from C to C, I conjecture from another circumstance; which is, that not one of these tunes, really ancient, has a single artificial half-note in it; and that in tunes where it is most convenient for the voice to use the middle notes of the harp, and place the key in F, there the B, which if used should be a B flat, is always omitted, by passing over it with a third. The connoisseurs in modern music will say I have no taste: but I cannot help adding, that I believe our ancestors, in having a good song, distinctly articulated, sung to one of those tunes, and accompanied by the harp, felt more real pleasure than is communicated by the generality of modern operas, exclusive of that arising from the scenery and dancing. Most tunes of late composition, not having this natural harmony united with their melody, have recourse to the artificial harmony of a bass, and other accompanying parts. This support, in my opinion, the old tunes do not need, and are rather confused than aided by it. Whoever has heard James Oswald play them on his violincello, will be less inclined to dispute this with me. I have more than once seen tears of pleasure in the eyes of his auditors: and yet I think, even his playing those tunes would please more if he gave them less modern ornament."

As these observations are for the most part true and always ingenious, we need no other apology for quoting them at length. It is only proper to remark, that the transition in Scots music by consonant intervals, does not seem, as Dr Franklin imagines, to arise from the nature of the instruments upon which they played. It is more than probable, that the ancient British harp was not strung with wire, but with the same materials as the Welsh harps at present. These strings have not the same permanency of tone as metal; so that the sound of a preceding emphatic note must have expired before the subsequent accented note could be introduced. Besides, they who are acquainted with the manoeuvre of the Irish harp, know well that there is a method of discontinuing sounds no less easy and effectual than upon the harpsichord. When the performer finds it proper to interrupt a note, he has no more to do but return his finger gently upon the string immediately struck, which effectually stops its vibration.

That species of Scots music which we have distinguished by the name of fettive seems now limited to reels and country-dances. These may be either in common or treble time. They most frequently consist of two strains: each of these contains eight or twelve bars. They are truly rhythmical; but the mirth which they excite seems rather to be inspired by the vivacity of the movement, than either by the force or variety of the melody. They have a manoeuvre and expression peculiar to themselves, which it is impossible to describe, and which can only be exhibited by good performers.

Thus far we have pursued the general idea of music. We shall, after the history, give a more particular detail of the science from Monsieur D'Alembert.

**HISTORY OF MUSIC.**

Music is capable of a variety so infinite, so greatly does the most simple differ from the most complex, and so multiplied are the degrees between these two extremes, that in no age could the incidents respecting that fascinating art have been few or uninteresting. But, that accounts of these incidents should have been handed down to us, scanty and imperfect, is no matter of surprise, when we recollect that the history of music is the history only of sounds, of which writing is a very inadequate medium; and that men would long employ themselves in the pleasing exercise of cultivating music before they possessed either the ability or the inclination to record their exertions.

No accurate traces, therefore, of the actual state of music, in the earlier ages of the world, can be discerned. Our ideas on the subject have no foundation firmer than conjecture and analogy.

It is probable, that among all barbarous nations some degree of similarity is discernible in the style of their their music. Neither will much difference appear during the first dawning of civilization. But in the more advanced periods of society, when the powers of the human mind are permitted without obstacle to exert their native activity and tendency to invention, and are at the same time affected by the infinite variety of circumstances and situations which before had no existence, and which in one case accelerate, and in another retard; then that similarity, once so distinguishable, gives place to the endless diversity of which the subject is capable.

The practice of music being universal in all ages and all nations, it would be absurd to attribute the invention of the art to any one man. It must have suffered a regular progression, through infancy, childhood, and youth, before it could arrive at maturity. The first attempts must have been rude and artless; perhaps the first flute was a reed of the lake.

No nation has been able to produce proofs of antiquity so indisputable as the Egyptians; it would be vain, therefore, to attempt tracing music higher than the history of Egypt.

By comparing the accounts of Diodorus Siculus and of Plato, there is reason to suppose, that in very ancient times the study of music in Egypt was confined to the priesthood, who used it only on religious and solemn occasions; that, as well as sculpture, it was circumscribed by law; that it was esteemed sacred, and forbidden to be employed on light or common occasions; and that innovation in it was prohibited; but what the style or relative excellence of this very ancient music was, there are no traces by which we can form an accurate judgment. After the reigns of the Pharaohs, the Egyptians fell by turns under the dominion of the Ethiopians, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans. By such revolutions, the manners and amusements of the people, as well as their form of government, must have been changed. In the age of the Ptolemies, the musical games and contests instituted by those monarchs were of Greek origin, and the musicians who performed were chiefly Greek.

The most ancient monuments of human art and industry, at present extant at Rome, are the obelisks brought thither from Egypt, two of which are said to have been erected by Sesostris at Heliopolis, about 400 years before the siege of Troy. These were by the order of Augustus brought to Rome after the conquest of Egypt. One of them called yuglia rossa, or the broken pillar, which during the sacking of the city in 1527 was thrown down and broken, still lies in the Campus Martius. On it is seen the figure of a musical instrument of two strings, and with a neck. It resembles much the calafione still used in the kingdom of Naples.

This curious relic of antiquity is mentioned, because it affords better evidence than, on the subject of ancient music, is usually to be met with, that the Egyptians, at so very early a period of their history, had advanced to a considerable degree of excellence in the cultivation of the arts. By means of its neck, this instrument was capable, with only two strings, of producing a great number of notes. These two strings, if tuned fourths to each other, would furnish that series of sounds called by the ancients heptachord, which consists of a conjunct tetrachord as B, C, D, E; E, F, G, A; if tuned fifths, they would produce an octave, or two disjunct tetrachords. The calafione is tuned in this last manner. The annals of no nation other than Egypt, for many ages after the period of the obelisk at Heliopolis, exhibit the vestige of any contrivance to shorten strings during performance by a neck or finger-board. Father Montfaucon observes, that after examining 500 ancient lyres, harps, and citharas, he could discover no such thing.

Egypt indeed seems to have been the source of human intelligence, and the favorite residence of genius and invention. From that celebrated country did the Greeks derive their knowledge of the first elements of those arts and sciences in which they afterwards so eminently excelled. From Greece again did the Romans borrow their attainments in the same pursuits. And from the records of those different nations have the moderns been enabled to accomplish an improvement so wonderful in literature.

The Hermes or Mercury of the Egyptians, sir-The Egyptian named Trifmegius, or thrice illustrious, who was, according to Sir Isaac Newton, the secretary of Osiris, is celebrated as the inventor of music. It has already been observed, that no one person ought strictly to be called the inventor of an art which seems to be natural to, and coeval with, the human species; but the Egyptian Mercury is without doubt intitled to the praise of having made striking improvements in music, as well as of having advanced in various respects the civilization of the people, whose government was chiefly committed to his charge. The account given by Apollodorus of the manner in which he accidentally invented the lyre, is at once entertaining and probable. "The Nile (says Apollodorus), after having overflowed the whole country of Egypt, when it returned within its natural bounds, left on the shore a great number of dead animals of various kinds, and among the rest a tortoise; the flesh of which being dried and waited by the sun, nothing remained within the shell but nerves and cartilages, and these being braced and contracted by the drying heat became sonorous. Mercury, walking along the banks of the Nile, happened to strike his foot against this shell; and was so pleased with the sound produced, that the idea of a lyre started into his imagination. He constructed the instrument in the form of a tortoise, and strung it with the dried sinews of dead animals."

How beautiful to conceive the energetic powers of the human mind in the early ages of the world, exploring the yet undiscovered capabilities of nature, and directed to the inexhaustible store by the finger of God, in the form of accident!

The monaulos, or single flute, called by the Egyptians photinx, was probably one of the most ancient instruments used either by them or any other nation. From various remains of ancient sculpture, it appears to have been shaped like a bull's horn, and was at first, it may be supposed, no other than the horn itself.—Before the invention of flutes, as no other instrument except those of percussion were known, music must have been little more than metrical. When the art of refining and lengthening sounds was first discovered, the power of music over mankind, from the agreeable surprize occasioned by soft and extended notes, was probably irresistible. At a time when all the rest of the world was involved in savage ignorance, the Egyptians were possessed of musical instruments capable of much variety and expression—Of this the astonishing remains of the city Thebes still subsisting afford ample evidence. In a letter from Mr Bruce, ingrossed in Dr Burney’s History of Music, there is given a particular description of the Theban harp, an instrument of extensive compass, and exquisite elegance of form.

It is accompanied with a drawing taken from the ruins of an ancient sepulchre at Thebes, supposed by Mr Bruce to be that of the father of Selotris.

On the subject of this harp, Mr Bruce makes the following striking observation: “It overturns all the accounts of the earliest state of ancient music and instruments in Egypt, and is altogether, in its form, ornaments, and compass, an incontrovertible proof, stronger than a thousand Greek quotations, that geometry, drawing, mechanics, and music, were at the greatest perfection when this harp was made; and that what we think in Egypt was the invention of arts was only the beginning of the era of their restoration.”

Indeed, when the beauty and powers of this harp, along with the very great antiquity of the painting which represents it, are considered, such an opinion as that which Mr Bruce hints at, does not seem to be devoid of probability.

It cannot be doubted that during the reigns of the Ptolemies, who were voluptuous princes, music must have been much cultivated and encouraged. The father of Cleopatra, who was the last of that race of kings, derived his title of auletes, or flute-player, from his excessive attachment to the flute. Like Nero, he used to array himself in the dress of a tibicen, and exhibit his performance in the public musical contests.

Some authors, particularly Am. Marcellinus and M. Paul, refuse to the Egyptians, at any period of their history, any musical genius, or any excellence in the art; but the arguments used to support this opinion seem to be inconclusive, and the evidences of the opposite decision appear to be incontestable.

The sacred Scriptures afford almost the only materials from which any knowledge of Hebrew music can be drawn. In the rapid sketch, therefore, of ancient music which we mean to exhibit, a very few observations are all which can properly be given to that department of our subject.

Moses, who led the Israelites out of Egypt, was educated by Pharaoh’s daughter in all the literature and elegant arts cultivated in that country. It is probable, therefore, that the taste and style of Egyptian music would be infused in some degree into that of the Hebrews. Music appears to have been interwoven through the whole tissue of religious ceremony in Palestine. The priesthood seem to have been musicians hereditarily and by office. The prophets appear to have accompanied their inspired effusions with music; and every prophet, like the present improvisatori of Italy, seems to have been accompanied by a musical instrument.

Music, vocal and instrumental, constituted a great part of the funeral ceremonies of the Jews. The pomp and expense used on these occasions advanced by degrees to an excessive extent. The number of flute-players in the processions amounted sometimes to several hundreds, and the attendance of the guests continued frequently for 30 days.

The Hebrew language abounds with consonants, and has so few vowels, that in the original alphabet they had no characters. It must, therefore, have been harsh and unfavourable to music. Their instruments of music were chiefly those of percussion; so that, both on account of the language and the instruments, coarse and noisy, the music must have been coarse and noisy. The vast numbers of performers too, whom it was the taste of the Hebrews to collect together, could with such language and such instruments produce nothing but clamour and jargon. According to Josephus, there were 200,000 musicians at the dedication of Solomon’s temple. Such are the circumstances from which only an idea of Hebrew music can be formed; for the Jews neither ancient nor modern have ever had any characters peculiar to music; and the melodies used in their religious ceremonies have at all times been entirely traditional.

Cadmus, wish the Phoenician colony which he led into Greece, imported at the same time various arts into that country. By the assistance of his Phoenician artificers, that chief discovered gold in Thrace and copper at Thebes. At Thebes that metal is still termed cadmia. Of these materials, and of iron, they formed to themselves armour and instruments of war. These they struck against each other during their dances at sacrifices, by which they first obtained the idea of music. Such is the account given of the origin of that species of music in Greece produced by instruments of percussion. The invention of wind instruments in Greece is attributed to Minerva; and to the Grecian Mercury is assigned, by the poets and historians of that country, the honour of many discoveries probably due to the Egyptian Hermes, particularly the invention of stringed instruments. The lyre of the Egyptian Mercury had only three strings; that of the Grecian seven: the last was perhaps no more than an improvement on the other. When the Greeks deified a prince or hero of their own country, they usually assigned him an Egyptian name, and with the name bestowed on their new divinity all the actions, attributes, and rites of the original.

The Grecian lyre, although said to have been invented by Mercury, was cultivated principally by Apollo, who first played upon it with method, and accompanied it with the voice. The celebrated contest between him and Marsyas is mentioned by various authors; in which, by conjoining the voice with his lyre (a combination never before attempted), his music was declared superior to the flute of Marsyas. The progress of the lyre, according to Diodorus Siculus, is the following: “The muses added to the Grecian lyre the string called mefe; Linus that of Ichanos; Procrates of Orpheus and Thamyris those strings which are the Grecian named hypate and parhypate.” It has been already mentioned, that the lyre invented by the Egyptian Mercury had but three strings; by putting these circumstances together, we may perhaps acquire some knowledge of the progress of music, or at least of the extension of its scale in the highest antiquity. Mefe, in the Greek music, is the fourth found of the second tetrachord. tetrachord of the great system and first tetrachord invented by the ancients, answering to our A, on the fifth line in the base. If this found then was added to the former three, it proves that the most ancient tetrachord was that from E in the base to A; and that the three original strings in the Mercurian and Apollonian lyre were tuned E, F, G, which the Greeks call hypate melon, parhypate melon, and melon diatones; the addition, therefore, of melo to these completed the first and most ancient tetrachord E, F, G, A. The string lichanos again being added to these, and answering to our D on the third line in the base, extended the compass downwards, and gave the ancient lyre a regular series of five sounds. The two strings hypate and parhypate, corresponding with our B and C in the base, completed the heptachord or seven sounds b, c, d, e, f, g, a; a compass which received no addition till after the days of Pindar.

It might perhaps be expected, that in a history of Greek music something ought to be said concerning the muses Apollo, Bacchus, and the other gods and demi-gods, who in the mythology of that country appear to have promoted and improved the art. But such a discussion would be too diffusive, and involve too much foreign matter for the plan we have chosen to adopt. We cannot avoid, however, making a few observations on the poems of Homer, in so far as connected with our subject. It has been imagined, with much appearance of probability, that the occupation of the first poets and musicians of Greece resembled that of the Celtic and German bards and the scalds of Iceland and Scandinavia. They sung their poems in the streets of cities and in the palaces of princes. They were treated with high respect, and regarded as inspired persons. Such was the employment of Homer. His poems, so justly celebrated, exhibit the most authentic picture that can be found in the annals of antiquity, although perhaps somewhat highly coloured, of the times of which he wrote and in which he lived. Music is always named throughout the Iliad and Odyssey with rapture; but as in these poems no mention is made of instrumental music unaccompanied with poetry and singing, a considerable share no doubt of the poet's praises is to be attributed to the poetry. The instruments most frequently named are the lyre, the flute, and the syrinx. The trumpet appears not to have been known at the siege of Troy, although it had come to be in use in the days of Homer himself. From the time of Homer till that of Sappho, there is almost a total blank in literature. Only a few fragments remain of the works of those poets and musicians whose names are preserved as having flourished between those periods (+). During the century which elapsed between the days of Sappho and those of Anacreon, no literary productions are preserved entire.—From Anacreon to Pindar there is another chasm of near a century. Subsequent to this time, the works still extant of the three great tragic poets, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, together with those of Plato, Aristotle, Aristoctenus, Euclid, Theocritus, Callimachus, Polybius, and many others, produced all within a space less than 300 years, distinguish this illustrious and uncommon period as that in which the whole powers of genius seem to have been exerted to illuminate and instruct mankind in future ages. Then it was that eloquence, poetry, music, architecture, history, painting, sculpture, like the spontaneous blossoms of nature, flourished without the appearance of labour or of art.

The poets, as well epic as lyric and elegiac, were all likewise musicians; so strictly connected were music and poetry for many ages. It would afford amusement to collect the biographical anecdotes of these favourites of genius, and to assign to each the respective improvements made by him in music and poetry; but our limits do not admit of so extensive a disquisition; for which, therefore, reference must be made to the editors and commentators of these authors, and to the voluminous histories of music lately published.

The invention of notation and musical characters marked a distinguished era in the progress of music. There are a diversity of accounts respecting the performers to whom the honour of that invention is due; but the evidences seem to preponderate in favour of Terpander, a celebrated poet and musician, to whose genius music is much indebted. He flourished about the 27th Olympiad, or 671 years before Christ.

Before that valuable discovery, music being entirely traditional, must have depended much on the memory and taste of the performer.

There is an incident mentioned in the accounts handed down to us of the Olympic games, which may serve in some degree to mark the character of music at the time in which it happened. Lucian relates that a young flute-player named Harmonides, at his first public appearance in these games, began a solo with so violent a blast, on purpose to surprise and elevate the audience, that he breathed his last breath into his flute, and died on the spot. When to this anecdote, wonderful to us, and almost incredible, is added music of the circumstance, that the trumpet-players at these public exhibitions expressed an excess of joy when they found their exertions had neither rent their cheeks nor burst their blood-vessels, some idea may be formed of the noisy and vociferous style of music which then pleased; and from such facts only can any opinion be obtained of the actual state of ancient music.

In whatever manner the flute was played on, there is no doubt that it was long in Greece an instrument of high favour, and that the flute-players were held in much estimation. The flute used by Ilmenias, a celebrated Theban musician, cost at Corinth three talents, or L. 581, 5 s. If, says Xenophon, a bad flute-player would pass for a good one, he must, like the great flute-players, expend large sums on rich furniture, and appear in public with a great retinue of servants.

The ancients, it appears, were not less extravagant in gratifying the ministers of their pleasures than ourselves; with respect to music.

(+ ) Hesiod lived so near to Homer, that it has been disputed which of them is the most ancient. It is now, we believe, universally admitted, that the palm of antiquity is due to Homer; but we consider them as having both flourished in the same era. It is proper to add, that the celebrated musicians of Greece who performed in public were of both sexes; and that the beautiful Lamia, who was taken captive by Demetrius, in the sea engagement in which he vanquished Ptolemy Soter, and who herself captivated her conqueror, as well as many other elevated female spirits, are recorded by ancient authors in terms of admiration, and of whom, did our limits here admit of biography, we would treat with pleasure. The philosophers of Greece, whose capacious minds grasped every other object of human intelligence, were not inattentive to the theory of music, or the philosophy of sound. This department of science became the source of various sects, and of much diversity of opinion.—The founders of the most distinguished sects were Pythagoras and Aristozenus. Of their theories, mention is made in the Appendix to this article.

Like every other people, the Romans, from their first origin as a nation, were possessed of a species of music which might be distinguished as their own. It appears to have been rude and coarse, and probably was a variation of the music in use among the Etruscans and other tribes around them in Italy: but as soon as they began to open a communication with Greece, from that country, with their arts and philosophy, they borrowed also their music and musical instruments. No account, therefore, of Roman music is to be expected that would not be a repetition of what has been said on the subject of the music of Greece.

The excessive vanity of Nero with respect to music, displayed in his public contentions for superiority with the most celebrated professors of the art in Greece and Rome, is known to every one conversant in the history of Rome. The solicitude with which that detestable tyrant attended to his voice is curious, and will throw some light on the practices of singers in ancient times. He was in use to lie on his back, with a thin plate of lead on his stomach. He took frequent emetics and cathartics, abstained from all kinds of fruit and such meats as were held to be prejudicial to singing. Apprehensive of injuring his voice, he at length desisted from haranguing the soldiery and the senate; and after his return from Greece established an officer (Phonacius) to regulate his tones in speaking.

Most nations have contented in introducing music into their religious ceremonies. That art was early admitted into the rites of the Egyptians and Hebrews; and that it constituted a considerable part of the Grecian and Roman religious service, appears from the writings of many ancient authors. The same pleasing art soon obtained an introduction into the Christian church, as the Acts of the Apostles discover in many passages. There remain no specimens of the music employed in the worship of the primitive Christians; but probably it was at first the same with that used in the Pagan rites of the Greeks and Romans. The practice of chanting the psalms was introduced into the western churches by St. Ambrose, about 350 years after Christ. In the year 600, the method of chanting was improved by St Gregory the Great. The Ambrosian chant contained four modes. In the Gregorian the number was doubled. So early as the age of Constantine the Great, prior to either of the periods last mentioned, when the Christian religion first obtained the countenance of power, instrumental music came to be introduced into the service of the church.

In England, according to bishop Stillingfleet, music was employed in the church-service, first by St. Augustine in the time, and afterwards much improved by St. Dunstan, English who was himself an eminent musician, and who is said church, to have first furnished the English churches and convents with the organ. The organ, the most majestic of all instruments, seems to have been an improvement of the hydraulic or water organ of the Greeks—The first organ seen in France was sent from Constantinople in 757, as a present to king Pepin from the emperor Constantine Copromyrmus VI. In Italy, Germany, and England, that instrument became frequent during the 10th century.

During the dark ages no work of genius or taste in any department of science seems to have been produced in any part of Europe; and except in Italy, where the cultivation of music was rather more the object of attention, that art was neglected equally with all others. There has always been observed a correspondence in every country between the progress of music and the cultivation of other arts and sciences. In the middle ages, therefore, when the most fertile provinces of Europe were occupied by the Goths, Huns, Vandals, and other barbarous tribes, whose language was as harsh as their manners were savage, little perfection and no improvement of music is to be looked for. Literature, arts, and refinements, were encouraged more early at the courts of the Roman pontiffs than in any other country; and owing to that circumstance it is, that the scale, the counterpoint, the belt melodies, the dramas religious and secular, the chief graces and elegancies of modern music, have derived their origin from Italy. In modern times, Italy has been to the rest of Europe what ancient Greece was to Rome. The Italians have aided the civilization of their conquerors, and enlightened the minds of those whose superior prowess had enslaved them.

Having mentioned counterpoint, it would be improper not to make one or two observations on an invention which is supposed to have been the source of great innovation in the practice of music. Counterpoint, or music in parts, seems to be an invention purely modern. The term harmony meant in the language of antiquity what is now understood by melody. Guido, a monk of Arezzo in Tuscany, is, in counterpoint, the general opinion, supposed to have entertained the first idea of counterpoint about the year 1022: an art which, since his time, has experienced gradual and imperceptible improvements, far exceeding the powers or comprehension of any one individual. The term counterpoint, or contra punctum, denotes its own etymology and import. Musical notation was at one time performed by small points; and the present mode is only

(†) Roscius gained 500 lestertia, or L. 4036:9:2 d. Sterling per annum. only an improvement of that practice. Counterpoint, therefore, denotes the notation of harmony or music in parts, by points opposite to each other. The improvements of this important acquisition to the art of music kept pace at first with those of the organ; an instrument admirably adapted to harmony. And both the one and the other were till the 13th century employed chiefly in sacred music. It was at this period that secular music began to be cultivated.

Before the invention of characters for time, music in parts must have consisted entirely of simple counterpoint, or note against note, as is still practised in psalmody. But the happy discovery of a time-table extended infinitely the powers of combined sounds. The ancients had no other resource to denote time and movement in music except two characters (—), equivalent to a long and a short syllable. But time is of such importance in music, that it can impart meaning and energy to the repetition of the same sound; without it variety of tones has no effect with respect to gravity and acuteness. The invention of the time-table is attributed by almost all the writers on music of the last and present century to John de Muris, who flourished about the year 1330. But in a manuscript of John de Muris himself, bequeathed to the Vatican library by the Queen of Sweden, that honour seems to be yielded to Magister Franco, who appears to have been alive as late as at least as 1083. John de Muris, however, who there is some cause to believe was an Englishman, though not the inventor of the cantus mensurabilis, did certainly by his numerous writings greatly improve it. His tract on the Art of Counterpoint is the most clear and useful essay on the subject of which those times can boast.

In the 11th century, during the first crusade, Europe began to emerge from the barbarous stupidity and ignorance which had long overwhelmed it. While its inhabitants were exercising in Asia every species of rapine and pious cruelty, art, ingenuity, and reason, infensibly civilized and softened their minds. Then it was that the poets and songsters, known by the name of Troubadours, who first appeared in Provence, instituted a new profession; which obtained the patronage of the count of Poitou, and many other princes and barons, who had themselves cultivated music and poetry with success. At the courts of their munificent patrons the troubadours were treated with respect. The ladies whose charms they celebrated, gave them the most generous and flattering reception. The success of some inspired others with hopes, and excited exertions in the exercise of their art; impelling them towards perfection with a rapidity which the united force alone of emulation and enthusiasm could occasion. These founders of modern versification, constructing their songs on plans of their own classical authority, either through ignorance or design, was entirely disregarded. It does not appear, however, during the cultivation and favour of Provençal literature, that any one troubadour so far outstripped the rest as to become a model of imitation. The progress of taste must ever be impeded by the ignorance and caprice of those who cultivate an art without science or principles.

During almost two centuries after the arrangement of the scale attributed to Guido, and the invention of the time-table ascribed to Franco, no remains of secular music can be discovered, except those of the troubadours or Provençal poets. In the simple tunes of these bards no time indeed is marked, and but little variety of notation appears; it is not difficult, however, to discover in them the germs of the future melodies, as well as the poetry of France and Italy. Had the poetry and music of the troubadours been treated of in an agreeable manner by the writers who have chosen that subject, it would have been discovered to be worthy of attention: the poetry, as interesting to literature; the melody to which it was sung, as curious to the musical historian.—Almost every species of Italian poetry is derived from the Provençals. Air, the most captivating part of secular vocal music, seems to have had the same origin. The most ancient strains that have been spared by time, are such as were set to the songs of the troubadours. The Provençal language began to be in favour with poets about the end of the 10th century. In the 12th it became the general vehicle, not only of poetry, but of prose, to all who were ignorant of Latin. And these were not the laity only. At this period violars, or performers on the vielle or viol, juglars or flute-players, mufars or players on other instruments, and comics or comedians, abounded all over Europe. This swarm of poet-musicians, who were formerly comprehended in France under the general title of jongleurs, travelled from province to province, singing their verses at the courts of princes. They were rewarded with cloaths, horses, arms, and money. Jongleurs or musicians were employed often to sing the verses of troubadours, who themselves happened to be deficient in voice or ignorant of music. The term troubadour, therefore, implies poetry as well as music. The jongleurs, menetriers, flurers, or minstrels, were frequently musicians, without any pretensions to poetry. These last have been common at all times; but the troubadour or bard has distinguished a particular profession, either in ancient or modern times, only during the early dawning of literature.

In the 13th century the songs were on various subjects; moral, merry, amorous: and at that time melody seems to have been little more than plain song or chanting. The notes were square, and written on four lines only like those of the Roman church in the cliff C, and without any marks for time. The movement and embellishments of the air depended on the abilities of the singer. Since that time, by the cultivation of the voice modern music has been much extended, for it was not till towards the end of St Lewis's reign that the fifth line began to be added to the stave. The singer always accompanied himself with an instrument in unison.

As the lyre is the favourite instrument in Grecian poetry, so the harp held the same place in the estimation of the poets who flourished in the period of which we are informed at present speak. A poet of the 14th century, Macchau, wrote a poem on the subject of the harp alone; in which he affirms to each of its strings an allegorical name; calling one liberality, another wealth, &c.

The instrument which frequently accompanied, and indeed disputed the pre-eminence with the harp, was or violin, the viol. Till the 16th century this instrument was furnished with frets; after that period it was reduced to four strings: and still under the denomination of violin holds the first place among treble instruments. The viol was played with a bow, and differed entirely from the vielle, the tones of which were produced by the friction of a wheel; the wheel performed the part of a bow.

British harpers were famous long before the conquest. The bounty of William of Normandy to his joculator or bard is recorded in the Doomsday book. The harp seems to have been the favourite instrument in Britain for many ages, under the British, Saxon, Danish, and Norman kings. The fiddle, however, is mentioned so early as 1200 in the legendary life of St Christopher. The ancient privileges of the minstrels at the fairs of Chester are well known in the history of England.

The extirpation of the bards of Wales by Edward I. is likewise too familiar an incident to be mentioned here. His persecuting spirit, however, seems to have been limited to that principality; for we learn, that at the ceremony of knighting his son, a multitude of minstrels attended.

In 1315, during the reign of Edward II., such extensive privileges were claimed by the minstrels, that it became necessary to restrain them by express laws.

The father of our genuine poetry, who in the 14th century enlarged our vocabulary, polished our numbers, and with acquisitions from France and Italy augmented our store of knowledge (Chaucer), entitles one of his poems The History of St Cecilia; and the celebrated patroness of music must no doubt be mentioned in a history of the art. Neither in Chaucer, however, nor in any of the histories or legendary accounts of this Saint, does any thing appear to authorize the religious veneration paid to her by the votaries of music; nor is it easy to discover whence it has arisen. As an incident relative to the period of which we speak, it may be mentioned, that, according to Spelman, the appellation of Doctor was not among the degrees granted to graduates in England sooner than the reign of King John, about 1207; although, in Wood's history of Oxford, that degree is said to have been conferred, even in music, in the reign of Henry II. It is known that the title was created on the continent in the 12th century; and as, during the middle ages, music was always ranked among the seven liberal arts, it is likely that the degree was extended to it.

After the invention of printing, an art which has tended to disseminate knowledge with wonderful rapidity among mankind, music, and particularly counterpoint, became an object of high importance. The names of the most eminent composers who flourished in England, from that time to the Reformation, were, Fairfax, William of Newark, Sheryngham, Turges, Banister, Tudor, Taverner, Tye, Johnston, Parfons; to whom may be added John Marbeck, who set the whole English cathedral service to music.

Before this period Scottish music had advanced to a high degree of perfection. James I. was a great composer of airs to his own verses; and may be considered as the father of that plaintive melody which in Scotch tunes is so pleasing to a taste not vitiated by modern affectation. Besides the testimony of Fordun and Major, who may be suspected of being under the influence of national prejudice, we have that of Alessandro Teziani, to the musical skill of that accomplished prince. "Among us moderns (says this foreigner) we may reckon James king of Scotland, who not only composed many sacred pieces of vocal music, but also of himself invented a new kind of music, plaintive and melancholy, different from all others; in which he has been imitated by Carlo Gesualdo prince of Venola, who in our age has improved music with new and admirable inventions."

Under such a genius in poetry and music as king James I., it cannot be doubted that the national music must have been greatly improved. We have seen that he composed several anthems, or vocal pieces of sacred music, which shows that his knowledge of the science must have been very considerable. It is likewise known, that organs were by him introduced into the cathedrals and abbeys of Scotland, and choir-service brought to such a degree of perfection, as to fall little short of that established in any country of Europe.

By an able antiquary† of the present age, the great† See Tyler era of music, as of poetry, in Scotland, is supposed to have been from the beginning of the reign of James I. Scotch Mu down to the end of the reign of James V. During‡ vol. i. of that period flourished Gavin Douglas bishop of Dun-the-Tran keld, Ballenden archdeacon of Murray, Dunbar, Hen-‡ factions of ryson, Scott, Montgomery, Sir David Lindsay, and many the society of others, whose fine poems have been preserved in Ba rries Antiquary's Collection, and of which several have been land published by Allan Ramsay in his Evergreen.

Before the Reformation, as there was but one religion, there was but one kind of sacred music in Europe, plain chant, and the descant built upon it. That music likewise was applied to one language only, the Latin. On that account, the compositions of Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Flanders, and England, kept pace in a great degree with each other in style and excellence. All the arts seem to have been the companions, if not the produce, of successful commerce, and to have pursued the same course. Like commerce, they appeared first in Italy, then in the Hanseatic towns, next in the Netherlands; and during the 16th century, when commerce became general, in every part of Europe.

In the 16th century music was an indispensable part of polite education; all the princes of Europe were instructed in that art. There is a collection preserved in manuscript called Queen Elizabeth's Virginal Book. If her majesty was able to execute any of the pieces in that book, she must have been a great player; a month's practice would not be sufficient for any matter now in Europe to enable him to play one of them to the end. Tallis, singularly profound in musical composition, and Bird his admirable scholar, were two of the authors of this famous collection.

During the reign of Elizabeth, the genius and learning of the British musicians were not inferior to any on the continent; an observation scarcely applicable at any other period of the history of this country. Sacred music was the principal object of study all over Europe.

The most eminent musical theorists of Italy, who flourished in the 16th century, were, Franchinus Gaffurius, or Gafforio of Lodi, Pietro Aaron of Florence, Vittorio, deserve likewise to be mentioned; and to mention them is all we can attempt; the purpose of which is, to excite more minute inquiry by those who may choose to investigate the subject particularly.

The Netherlands, likewise, during the period of the Netherlands which we have been speaking, produced many eminent composers; of whom we may mention Verletot, Gombert, Arkadelt, Berchem, Richafort or Ricciafort, Crequillon Le Crock or Le Coq, Canis, Jacob Clemens Non Papa, Pierre Manchecourt, Balton, Kerl, Rore, Orlando di Lasso, and his sons Ferdinand and Rodolph.

In the 17th century, the musical writers and composers who acquired fame in England, were Dr Nathan Giles, Thomas Tomkins, and his son of the same name; Elway Devin, Orlando Gibbons, Dr William Child, Adrian Batten, Martin Pierson, William Lawes, Henry Lawes, Dr John Wilson, John Hilton, John Playford, Captain Henry Cook, Pelham Humphrey, John Blow, William Turner, Dr Christopher Gibbons, Benjamin Rogers, and Henry Purcell. Of these, Orlando Gibbons, Pelham Humphrey, and Henry Purcell, far excelled the rest.

About the end of the reign of James I., a music-lecture or professorship was founded in the university of Oxford by Dr William Hychin.

In the reign of Charles I., a charter was granted to the musicians of Westminster, incorporating them, as the king's musicians, into a body politic, with powers to prosecute and fine all who, except themselves, should "attempt to make any benefit or advantage of music in England or Wales:" powers which in the subsequent reign were put in execution.

About the end of the reign of Charles II., a passion seems to have been excited in England for the violin, and for pieces expressly composed for it, in the Italian manner (*). Prior to 1600, there was little other music except masses and madrigals, the two principal divisions of sacred and secular music; but from that time to the present, dramatic music becomes the chief object of attention. The music of the church and of the chamber continued indeed to be cultivated in Italy with diligence, and in a learned and elaborate style, till near the middle of the century; yet a revolution in favour of melody and expression was preparing, even in sacred music, by the success of dramatic composition, consisting of recitation and melodies for a single voice. Such melodies began now to be preferred to music of many parts; in which canons, fugues, and full harmony, had been the productions which chiefly employed the master's study and the hearer's attention.

So late as the beginning of the present century, according to Riccoboni, the performers in the operas of Germany, particularly at Hamburg, "were all gunners of tradesmen or handicrafts; your shoemaker (says he) the present was often the first performer on the stage; and you might have bought fruit and sweetmeats of the same girls."

(*) The most celebrated violin players of Italy, from the 16th century to the present time, have been Farina, M. Angelo Rossi, Baffani the violin-master of Corelli, the admirable Angelico Corelli himself, Torelli, Alberti, Albenoni, Tessarini, Vivaldi, Geminiani one of the most distinguished of Corelli's scholars, Tartini, Veracini, Barbella, Locatelli, Ferrari, Martini, Boccherini, and Giardini. girls, whom the night before you had seen in the characters of Armida or Semiramis. Soon, however, the German opera arose to a more respectable situation; and even during the 17th century many eminent composers flourished in that country.

The list of great musicians which France produced during the early part of the same century is not numerous. Music seems to have been but little cultivated in that country, till the operas of Lulli, under the powerful patronage of Louis XIV., excited public attention.

The favourite singing-master and composer of France, about the middle of the 17th century, was Michael Lambert. John Baptit Lulli, soon after this time, rose from the rank of a menial servant to fame, opulence, and nobility, by his skill in musical compositions. The celebrated singer La Rochois was taught singing and acting by Lulli.

La Maupin the successor of La Rochois, on account of her extraordinary character and romantic adventures, deserves to be mentioned. She was equally fond of both sexes, fought and loved like a man, resisted and fell like a woman. She eloped from her husband with a fencing-master, of whom she learnt the small sword; she became an excellent fencer. At Marseille she became enamoured of a young lady, whom she seduced; on account of this whimsical affection the lady was by her friends confined in a convent. La Maupin obtained admission into the same convent as a novice; she set fire to the convent, and in the confusion carried off her favourite. At Paris, when she appeared on the stage in 1695, Dumeni a finger having affronted her, she put on men's clothes, and insisted on his drawing his sword and fighting her; when he refused, she caned him, and took from him his watch and snuff-box as trophies of her victory. At a ball given by Monsieur brother of Louis XIV., she again put on men's clothes; and having behaved impertinently to a lady, three of the lady's friends, supposing the Maupin to be a man, called her out; she killed them all; and returning coolly to the ball, told the story to Monsieur, who obtained her pardon. She became afterwards mistress to the elector of Bavaria. This prince quitting her for the countess of Arcos, sent her by the count, husband of that lady, a purse of £40,000 livres; she threw it at the count's head, telling him, it was a recompense worthy of such a scoundrel and cuckold as himself. At last, seized with a fit of devotion, she recalled her husband, and spent the remainder of her life in piety. She died in 1707 at the age only of 34.

The English musician whom we last mentioned was the celebrated Purcell; after his time the chief composers for the church were Clarke, Dr Holden, Dr Creighton, Tucker, Aldrich, Golwin, Weldon, Dr Crofts, Dr Green, Boyce, and Nares; to whom may be added John Stanley, who attained high proficiency in music, although from two years old totally deprived of sight.

The annals of modern music have hitherto furnished no event so important to the progress of the art as the invention of recitative or dramatic melody; a style of music which resembles the manner of the ancient rhapsodists.

The Orfeo of Politian was the first attempt at musical drama. It was afterwards perfected by Metastasio. No musical dramas similar to those afterwards first known by the names of opera and oratorio, had existed in Italy before the beginning of the 17th century. It was above the 1600s, or a little before that time, that eunuchs were first employed for singing in Italy.

There seem to have been no singing eunuchs in ancient times, unless the galli or archigalli, priests of Cybele, were such. Castration has, however, at all times been practised in eastern countries, for the purpose of furnishing to tyrannic jealously guards of female chastity; but never, so far as modern writers on the subject have discovered, merely to preserve the voice, till about the end of the 16th century.

At Rome, the first public theatre opened for the exhibition of musical dramas, in modern times, was il Torre de Nonna, where in 1671 Giasone was performed. In 1679, the opera of Don è Amore, let by the famous organist Bernardo Pasquini, was represented at Nilla Sala de Signori Capranica; a theatre which still subsists. In the year 1680, L'Onsia negl'Amore was exhibited; the first dramatic composition of the elegant, profound, and original Alessandro Scarlatti.

The inhabitants of Venice have cultivated and encouraged the musical drama with more zeal and diligence than the rest of Italy, during the end of the last and beginning of the present century; yet the opera was not established in Venice before the year 1637; in that year the first regular drama was performed: it was Andromeda.

In 1680 the opera of Berenice was exhibited at Padua with such astonishing splendour as to merit Berenice's notice. There were choruses of 100 virgins, 100 soldiers, 100 horsemen in iron armour, 40 cornets of horse, 6 trumpeters on horseback, 6 drummers, 6 ensigns, 6 sackbutts, 6 great flutes, 6 minstrels playing on Turkish instruments, 6 others on octave flutes, 6 pages, 3 sergeants, 6 cymbalists. There were 12 huntsmen, 12 grooms, 6 coachmen for the triumph, 6 others for the procession, 2 lions led by two Turks, 2 elephants by two others; Berenice's triumphal car drawn by 4 horses, 6 other cars with prisoners and spoils drawn by 12 horses, 6 coaches. Among the scenes and representations in the first act were, a vast plain with two triumphal arches, another plain with pavilions and tents, and a forest for the chase: in act third, the royal dressing-room completely furnished, tables with 100 live horses, portico adorned with tapestry, and a stupendous palace in perspective. At the end of the first act were representations of every kind of chase, wild boar, stag, deer, bears. At the end of the third act, an enormous globe, descended as from the sky, divided itself into other globes suspended in the air, and ornamented with emblematical figures of time, fame, honour, &c.

Early in the last century, machinery and decoration usurped the importance due to poetry and music in such exhibitions.

Few instances occur of musical dramas at Naples till the beginning of the present century. Before the time of the elder Scarlatti, it seems as if Naples had been less fertile in great contrapuntists, and less diligent in the cultivation of dramatic music, than any other state of Italy. Since that time all the rest of Europe Europe has been furnished with composers and performers from that city.

The word opera seems to have been familiar to English poets from the beginning of the last century. Stilo recitativo, a recent innovation even in Italy, is mentioned by Ben Jonson so early as 1617. From this time it was used in masques, occasionally in plays, and in cantatas, before a regular drama wholly set to music was attempted. By the united abilities of Quinault and Lully, the opera in France had arisen to high favour. This circumstance afforded encouragement to several attempts at dramatic music in England by Sir William D'Avenant and others, before the music, language, or performers of Italy were employed on our stage. Pieces, styled dramatic operas, preceded the Italian opera on the stage of England. These were written in English, and exhibited with a profuse decoration of scenery and habits, and with the best singers and dancers that could be procured: Psyche and Circe, are entertainments of this kind; the Tempest and Macbeth were acted with the same accompaniments.

During the 17th century, whatever attempts were made in musical drama, the language sung was always English. About the end of that century, however, Italian singing began to be encouraged, and vocal as well as instrumental musicians from that country began to appear in London.

The first musical drama, performed wholly after the Italian manner in recitative for the dialogue or narrative parts, and measured melody for the airs, was Arsinoe queen of Cyprus, translated from an Italian opera of the same name, written by Stanzani of Bologna. The English version of this opera was set to music by Thomas Clayton, one of the royal band, in the reign of William and Mary. The singers were all English, Messrs Hughes, Leveredge, and Cook; Mrs Tofts, Mrs Crofs, and Mrs Lyndsay. The translation of Arsinoe, and the music to which it is set, are excusable; yet such is the charm of novelty, that this miserable performance, deferring neither the name of a drama by its poetry, nor of an opera by its music, satisfied 24 representations, and the second year 11.

Operas, notwithstanding their deficiencies in poetry, music, and performance (no foreign composer or eminent singer having yet arrived), became so formidable to our actors at the theatres, that it appears from the Daily Courant, 14th January 1707, a subscription was opened "for the encouragement of the comedians acting in the Haymarket, and to enable them to keep the diversion of plays under a separate interest from operas."

Mr Addison's opera of Rosamond appeared about this time; but the music set by Clayton is so contemptible, that the merit of the poetry, however great, could not of itself long support the piece. The choice of so mean a composer as Clayton, and Mr Addison's partiality to his abilities, betray a want of musical taste in that elegant author.

The first truly great singer who appeared on the stage of Britain was Cavalier Niccolino Grimaldi, commonly known by the name of Niccolini. He was a Neapolitan; and though a beautiful singer indeed, was still more eminent as an actor. In the Tatler, no. 115, the elegance and propriety of his action are particularly described. Recently before his appearance, Valentini Urbani, and a female singer called Spizzichino, The Baroness, arrived. Margarita de l'Epini, who afterwards married Dr Pepusch, had been in this country some time before.

The first opera performed wholly in Italian, and by Italian singers, was Almahide. As at present, so at that time, operas were generally performed twice a-week.

The year 1710 is distinguished in the annals of music by the arrival in Britain of George Frederick Handel. Handel had been in the service of the elector of Hanover, and came first to England on a visit of curiosity. The fame of this great musician had penetrated into this country before he himself arrived in it; and Aaron Hill, then in the direction of the Haymarket theatre, instantly applied to him to compose an opera. It was Rinaldo; the admirable music of which he produced entirely in a fortnight. Soon after this period appeared, for the first time as an opera singer, the celebrated Mrs Anastasia Robinson. Mrs Robinson, who was the daughter of a portrait painter, made her first public exhibitions in the concerts at York-buildings; and acquired so much the public favour, that her father was encouraged to take a house in Golden Square, for the purpose of establishing weekly concerts and assemblies, in the manner of Conversazioni, which became the resort of the most polite audiences.

Soon after Mrs Robinson accepted of an engagement at the Opera, where her salary is said to have been £1,000, and her other emoluments equal to that sum. She quitted the stage in consequence of her marriage with the gallant earl of Peterborough, the friend of Pope and Swift. The eminent virtues and accomplishments of this lady, who died a few years ago at the age of 83, entitled her to be mentioned even for a compend too short for biography. The conducting of the opera having been found to be more expensive than profitable, it was entirely suspended from 1717 till 1720, when a fund of £50,000 for supporting and carrying it on was subscribed by the first personages of the kingdom. The subscribers, of whom king George I. was one for £1,000, were the opera formed into a society, and named The Royal Academy of Music. Handel was commissioned to engage the performers; for that purpose he went to Dresden, where Italian operas were at that time performed in the most splendid manner at the court of Augustus elector of Saxony, then king of Poland. Here Handel engaged Senesino-Berenstadt, Boschi, and the Duranti.

In the 1723, the celebrated Francesca Cuzzoni appeared as a first-rate singer; and two years afterwards arrived her distinguished rival Signora Faustina Bordoni.

In a cantabile air, though the notes Cuzzoni added were few, she never lost an opportunity of enriching the cantilena with the most beautiful embellishments. Her shake was perfect. She possessed a creative fancy; and she enjoyed the power of occasionally accelerating and retarding the measure in the most artificial and able manner, by what is in Italy called tempo rubato. Her high notes were unrivalled in clearness and sweetness. Her intonations were so just and so fixed, that... it seemed as if she had not the power to sing out of tune.

Faustina Bordoni, wife of the celebrated Saxon composer Haffs, invented a new kind of singing, by running divisions, with a neatness and velocity which astonished all who heard her. By taking her breath imperceptibly, she had the art of sustaining a note apparently longer than any other singer. Her beats and trills were strong and rapid; her intonation perfect. Her professional perfections were enhanced by a beautiful face, fine symmetry of figure, and a countenance and gesture on the stage which indicated an entire intelligence and possession of the several parts allotted to her.

These two angelic performers excited so signally the attention of the public, that a party spirit between the abettors of the one and of the other was formed, as violent and as inveterate almost as any of those that had ever occurred relative to matters either theological or political; yet so distinct were their styles of singing, so different their talents, that the praise of the one was no reproach to the other.

In less than seven years, the whole L. 50,000 subscribed by the Royal Academy, besides the produce of admission to non-subscribers, was expended, and the governor and directors of the society relinquished the idea of continuing their engagements; consequently, at the close of the season 1727, the whole band of singers dispersed. The next year we find Senefino, Farinelli, Balde, Cuzzoni, Nicolini, Farinelli, and Bofane, at Venice.

Handel, however, at his own risk, after a suspension of about a twelvemonth, determined to recommence the Opera; and accordingly engaged a band of performers entirely new. These were Signor Bernacchi, Signora Merighi, Signora Strada, Signor Anibale Pio Fabri, his wife, Signora Bertoldi, and John Godfried Reimchneider.

The sacred musical drama, or oratorio, was invented early in the 14th century. Every nation in Europe seems first to have had recourse to religious subjects for dramatic exhibitions. The oratorios had been common in Italy during the last century; they had never been publicly introduced in England till Handel, stimulated by the rivalryship of other adventurers, exhibited in 1732 his oratorios of Esther, and of Acis, and Galatea, the last of which he had composed twelve years before for the duke of Chandos's chapel at Cannons. The most formidable opposition which Handel met with in his conduct of the Italian opera was a new theatre for exhibiting these operas, opened by subscription in Lincoln's-inn Fields, under the conduct of Nicola Porpora, a respectable composer. A difference having occurred between Handel and Senefino, Senefino had for some time deserted the Haymarket, where Handel managed, and was now engaged at the rival theatre of Lincoln's-inn Fields. To supply the place of Senefino, Handel brought over Giovanni Carlini, a singer of the most extensive powers. His voice was at first a powerful and clear soprano; afterwards it changed into the fullest, finest, deepest, counter-tenor that has perhaps ever been heard. Caretini's person was tall, beautiful, and majestic. He rendered every thing he sung interesting by energy, taste, and judicious embellishment. In the execution of difficult divisions from the chest, his manner was articulate and admirable. It was the opinion of Haffs, as well as other eminent professors, that whoever had not heard Caretini, was unacquainted with the most perfect style of singing. The opera under the direction of Porpora was removed to the Haymarket, which Handel had left. Handel occupied the theatre of Lincoln's-inn Fields; but his rivals now acquired a vast advantage of attraction, by the accession of Carlo Broschi detto Farinelli to their party, who at this time arrived. This renowned singer seems to have transcended the limits of all anterior vocal excellence. No vocal performer of the present century has been so unanimously allowed to possess an uncommon power, sweetness, extent, and agility of voice, as Farinelli. Nicolini, Senefino, and Carlini, gratified the eye as much by the dignity, grace, and propriety of their action and deportment, as the ear, by the judicious use of a few notes within the limits of a small compass of voice; but Farinelli, without the affluence of significant gestures or graceful attitudes, enchanted and astonished his hearers, by the force, extent, and mellifluous tones of the mere organ, when he had nothing to execute, articulate, or express. Though during the time of singing he was as motionless as a statue, his voice was so active that no intervals were too close, too wide, or too rapid, for his execution.

Handel having lost a great part of his fortune by the opera, was under the necessity of trying the public gratitude in a benefit, which was not disgraced by the event: the theatre, for the honour of the nation, was so crowded, that he is said to have cleared L. 800.

After a fruitless attempt by Heidegger, the coadjutor of Handel in the conduct of the opera, and patentee of the King's Theatre in Haymarket, to procure a subscription for continuing it, it was found necessary to give up the undertaking.

It was about this time that the statue of Handel was erected in Vauxhall, at the expense of Mr Tyers, proprietor of those gardens.

The next year (1739) Handel carried on oratorios at the Haymarket, as the opera there was suspended. The earl of Middlesex now undertook the troublesome office of impresario of the Italian opera. He engaged the King's theatre, with a band of singers from the Continent almost entirely new. Caluppi was his composer. Handel, almost ruined, retired at this time to Ireland, where he remained a considerable time. In 1744 he again attempted oratorios at the King's theatre, which was then, and till 1746, unoccupied by the opera, on account of the rebellion.

The arrival of Giordani in London this year forms a memorable era in the instrumental music of England. His powers on the violin were unequalled. The same year Dr Croza, then manager of the opera, closed, leaving the performers, and innumerable trades-people, his creditors. This incident put an end to operas of all kinds for some time.

This year a comic opera, called Il Filosofo di Campagna, composed by Caluppi, was exhibited, which surpassed in musical merit all the comic operas performed in England till the Bicona Figliuola. Signora Paganini acquired such fame by the airs allotted to her in that piece, that the crowds at her benefit were beyond example. Caps were lost, gowns torn in pieces, pieces, and ladies in full dress, without servants or carriages, were obliged to walk home, amidst the merriment of the spectators on the streets.

At this period the arrival of Giovanni Manzoli marked a splendid era in the annals of musical drama, by conferring on serious opera a degree of importance to which it had seldom yet arisen since its establishment in England. Manzoli's voice was the most powerful and voluminous soprano that had been heard since the time of Farinelli; his manner of singing was grand, and full of taste and dignity.

At this time Tenducci, who had been in England some time before, and was now returned much improved, performed in the station of second man to Manzoli.

Gaetano Guadagni made a great figure at this time. He had been in this country early in life (1748), as serious man in a burletta troop of singers. His voice was then a full and well-toned counter-tenor; but he sung wildly and carelessly. The excellence of his voice, however, attracted the notice of Handel, who assigned him the parts in his oratorios the Messiah and Samson, which had been originally composed for Mrs Cibber. He quitted London for the first time about 1753. The highest expectations of his abilities were raised by fame before his second arrival, at the time of which we treat. As an actor he seems to have had no equal on any stage in Europe. His figure was uncommonly elegant and noble; his countenance replete with beauty, intelligence, and dignity; his attitudes were full of grace and propriety. Those who remembered his voice when formerly in England were now disappointed; it was comparatively thin and feeble; he had now changed it to a soprano, and extended its compass from six or seven notes to fourteen or fifteen. The music he sung was the most simple imaginable; a few notes with frequent pauses, and opportunities of being liberated from the composer and the band, were all he required. In these effusions, seemingly extemporaneous, he displayed the native power of melody unaided by harmony or even by unisonous accompaniment; the pleasure he communicated proceeded principally from his artful manner of diminishing the tones of his voice, like the dying notes of the Aeolian harp. Most other singers affect a swell, or mezza voce; but Guadagni, after beginning a note with force, attenuated it so delicately that it possessed all the effect of extreme distance. During the season 1770 and 1771, Tenducci was the immediate successor of Guadagni. This performer, who appeared in England first only as a singer of the second or third class, was during his residence in Scotland and Ireland so much improved as to be well received as first man, not only on the stage of London but in all the great theatres of Italy.

It was during this period that dancing seemed first to gain the ascendant over music by the superior talents of Mademoiselle Heine, whose grace and execution were so perfect as to eclipse all other excellence. In the first opera performed this season (Lucio Vero) appeared Miss Cecilia Davies, known in Italy by the name of L'Ingleseina. Miss Davies had the honour of being the first English woman who had ever been thought worthy of singing on any stage in Italy. She even performed with eclat the principal female character.

Next season introduced Venanzio Ravaglini, a beautiful and animated young man; a composer as well as a singer.—His voice was sweet, clear, flexible; in compass more than two octaves.

The season 1775 and 1776 was rendered memorable by the arrival of the celebrated Caterina Gabrielli, styled Gabrielli, early in life La Crochetina, being the daughter of a cardinal's cook at Rome. She had, however, in her countenance and deportment no indications of low birth. Her manner and appearance depicted dignity and grace. So great was her reputation before her arrival in England for singing and for caprice, that the public expecting perhaps in both too much, were unwilling to allow her due praise for her performance, and were apt to ascribe every thing she did to pride and infelicity. Her voice, though exquisite, was not very powerful. Her chief excellence having been the neatness and rapidity of her execution, the surprise of the public must have been much diminished on hearing her after Miss Davies, who sung many of the same songs in the same style, and with a neatness so nearly equal, that common hearers could distinguish no difference. The discriminating critic, however, might have discovered a superior sweetness in the natural tone of the Gabrielli's voice, an elegance in the finishing of her musical periods or passages, an accent and precision in her divisions, superior not only to Miss Davies, but to every other singer of her time. In slow movements her pathetic powers, like those in general of performers most renowned for agility, were not exquisitely touching. She now resides at Bologna.

About the time of which we have been treating, the Aguari proprietors of the Pantheon ventured to engage the Aguari at the enormous salary of £120 per night, then for singing two songs only! Lucrezia Aguari was a truly wonderful performer. The lower part of her voice was full, round, and of excellent quality; its compass amazing. She had two octaves of fair natural voice, from A on the fifth line in the bass to A on the sixth line in the treble, and beyond that in alto she had in early youth more than another octave. She has been heard to ascend to B-flat in altissimo. Her shake was open and perfect; her intonation true; her execution marked and rapid; the style of her singing, in the natural compass of her voice, grand and majestic.

In 1776 arrived Anna Pozzi, as successor to the Gabrielli. She possessed a voice clear, sweet, and powerful; but her inexperience, both as an actress and as a singer, produced a contrast very unfavourable to her when compared with so celebrated a performer as Gabrielli. Since that time, however, Pozzi, with more study and knowledge, has become one of the best and most admired female singers in Italy.

After the departure of Aguari for the second and last time, the managers of the Pantheon engaged the Georgi as her successor. Her voice was exquisitely fine, but but totally uncultivated. She is now employed as the first woman in the operas of the principal cities of Italy.

During the seasons 1777 and 1778, the principal singers at the opera in London were Francesco Roncaglia and Francesca Danze, afterwards Madame Le Brun.

Roncaglia possessed a sweet-toned voice; but of the three great requisites of a complete stage-finger, pathos, grace, and execution, which the Italians call cantabile, grazia, and bravura, he could lay claim only to the second. His voice, a voce de camera, when confined to the grazia in a room, leaves nothing to wish for.

Danze had a voice well in tune, a good shake, great execution, prodigious compass, with great knowledge of music; yet the pleasure her performance imparted was not equal to these accomplishments; but her object was not so much pathos and grace, as to surprise by the imitation of the tone and difficulties of instruments.

This year Gasparo Pacchierotti appeared in London, whither his high reputation had penetrated long before. The natural tone of his voice is interesting, sweet, and pathetic. His compass downwards is great, with an accent up to Bb, and sometimes to C in alt. He possesses an unbounded fancy, and the power not only of executing the most difficult and refined passages, but of inventing embellishment entirely new. Ferdinando Bertoni, a well-known composer, came along with Pacchierotti to Britain.

During the last ten years, dancing has become an important branch of the amusements of the opera-house. Mademoiselle Hénel, M. Vefris le Jeune, Mademoiselle Baccelli, had, during some years, delighted the audience at the opera; but on the arrival of M. Vefris l’Aîné, pleasure was exchanged for ecstasy. In the year 1781, Pacchierotti had by this time been so frequently heard that his singing was no impediment to conversation; but while the elder Vefris was on the stage, not a breathing was to be heard. Those lovers of music who talked the loudest while Pacchierotti sang, were in agonies of terror lest the graceful movements of Vefris, le dieu de la dance, should be disturbed by audible approbation. Since that time, the most mute and respectful attention has been paid to the manly grace of Le Picq, and the light fantastic toe of the younger Vefris; to the Rossis, the Theodores, the Coulons, the Hillingsburgs; while the slighted fingers have been disturbed, not by the violence of applause, but the clamour of inattention.

The year 1784 was rendered a memorable era in the annals of music by the splendid and magnificent manner in which the birth and genius of Handel were celebrated in Westminster Abbey and the Pantheon, by five performances of pieces selected from his own works, and executed by a band of more than 500 voices and instruments, in the presence and under the immediate auspices of their majesties and the first personages of the kingdom. The commemoration of Handel has been since established as an annual musical festival for charitable purposes; in which the number of performers and the perfection of the performances have continued to increase. In 1785 the band, vocal and instrumental, amounted to 616; in 1786 to 741; in 1787 to 806.

Dr Burney published An Account of the Musical Performances in Commemoration of Handel, for the benefit of the Musical Fund. The members and guardians of that fund are now incorporated under the title of Royal Society of Musicians. See Handel.

This year Pacchierotti and his friend Bertoni left England. About the same time our country was deprived of the eminent composer Sacchini, and Giarini the greatest performer on the violin then in Europe.

As a compensation for these losses, this memorable Excellence year is distinguished by the arrival of Madam Mara, of Madam whose performance in the commemoration of Handel in Westminster Abbey inspired an audience of 3000 of the first people of the kingdom, not only with pleasure but with ecstasy and rapture.

In 1786 arrived Giovanni Rubinelli. His voice is a Rubinelli, true and full contralto from C in the middle of the scale to the octave above. His style is grand; his execution neat and distinct; his taste and embellishments new, select, and masterly.

In 1788 a new dance, composed by the celebrated M. Noverre, called Cupid and Psyche, was exhibited along with the opera La Locandiera, which produced an effect so uncommon as to deserve notice. So great was the pleasure it afforded to the spectators, that Noverre was unanimously brought on the stage and crowned with laurel by the principal performers. This, though common in France, was a new mark of approbation in England.

This year arrived Signor Luigi Marchesi, a singer whose talents have been the subject of praise and admiration on every great theatre of Europe. Marchesi’s style of singing is not only elegant and refined in an uncommon degree, but often grand and full of dignity, particularly in his recitative and occasional low notes. His variety of embellishment and facility of running extempore divisions are wonderful. Many of his graces are elegant and of his own invention.

The three greatest Italian singers of the present times are certainly Pacchierotti, Rubinelli, and Marchesi. In discriminating the several excellencies of each of these great performers, a very respectable judge, Dr Burney, has particularly praised the sweet and touching voice of Pacchierotti; his fine shake, his exquisite Marchesi, his great fancy, and his divine expression in pathetic songs; Of Rubinelli’s voice, the fulness, steadiness, and majesty, the accuracy of his intonations, his judicious graces; Of Marchesi’s voice, the elegance and flexibility, his grandeur in recitative, and his boundless fancy and embellishments.—Having mentioned Dr Burney, we are in justice bound to acknowledge the aid we have derived from his history; a work which we greatly prefer to every other modern production on the subject. During the latter part of the present century many eminent composers have flourished on the continent; such as Jomelli, the family of the Bachs, Gluck, Haydn, and many others, whose different styles and excellencies would well deserve to be particularised, would our limits permit. With the Sovereign fame regard to brevity, we can do no more than just princes mention the late king of Prussia, the late elector of Bavaria, and prince Lobkowitz, as eminent dilettanti of modern times.

Besides the opera-singers whom we have mentioned, our theatres and public gardens have exhibited singers of considerable merit. In 1730 Miss Rafter, afterwards the celebrated Mrs Clive, first appeared on the stage at Drury-lane as a singer. The same year introduced Miss Cecilia Young, afterward the wife of Dr Arne. Her style of singing was infinitely superior to that of any other English woman of her time.

Our favourite musicians at this time were, Dubourg, Clegg, Clarke, and Felting, on the violin; Kytch on the hautboy; Jack Felting on the German flute; Dalton on the common flute; Karba on the bassoon; Valentine Snow on the trumpet; and on the organ, Roleingrave, Green, Robinson, Magnus, Jack James, and the blind Stasley, who seems to have been preferred. The favourite playhouse singer was Salway; and at concerts Mountier of Chichester.

As composers for our national theatre, Pepusch and Galliard seem to have been unrivalled till 1732; when two competitors appeared, who were long in possession of the public favour; We allude to John Frederick Lampe and Thomas Augustus Arne.

In 1736 Mrs Cibber, who had captivated every hearer of sensibility by her native sweetness of voice and powers of expression as a singer, made her first attempt as a tragic actress. The same year Beard became a favourite singer at Covent-garden. At this time Miss Young, afterwards Mrs Arne, and her two sisters Isabella and Esther, were the favourite English female singers.

In 1738 was instituted the fund for the support of decayed musicians and their families.

It was in 1745 that Mr Tyers, proprietor of Vauxhall gardens, first added vocal music to the other entertainments of that place. A short time before Ranelagh had become a place of public amusement.

In 1749 arrived Giardini, whose great taste, hand, and style in playing on the violin, procured him universal admiration. A few years after his arrival he formed a morning academia or concert at his house, composed chiefly of his scholars.

About this time San Martini and Charles Avison were eminent composers.

Of near 150 musical pieces brought on our national theatres within these 40 years, 30 of them at least were set by Arne. The style of this composer, if analyzed, would perhaps appear to be neither Italian nor English; but an agreeable mixture of both and of Scotch.

The late earl of Kelly, who died but a few years ago, deserves particular notice, as possessed of a very eminent degree of musical science, far superior to other dilettanti, and perhaps not inferior to any professor of his time. There was no part of theoretical or practical music in which he was not thoroughly versed: He possessed a strength of hand on the violin, and a genius for composition, with which few professors are gifted.

Charles Frederic Abel was an admirable musician: his performance on the viol da gamba was in every particular complete and perfect. He had a hand which no difficulties could embarrass; a taste the most refined and delicate; a judgment so correct and certain as never to permit a single note to escape him without meaning. His compositions were easy and elegantly simple. In writing and playing an adagio he was superior to all praise; the most pleasing yet learned modulation, the richest harmony, the most elegant and polished melody, were all expressed with the most exquisite feeling, taste, and science. His manner of playing an adagio soon became the model of imitation for all our young performers on bowed instruments. Bartholemon, Cervetto, Cramer, and Crodill, may in this respect be ranked as of his school. All lovers of music must have lamented that Abel in youth had not attached himself to an instrument more worthy of his genius, taste, and learning, than the viol da gamba, that remnant of the old chest of viols which during the last century was a necessary appendage of a nobleman's or gentleman's family throughout Europe, previous to the admission of violins, tenors, and basses, in private houses or public concerts. Since the death of the late elector of Bavaria, who was next to Abel (the best performer on the viol da gamba in Europe), the instrument seems quite laid aside. It was used longer in Germany than elsewhere; but the place of gambist seems now as much suppressed in the chapels of German princes as that of lutenists. The celebrated performer on the violin, Lolle, came to England in 1785. Such was his caprice, that he was seldom heard; and so eccentric was his style and composition, that by many he was regarded as a madman. He was, however, during his lucid intervals a very great and expressive performer in the furious style.

Mrs Billington, after distinguishing herself in childhood as a neat and expressive performer on the piano-forte, appeared all at once in 1786 as a sweet and captivating singer. In emulation of the Mara and other great bravura singers, she at first too frequently attempted passages of difficulty; now, however, so greatly has she improved, that no song seems too high or too rapid for her execution. The natural tone of her voice is so exquisitely sweet, her knowledge of music so considerable, her taste so true, her clothes and embellishments so various, her expressions so grateful, that envy only or apathy could hear her without delight. The present composers, and performers of the first class, are so well known to the lovers of the art, that it would be needless and improper to mention them particularly: and to describe the distinctive powers of Bartholemon, Cramer, Piellain, Raimonde, and Salamon, would be too delicate a task for us to undertake.

The Catch-club at the Thatched House, instituted in 1762 by the late earl of Eglinton, the present duke of Leinster, the Queenberry, and others; and the concert of ancient music, suggested by the earl of Sandwich in 1776, have had a beneficial effect in improving the art.

We have been somewhat particular in our account of musical affairs in our own country during the present century, as what would be most interesting to general readers, and of which a well-informed gentleman would not wish to be ignorant. The professor and connoisseur is not to be expected to content himself with disquisitions much more minute than those of which our limits can be supposed to admit. ELEMENTS OF MUSIC.

Theoretical and Practical (†).

PRÉLIMINARY DISCOURSE.

Music may be considered, either as an art, which has for its object one of the greatest pleasures of which our senses (‡) are susceptible; or as a science, by which that art is reduced to principles. This is the double view in which we mean to treat of music in this work.

It has been the case with music as with all the other arts invented by men: some facts were at first discovered by accident; soon afterwards reflection and observation investigated others; and from these facts, properly disposed and united, philosophers were not slow in forming a body of science, which afterwards increased by degrees.

The first theories of music were perhaps as ancient as the earliest age which we know to have been distinguished by philosophy, even as the age of Pythagoras; nor does history leave us any room to doubt, that from the period when that philosopher taught, the ancients cultivated music, both as an art and as a science, with great affluence. But there remains to us much uncertainty concerning the degree of perfection to which they brought it. Almost every question which has been proposed with respect to the music of the ancients has divided the learned; and may probably still continue to divide them, for want of monuments sufficient in their number, and incontestable in their nature, from whence we might be enabled to exhibit testimonies and discoveries instead of suppositions and conjectures. In the preceding history we have stated a few facts respecting the nature of ancient music, and the inventors of the several musical instruments; but it were to be wished, that, in order to elucidate, as much as possible, a point so momentous in the history of the sciences, some person of learning, equally skilled in the Greek language and in music, should exert himself to unite and diffuse in the same work the most profusion of bable opinions established or proposed by the learned upon a subject so difficult and curious. This philosophical history of ancient music is a work which might highly embellish the literature of our times.

In the mean time, till an author can be found sufficiently instructed in the arts and in history to undertake such a labour with success, we shall content ourselves with considering the present state of music, and limit our endeavours to the explication of those accretions which have accrued to the theory of music in these latter times.

There are two departments in music, melody * and harmony †. Melody is the art of arranging several sounds in succession one to another in a manner agreeable to the ear; harmony is the art of pleasing that organ by the union of several sounds which are heard at once and the same time. Melody has been known and felt through all ages; perhaps the same cannot be affirmed of harmony (§); we know not whether the ancients made any use of it or not, nor at what period it began to be practised.

Not but that the ancients certainly employed in their music

(†) To deliver the elementary principles of music, theoretical and practical, in a manner which may prove at once entertaining and instructive, without protracting this article much beyond the limits prescribed in our plan, appears to us no easy task. We therefore hesitated for some time, whether to try our own strength, or to follow some eminent author on the same subject. Of these the last seemed preferable. Amongst these authors, none appeared to us to have written anything so fit for our purpose as M. D'Alembert, whose treatise on music is the most methodical, perspicuous, concise, and elegant dissertation on that subject with which we are acquainted. As it was unknown to most English readers before the former edition of this work, it ought to have all the merit of an original. We have given a faithful translation of it; but in the notes, several remarks are added, and many authors quoted, which will not be found in the original. It is a work so systematically composed, that all attempts to abridge it, without rendering it obscure and imperfect, would be impracticable. It is perhaps impossible to render the system of music intelligible in a work of less compass than that with which our readers are now presented; and, in our judgment, a performance of this kind, which is written in such a manner as not to be generally understood, were much better suppressed.

(‡) In this passage, and in the definitions of melody and harmony, our author seems to have adopted the vulgar error, that the pleasures of music terminates in corporeal sense. He would have pronounced it absurd to assert the same thing of painting. Yet if the former be no more than a mere pleasure of corporal sense, the latter must likewise be ranked in the same predicament. We acknowledge that corporeal sense is the vehicle of sound; but it is plain from our immediate feelings, that the results of sound arranged according to the principles of melody, or combined and disposed according to the laws of harmony, are the objects of a reflex or internal sense.

For a more satisfactory discussion of this matter, the reader may consult that elegant and judicious treatise on Musical Expression by Mr. Avison. In the mean time it may be necessary to add, that, in order to shun the appearance of affectation, we shall use the ordinary terms by which musical sensations, or the mediums by which they are conveyed, are generally denominated.

(§) Though no certainty can be obtained what the ancients understood of harmony, nor in what manner and in what period they practised it; yet it is not without probability, that, both in speculation and practice, they Elements.

Music those chords which were most perfect and simple; such as the octave, the fifth, and the third; but it seems doubtful whether they knew any of the other consonances or not, or even whether in practice they could deduce the same advantages from the simple chords which were known to them, that have afterwards accrued from experience and combinations.

If that harmony which we now practice owes its origin to the experience and reflection of the moderns, there is the highest probability that the first essays of this art, as of all the others, were feeble, and the progress of its efforts almost imperceptible; and that, in the course of time, improving by small gradations, the successive labours of several geniuses have elevated it to that degree of perfection in which at present we find it.

The first inventor of harmony escapes our investigation, from the same causes which leave us ignorant of those who first invented each particular science; because the original inventors could only advance one step, a succeeding discoverer afterwards made a more sensible improvement, and the first imperfect essays in every kind were lost in the more extensive and striking views to which they led. Thus the arts which we now enjoy, are for the most part far from being due to any particular man, or to any nation exclusively: they are produced by the united and successive endeavours of mankind; they are the results of such continued and united reflections, as have been formed by all men at all periods and in all nations.

It might, however, be wished, that after having ascertained, with as much accuracy as possible, the state of ancient music by the small number of Greek authors which remain to us, the same application were immediately directed to investigate the first incontestable traces of harmony which appear in the succeeding ages, and to pursue those traces from period to period. The products of these researches would doubtless be very imperfect, because the books and monuments of the middle ages are by far too few to enlighten that gloomy and barbarous era; yet these discoveries would still be precious to a philosopher, who delights to observe the human mind in the gradual evolutions of its powers, and the progress of its attainments.

The first compositions upon the laws of harmony which we know, are of no higher antiquity than two ages prior to our own; and they were followed by many others. But none of these essays was capable of satisfying the mind concerning the principles of harmony: they confined themselves almost entirely to the single occupation of collecting rules, without endeavouring to account for them; neither had their analogies one with another, nor their common source, been perceived; a blind and unenlightened experience was the only compass by which the artist could direct and regulate his course.

M. Rameau was the first who began to transmute light and order through this chaos. In the different receptacles produced by the same sonorous body, he found not deduced the most probable origin of harmony, and the cause of that pleasure which we receive from it. His principle was till by he unfolded, and showed how the different phenomena of music were produced by it: he reduced all the consonances to a small number of simple and fundamental chords, of which the others are only combinations or various arrangements. He has, in short, been able to discover, and render sensible to others, the mutual dependence between melody and harmony.

Though these different topics may be contained in the writings of this celebrated artist, and in these writings may be understood by philosophers who are likewise adepts in the art of music; still, however, such musicians as were not philosophers, and such philosophers as were not musicians, have long desired to see these objects brought more within the reach of their capacity: such is the intention of the treatise I now present to the public. I had formerly composed it for the use of some friends. As the work appeared to them clear and methodical, they have engaged me to publish it, persuaded (though perhaps with too much credulity) that it might be useful to facilitate the progress of initiates in the study of harmony.

This was the only motive which could have determined me to publish a book of which I might without hesitation assume the honour, if its materials had been the fruits of my own invention, but in which I can now boast no other merit than that of having developed, elucidated, and perhaps in some respects improved, the ideas of another (c).

The first edition of this essay, published 1752, having been favourably received by the world, and copies of it no longer to be found in the hands of bookellers, I have endeavoured to render this more perfect. The Account of detail which I mean to give of my labour, will present the reader with a general idea of the principle of M. Rameau, of the consequences deduced from it, of the manner in which I have disposed this principle and its consequences; in short, of what is still wanting, and might be advantageous to the theory of this amiable art; of what still remains for the learned to contribute towards the perfection of this theory; of the rocks and quicksands which they ought to avoid in this research, and which could serve no other purpose than to retard their progress.

Every sonorous body, besides its principal sound, likewise exhibits to the ear the 12th and 17th major concordant sounds, known for a considerable time, constitutes

they were in possession of what we denominate counterpoint: Without supposing this, there are some passages in the Greek authors which can admit of no satisfactory interpretation. See the Origin and Progress of Language, Vol. II. Besides, we can discover some vestiges of harmony, however rude and imperfect, in the history of the Gothic ages, and amongst the most barbarous people. This they could not have derived from more cultivated countries, because it appears to be incorporated with their national music. The most rational account, therefore, which can be given, seems to be, that it was conveyed in a mechanical or traditional manner through the Roman provinces from a more remote period of antiquity.

(c) See M. Rameau's letter upon this subject, Merc. de Mai 1752. tutes the basis of the whole theory of M. Rameau, and the foundation upon which he builds the whole superstructure of a musical system*. In these our elements may be seen, how from this experiment one may deduce, by an easy operation of reason, the chief points of melody and harmony; the perfect chord, as well major as minor; the two tetra chords employed in ancient music; the formation of our diatonic scale; the different values which the same found may have in that scale, according to the turn which is given to the basis*; the alterations which we observe in that scale, and the reason why they are totally imperceptible to the ear; the rules peculiar to the mode major; the difficulty in intonation of forming three tones in succession; the reason why two perfect chords are proscribed in immediate succession in the diatonic order; the origin of the minor mode, its subordination to the mode major, and its variations; the use of discord; the causes of such effects as are produced by different kinds of music, whether diatonic, chromatic*, or enharmonic†; the principles and laws of temperament‡. In this discourse we can only point out those different objects, the subsequent essay being designed to explain them with the minuteness and precision which they require.

One end which we have proposed in this treatise, was not only to place the discoveries of M. Rameau in their most conspicuous and advantageous light, but even in particular respects to render them more simple. —For instance, besides the fundamental experiment which we have mentioned above, that celebrated musician, to render the explication of some particular phenomena in music more accessible, had recourse to another experiment; I mean that which shows that a sonorous body struck and put in vibration, forces its 12th and 13th major in descending to divide themselves and produce a tremulous sound. The chief use which M. Rameau made of this second experiment was to investigate the origin of the minor mode, and to give a satisfactory account of some other rules established in harmony; and with respect to this in our first edition we have implicitly followed him; in this we have found means to deduce from the first experiment alone the formation of the minor mode, and besides to disengage that formation from all the questions which were foreign to it.

It is the same case with some other points (as the origin of the chord of the sub-dominant§, and the explication of the seventh in some peculiar respects), upon which it is imagined that we have simplified, and perhaps in some measure extended, the principles of the celebrated artist.

We have likewise banished from this edition, as from the former, every consideration of geometrical, arithmetical, and harmonical proportions and progressions, which authors have endeavoured to find in the mixture and protraction of tones produced by a sonorous body; persuaded as we are, that M. Rameau was under no necessity of paying the least regard to these proportions, which we believe to be not only useless, but even, if we may venture to say so, fallacious when applied to the theory of music. In short, though the relations produced by the octave, the fifth, and the third, &c., were quite different from what they are; though in these chords we should neither remark any progression nor any law; though they should be incommensurable with another; the protracted tone of a sonorous body, and the multiplied sounds which result from it, are a sufficient foundation for the whole harmonic system.

But though this work is intended to explain the theoretical theory of music, and to reduce it to a system more mucifacian complete and more luminous than has hitherto been cautioned done, we ought to caution those who shall read this to the attentive, that they may be careful not to deceive million of themselves, either by misapprehending the nature of mathematical object, or the end which our endeavours pursue. We must not here look for that striking evidence which principles is peculiar to geometrical discoveries alone, and which in music can be so rarely obtained in these mixed disquisitions, where natural philosophy is likewise concerned; into the theory of musical phenomena there must always enter a particular kind of metaphysics, which these phenomena implicitly take for granted, and which brings along with it its natural obscurity. In this subject, therefore, it would be absurd to expect what is called demonstration; it is an achievement of no small importance, to have reduced the principal facts to a system consistent with itself, and firmly connected in its parts; to have deduced them from one simple experiment; and to have established upon this foundation the most common and essential rules of the musical art. But in another view, if here it be improper to require that intimate and unalterable conviction which can only be produced by the strongest evidence, we remain in the mean time doubtful whether it is possible to elucidate this subject more strongly.

After this declaration, one should not be astonished, that amongst the facts which are deduced from our fundamental experiment, there should be some which appear immediately to depend upon that experiment, and others which are deduced from it in a way more remote and less direct. In disquisitions of natural philosophy, where we are scarcely allowed to use any other arguments, except such as arise from analogy or congruity, it is natural that the analogy should be sometimes more sometimes less sensible; and we will venture to affirm, that such a mind must be very improper for philosophy, which cannot recognize and distinguish this gradation and the different circumstances on which it proceeds. It is not even surprising, that in a subject where analogy alone can take place, this conductors should desert us all at once in our attempts to account for certain phenomena. This likewise happens in the subject which we now treat; nor do we conceal the fact, however mortifying, that there are certain points (though their number be but small) which appear still in some degree unaccountable from our principle. Such, for instance, is the procedure of the diatonic scale in descending; the formation of the chord commonly termed the sixth redundant* or superfluous,* See Re- and some other facts of less importance, for which as abundant yet we can scarcely offer any satisfactory account except from experience alone.

Thus, though the greatest number of the phenomena in the art of music appear to be deducible in a simple and easy manner from the protracted tone of sonorous bodies, one ought not perhaps with too much temerity to affirm as yet, that this mixed and protracted tone is demonstratively the only original principle But in the mean time it would not be less unjust to reject this principle, because certain phenomena appear to be deduced from it with less success than others. It is only necessary to conclude from this, either that by future scrutinies means may be found for reducing these phenomena to this principle; or that harmony has perhaps some other unknown principle, more general than that which results from the protracted and compounded tone of sonorous bodies, and of which this is only a branch; or, lastly, that we ought not perhaps to attempt the reduction of the whole science of music to one and the same principle; which, however, is the natural effect of an impatience so frequent even among philosophers themselves, which induces them to take a part for the whole, and to judge of objects in their full extent by the greatest number of their appearances.

In those sciences which are called physico-mathematical (and amongst this number perhaps the science of sounds may be placed), there are some phenomena which depend only upon one single principle and one single experiment; there are others which necessarily suppose a greater number both of experiments and principles, whose combination is indissoluble in forming an exact and complete system; and music perhaps is in this last case. It is for this reason, that, whilst we bestow on M. Rameau all due praise, we should not at the same time neglect to stimulate the learned in their endeavours to carry them still to higher degrees of perfection, by adding, if it is possible, such improvements as may be wanting to consummate the science.

Whatever the result of their efforts may be, the reputation of this intelligent artist has nothing to fear; he will still have the advantage of being the first who readered music a science worthy of philosophical attention; to have made its practice more simple and easy; and to have taught musicians to employ in this subject the light of reason and analogy.

We would the more willingly persuade those who are skilled in theory and eminent in practice to extend and improve the views of him who before them pursued and pointed out the career, because many amongst them have already made laudable attempts, and have even been in some measure successful in diffusing new light through the theory of this enchanting art. It was with this view that the celebrated Tartini presented us in 1754 with a treatise of harmony, founded on a principle different from that of M. Rameau. This principle is the result of a most beautiful experiment. If at once two different sounds are produced from two instruments of the same kind, these two

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(d) The demonstration of the principles of harmony by M. Rameau was not thus intitled in the exposition which he presented in the year 1749 to the Academy of Sciences, and which that Society besides approved with all the eulogiums which the author deserved; the title, as inserted in the register of the academy, was, "A memorial, in which are explained the foundations of a system of musical theoretical and practical." It is likewise under this title that it was announced and approved of by the Commissioners, who in their printed report, which the public may read along with M. Rameau's memorial, have never dignified his theory with any other name than that of a system, the only name in reality which is expressive of its nature. M. Rameau, who, after the approbation of the Academy, has thought himself at liberty to adorn his system with the name of a demonstration, did not certainly recollect what the Academy has frequently declared; that, in approving any work, it was by no means implied, that the principles of that work appeared to them demonstrated. In short, M. Rameau himself, in some writings posterior to what he calls his demonstration, acknowledges, that upon particular points in the theory of the musical art, he is under a necessity of having recourse to analogy and aptitude; this excludes every idea of demonstration, and restores the theory of the musical art exhibited by M. Rameau to the class in which it can only be ranked with propriety, I mean the class of probabilities.

(+) Had the utility of the preliminary discourse in which we are now engaged been less important and obvious than it really is, we should not have given ourselves the trouble of translating, nor our readers that of perusing it. But it must be evident to every one, that the cautions here given, and the advices offered, are no less applicable to students than to authors. The first question here decided is, Whether pure mathematics can be successfully applied to the theory of music? The author is justified of a contrary opinion. It may certainly be doubted with great justice, whether the solid contents of sonorous bodies, and their degrees of cohesion or elasticity, can be ascertained with sufficient accuracy to render them the subjects of musical speculation, and to determine their effects with such precision as may render the conclusions deduced from them geometrically true. It is admitted, that sound is a secondary quality of matter, and that secondary qualities have no obvious connection which we can trace with the sensations produced by them. Experience, therefore, and not speculation, is the grand criterion of musical phenomena. For the effects of geometry in illustrating the theory of music (if any will still be so credulous as to pay them much attention), the English reader may consult Smith's Harmonics, Malcom's Dissertation on Music, and Pleydel's Treatise on the same subject inserted in a former edition of this work. Our author next treats of the famous discovery made by Sig. Tartini, of which the reader may accept the following compendious account.

If two sounds be produced at the same time properly tuned and with due force, from their conjunction a third sound is generated, so much more distinctly to be perceived by delicate ears as the relation between the generating sounds is more simple; yet from this rule we must except the unison and octave. From the fifth is produced a sound unison with its lowest generator; from the fourth, one which is an octave lower than the highest of its generators; from the third major, one which is an octave lower than its lowest; and from the sixth found sounds generate a third different from both the others. They have inserted in the Encyclopædia, under the article Fundamental, a detail of this experiment according to M. Tartini; and we owe to the public an information of which in composing this article we were ignorant: M. Rameau, a member of the Royal Society at Montpellier, had presented to that society in the year 1753, before the work of M. Tartini had appeared, a memorial printed the same year, and where may be found the same experiment displayed at full length.

In relating this fact, which it was necessary for us to do, it is by no means our intention to detract in any degree from the reputation of M. Tartini; we are persuaded that he owes this discovery to his own researches alone: but we think ourselves obliged in honour to give public testimony in favour of him who was the first in exhibiting this discovery.

But whatever be the case, it is in this experiment that M. Tartini attempts to find the origin of harmony: his book, however, is written in a manner so obscure, that it is impossible for us to form any judgment of it; and we are told that others distinguished for their knowledge of the science are of the same opinion. It were to be wished that the author would engage some man of letters, equally practised in music and skilled in the art of writing, to unfold these ideas which he has not discovered with sufficient perspicuity, and from whence the art might perhaps derive considerable advantage if they were placed in a proper light. Of this I am so much more persuaded, that even though this experiment should not be regarded by others in the same view with M. Tartini as the foundation of the musical art, it is nevertheless extremely probable that one might use it with the greatest advantage to enlighten and facilitate the practice of harmony.

In exhorting philosophers and artists to make new attempts for the advancement of the theory of music, we ought at the same time to let them know the danger of mistaking what is the real end of their researches. Experience is the only foundation upon which they can proceed; it is alone by the observation of facts, by bringing them together in one view, by showing their dependency upon one, if possible, or at least upon a very small number of primary facts, that they can reach the end to which they so ardently aspire, the important end of establishing an exact discourse, theory of music, where nothing is wanting, nothing obscure, but every thing discovered in its full extent, and in its proper light. The philosopher who is properly enlightened, will not give himself the trouble to explain such facts as are less essential to his art, because he can discern those on which he ought to expatiate for its proper illustration. If one would estimate them according to their proper value, he will inadequately find it necessary to cast his eyes upon the attempts of natural philosophers who have discovered of the greatest skill in their science; to explain, for in-factual phantasmagoria, the multiplicity of tones produced by sonorous bodies. These fables, after having remarked (what is by no means difficult to conclude) that the universal vibration of a musical string is a mixture of several partial vibrations, from thence infer, that a sonorous body ought to produce a multiplicity of tones, as it really does. But why should this multiplied sound only appear to contain three, and why these three preferable to others? Some pretend that there are particles in the air, which, by their different degrees of magnitude and texture, being naturally susceptible of different oscillations, produce the multiplicity of sound in question. But what do we know of all this hypothetical doctrine? And though it should even be granted, that there is such a diversity of tension in these aerial particles, how should this diversity prevent them from being all of them confounded in their vibrations by the motions of a sonorous body? What then should be the result, when the vibrations arrive at our ears, but a confused and inappreciable noise, where one appreciable could not distinguish any particular sound?

If philosophical musicians ought not to lose their metaphysical time in searching for mechanical explications of the non-existent phenomena in music, explications which will always be inadequate, found vague and unsatisfactory; much less is it their province to exhaust their powers in vain attempts to rise above their sphere into a region still more remote from the prospect of their faculties, and to lose themselves in a labyrinth of metaphysical speculations upon the causes of that pleasure which we feel from harmony. In vain would they accumulate hypothesis on hypothesis, to find a reason why some chords should please

fifth minor (whose highest note forms an octave with the lowest in the third formerly mentioned) will be produced a sound lower by a double octave than the highest of the lesser sixth; from the third minor, one which is double the distance of a greater third from its lowest; but from the sixth major (whose highest note makes an octave to the lowest in the third minor) will be produced a sound only lower by double the quantity of a greater third than the highest; from the second major, a sound lower by a double octave than the lowest; from a second minor, a sound lower by triple the quantity of a third major than the highest; from the interval of a diatonic or greater semitone, a sound lower by a triple octave than the highest; from that of a minor or chromatic semitone, a sound lower by the quantity of a fifth four times multiplied than the lowest, &c. &c.

But that these musical phenomena may be tried by experiments proper to ascertain them, two hautboys tuned with scrupulous exactness must be procured, whilst the musicians are placed at the distance of some paces one from the other, and the hearers in the middle. The violin will likewise give the same chords, but they will be less distinctly perceived, and the experiment more fallacious, because the vibrations of other strings may be supposed to enter into it.

If our English reader should be curious to examine these experiments and the deductions made from them in the theory of music, he will find them clearly explained and illustrated in a treatise called Principles and Power of Harmony, printed at London in the year 1771. Let us in sincerity confess our ignorance concerning the genuine causes of these effects (†). The metaphysical conjectures concerning the acoustic organs are probably in the same predicament with those which are formed concerning the organs of vision, if one may speak so, in which philosophers have even till now made such inconsiderable progress, and in all likelihood will not be surpassed by their successors.

Since the theory of music, even to those who confine themselves within its limits, implies questions from which every wise musician will abstain, with much greater reason should they avoid idle excursions beyond the boundaries of that theory, and endeavours to investigate between music and the other sciences chimerical relations which have no foundation in nature. The singular opinions advanced upon this subject by some even of the most celebrated musicians, deserve not to be rescued from oblivion, nor refuted; and ought only to be regarded as a new proof how far men of genius may deviate from truth and taste, when they engage in subjects of which they are ignorant.

The rules which we have attempted to establish concerning the track which every one ought to pursue in the theory of the musical art, may suffice to show our readers the end which we have proposed, and which we have endeavoured to attain in this Work. We have nothing to do here (for it is proper that we repeat it), we have nothing to do with the mechanical principles of protracted and harmonic tones produced by sonorous bodies; principles which till now have been explored in vain, and which perhaps may be long explored with the same success; we have still

† We have as great an aversion as our author to the explication of musical phenomena from mechanical principles; yet we fear the following observations, deduced from irresistible and universal experience, evidently show that the latter necessarily depend on the former. It is, for instance, universally allowed, that dissonances grate and concords please a musical ear: it is likewise no less unanimously agreed, that in proportion as a chord is perfect, the pleasure is increased; now the perfection of a chord consists in the regularity and frequency of coincident oscillations between two sonorous bodies impelled to vibrate: thus the third is a chord less perfect than the fifth, and the fifth than the octave. Of all these consonances, therefore, the octave is most pleasing to the ear; the fifth next, and the third last. In absolute discords, the vibrations are never coincident, and of consequence a perpetual pulsation or jarring is recognized between the protracted sounds, which exceedingly hurts the ear; but in proportion as the vibrations coincide, those pulsations are superceded, and a kindred formed betwixt the two continued sounds, which delights even the corporeal sense: that relation, therefore, without recognizing the aptitudes which produce it, must be the obvious cause of the pleasure which chords give to the ear. What we mean by coincident vibrations is, that while one sonorous body performs a given number of vibrations, another performs a different number in the same time; so that the vibrations of the quickest must sometimes be simultaneous with those of the slowest, as will plainly appear from the following deduction: Between the extremes of a third, the vibrations of the highest are as 5 to 4 of the lowest; those of the fifth as 3 to 2; those of the octave as 2 to 1. Thus it is obvious, that in proportion to the frequent coincidence of periodical vibrations, the compound sensation is more agreeable to the ear. Now, to inquire why that organ should be rather pleased with these than with the pulsation and tremulous motion of encountering vibrations which can never coalesce, would be to ask why the touch is rather pleased with polished than rough surfaces? or, why the eye is rather pleased with the waving line of Hogarth than with sharp angles and abrupt or irregular prominences? No alteration of which any chord is susceptible will hurt the ear unless it should violate or destroy the regular and periodical coincidence of vibrations. When alterations can be made without this disagreeable effect, they form a pleasing diversity; but still this fact corroborates our argument, that in proportion as any chord is perfect, it is impatient of the smallest alteration; for this reason, even in temperament, the octave endures no alteration at all, and the fifth as little as possible. less to do with the metaphysical causes of those pleasing sensations which are impressed on the mind by harmony; causes which are still less discovered, and which, according to all appearances, will remain latent in perpetual obscurity. We are alone concerned to show how the chief and most essential laws of harmony may be deduced from one single experiment; and for which, if we may speak so, preceding arts have been under a necessity of groping in the dark.

With an intention to render this work as generally useful as possible, I have endeavoured to adapt it to the capacity even of those who are absolutely uninstructed in music. To accomplish this design, it appeared necessary to pursue the following plan.

To begin with a short introduction, in which are defined the technical terms most frequently used in this art; such as chord, harmony, key, third, fifth, octave, &c.

Afterwards to enter into the theory of harmony, which is explained according to M. Rameau, with all possible perspicuity. This is the subject of the first part; which, as well as the introduction, presupposes no other knowledge of music than that of the names and powers of the syllables, ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, or C, D, E, F, G, A, B, which all the world knows (†).

The theory of harmony requires some arithmetical calculations, which are necessary for comparing sounds one with another. These calculations are very short, extremely simple, and conducted in such a manner as to be sensibly comprehended by every one; they demand no operation but what is clearly explained, and which every school-boy with the slightest attention may perform. Yet, that even the trouble of this may be spared to such as are not disposed to take it, I have not inserted these calculations in the body of the treatise, but transferred them to the notes, which the reader may omit, if he can satisfy himself by taking for granted the propositions contained in the work, which will be found proved in the notes.

These calculations I have not endeavoured to multiply; I could even have wished to suppress them, if it had been possible: so much did it appear to me to be apprehended that my readers might be misled upon this subject, and might either believe themselves, or at least suspect me of believing, all this arithmetic necessary to form an art. Calculations may indeed facilitate the understanding of certain points in the theory, as of the relations between the different notes in the gamut and of the temperament; but the calculations necessary for treating of these points are so simple, and, to speak more properly, of so little importance, that nothing can require a less minute or ostentatious display. Do not let us imitate those musicians who, believing themselves geometers, or those geometers who, believing themselves musicians, fill their writings with figures upon figures; imagining, perhaps, that this apparatus is necessary to the art. The propensity of adorning their works with a false air of science, can only impose upon credulity and ignorance, and serve no other purpose but to render their treatises more obscure and less instructive. In the character of a geometer, I think I have some right to protest here (if I may be permitted to express myself in this manner) against such ridiculous abuse of geometry in music.

This I may do with so much more reason, that in mathematics this subject the foundations of those calculations are actual conclusions not transferable in any manner hypothetical, and can never arise to a degree of certainty above hypothesis. The relations sensible of the octave as 1 to 2, that of the fifth as 2 to 3, objects that of the third major as 4 to 5, &c., are not perhaps without the genuine relations established in nature; but only relations which approach them, and such as experience can discover. For are the results of experience anything more but mere approaches to truth?

But happily these approximated relations are sufficient, though they should not be exactly agreeable to truth, for giving a satisfactory account of those phenomena which depend on the relations of sound; as in the difference between the notes in the gamut, of the alterations necessary in the fifth and third, of the different manner in which instruments are tuned, and other facts of the same kind. If the relations of the octave, of the fifth, and of the third, are not exactly such as we have supposed them, at least no experiments can prove that they are not so; and since these relations are signified by a simple expression, since they are besides sufficient for all the purposes of theory, it would not only be useless, but even contrary to sound philosophy, should any one incline to invent other relations, to form the basis of any system of music less easy and simple than that which we have delineated in this treatise.

The second part contains the most essential rules of composition*, or in other words the practice of harmony. These rules are founded on the principles laid down in the first part; yet those who wish to understand no more than is necessary for practice, without exploring the reasons why such practical rules are necessary, may limit the objects of their study to the introduction and the second part. They who have read the first part, will find at every rule contained in the second, a reference to that passage in

(†) The names of the seven notes used by the French are here retained, and will indeed be continued through the whole ensuing work; as we imagine, that, if properly associated with the sounds which they designate, they will tend to impress these sounds more distinctly on the memory of the scholar than the letters C, D, E, F, G, A, B, from which characters, except in sol-fa'ing, the notes in the diatonic series are generally named in Britain. Amongst us, in the progress of intonation, the syllables ut, re, and si, have been omitted, by which means the teachers of church-music have rendered it still more difficult to express by the four remaining denominations the various changes of the semitones in the octave. As these artificially change their places, the seven syllables above mentioned also diversify their powers, and are variously arranged according to the intervals in which the notes they are intended to signify may be placed.

For an account of these variations, see Rouffeau's Musical Dictionary, article GAMME. See also the Essay towards a Rational System of Music, by John Holden, part i. chap. 1. Such was the aim I pursued in its composition, and Definitions, such should be the ideas of the reader in its perusal.

Once more let me add, that to the discovery of its fundamental principles I have not the remotest claim. The sole end which I professed was to be useful; to reach that end, I have omitted nothing which appeared necessary, and I should be sorry to find my endeavours unsuccessful.

DEFINITIONS OF SEVERAL TECHNICAL TERMS.

1. What is meant by Melody, by Chord, by Harmony, by Interval.

1. Melody is nothing else but a series of sounds Melody, which succeed one to another in a manner agreeable what to the ear.

2. That is called a chord which arises from the chord and mixture of several sounds heard at the same time; and harmony, harmony is properly a series of chords which in their succession one to another delights the ear. A single chord is likewise sometimes called harmony, to signify the coalescence of sounds which that chord creates, and the sensation produced in the ear by that coalescence. We shall occasionally use the word harmony in this last sense, but in such a manner as never to leave our meaning ambiguous.

3. In melody and harmony, the distance between one sound and another is called an interval; and this is increased or diminished as the sounds between which it intervenes are higher or lower one than the other.

4. That we may learn to distinguish the intervals, and the manner of perceiving them, let us take the ordinary scale C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, which every person whose ear or voice is not extremely false naturally modulates. These are the observations which will occur to us in singing this gamut.

The sound re is higher or sharper than the sound ut, the sound mi higher than the sound re, the found fa higher than the found mi, &c. and so through the whole octave; so that the interval or the distance from the sound ut to the sound re, is less than the interval or distance between the sound ut and the sound mi, the interval from ut to mi is less than that between ut and fa, &c. and in short that the interval from the first to the second ut is the greatest of all.—To distinguish the first from the second ut, I have marked the last with capital letters.

5. In general, the interval between two sounds is proportionally greater, as one of these sounds is distinctly higher or lower with relation to the other; but it is necessary to observe, that two sounds may be equally faint, or high or low, though unequal in their force. The acute and string of a violin touched with a bow produces always grave, a sound equally high, whether strongly or faintly struck; the sound will only have a greater or lesser degree of strength. It is the same with vocal modulation.

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(1) From my general recommendation of this code, I except the reflections on the principles of sound which are at the end, and which I should not advise any one to read.

(k) Printed at Paris by Lambert in the year 1754.

(l) That criticism and my answers may be seen in the Journeaux Economiques of 1752. Definitions. lation; let any one form a sound by gradually impelling or swelling the voice, the sound may be perceived to increase in its energy, whilst it continues always equally low or equally high.

6. We must likewise observe concerning the scale, that the intervals between ut and re, between re and mi, between fa and sol, between sol and la, between la and si, are equal, or at least nearly equal; and that the intervals between mi and fa, and between si and ut, are likewise equal among themselves, but consist almost only of half the former. This fact is known and recognized by every one: the reason for it shall be given in the sequel; in the mean time every one may ascertain its reality by the assistance of an experiment (a).

7. It is for this reason that they have called the interval from mi to fa, from si to ut, a semitone; whereas those between ut and re, re and mi, fa and sol, sol and la, la and si, are tones.

The tone is likewise called a second major *, and the semitone a second minor †.

8. To descend or rise diatonically, is to descend or rise from one sound to another by the interval of a tone or of a semitone, or in general by seconds, whether major or minor; as from re to ut, or from ut to re, from fa to mi, or from mi to fa.

(a) This experiment may be easily tried. Let any one sing the scale of ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, UT, it will be immediately observed without difficulty, that the last four notes of the octave - sol, la, si, UT, are quite similar to the first ut, re, mi, fa; insomuch, that if, after having sung this scale, one would choose to repeat it, beginning with ut in the same tone which was occupied by sol in the former scale, the note re of the last scale would have the same sound with the note la in the first, the mi with the si, and the fa with the ut.

From whence it follows, that the interval between ut and re, is the same as between sol and la; between re and mi, as between la and si; and mi and fa, as between si and ut.

It will likewise be found, that from re to mi, from fa to sol, there is the same interval as from ut to re. To be convinced of this, we need only sing the scale once more; then sing it again, beginning with ut, in this last scale, in the same tone which was given to re in the first; and it will be perceived, that the re in the second scale will have the same sound, at least as far as the ear can discover, with the mi in the former scale; from whence it follows, that the difference between re and mi is, at least as far as the ear can perceive, equal to that between ut and re. It will also be found, that the interval between fa and sol is, so far as our sense can determine, the same with that between ut and re.

This experiment may perhaps be tried with some difficulty by those who are not inured to form the notes and change the key; but such may very easily perform it by the assistance of a harpsichord, by means of which the performer will be saved the trouble of retuning the sounds in one intonation whilst he performs another. In touching upon this harpsichord - the keys sol, la, si, ut, and in performing with the voice at the same time ut, re, mi, fa, in such a manner that the same sound may be given to ut in the voice with that of the key sol in the harpsichord, it will be found that re in the vocal intonation shall be the same with la upon the harpsichord, &c.

It will be found likewise by the same harpsichord, that if one should sing the scale beginning with ut in the same tone with mi on the instrument, the re which ought to have followed ut, will be higher by an extremely perceptible degree than the fa which follows mi; thus it may be concluded, that the interval between mi and fa is less than between ut and re; and if one would rise from fa to another sound which is at the same distance from fa as fa from mi, he would find in the same manner, that the interval from mi to this new sound is almost the same as that between ut and re. The interval then from mi to fa is nearly half of that between ut and re.

Since then, in the scale thus divided, ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, UT, the first division is perfectly like the last; and since the intervals between ut and re, between re and mi, and between fa and sol, are equal; it follows, that the intervals between sol and la, and between la and si, are likewise equal to every one of the three intervals between ut and re, between re and mi, and between fa and sol; and that the intervals between mi and fa and between si and ut are also equal, but that they only constitute one half of the others. And in short, an interval consisting of five tones and two semitones, as from ut to UT, is called an octave.

A great many of the intervals which have now been mentioned, are still signified by other names, as may be seen in the beginning of the second part; but those which we have now given are the most common, and the only terms which our present purpose demands.

10. Two sounds equally high, or equally low, however unequal in their force, are said to be in unison one with the other.

11. If two sounds form between them any interval, whatever it be, we say, that the highest when ascending is in that interval with relation to the lowest; and when descending, we pronounce the lowest in the same interval with relation to the highest. Thus in the third minor mi, sol, where mi is the lowest and sol the highest found, sol is a third minor from mi ascending, and mi is third minor from sol in descending.

12. In the same manner, if speaking of two sonorous bodies, we should say, that the one is a fifth above the other in ascending; this infers that the sound given by the one is at the distance of a fifth ascending from the sound given by the other.

III. Of Intervals greater than the Octave.

13. If, after having sung the scale ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, UT, one would carry this scale still farther in ascent, it would be discovered without difficulty that a new scale would be formed, UT, RE, MI, FA, &c., entirely similar to the former, and of which the sounds will be an octave ascending, each to its correspondent note in the former scale: thus RE, the second note of the second scale, will be an octave in ascent to the re of the first scale; in the same manner MI shall be the octave to mi, &c., and so of the rest.

(b) Let us suppose two vocal strings formed of the same matter, of the same thickness, and equal in their tension, but unequal in their length, it will be found by experience,

1stly, That if the shortest is equal to half the longest, the sound which it will produce must be an octave above the sound produced by the longest.

2ndly, That if the shortest constitutes a third part of the longest, the sound which it produces must be a twelfth above the sound produced by the longest.

3rdly, That if it constitutes the fifth part, its sound will be a seventeenth above.

Besides, it is a truth demonstrated and generally admitted, that in proportion as one musical string is less than another, the vibrations of the least will be more frequent (that is to say, its departures and returns through the same space) in the same time; for instance, in an hour, a minute, a second, &c. in such a manner that one string which constitutes a third part of another, forms three vibrations, whilst the largest has only accomplished one. In the same manner, a string which is one half less than another, performs two vibrations, whilst the other only completes one; and a string which is only the fifth part of another, will perform five vibrations in the same time which is occupied by the other in one.

From thence it follows, that the sound of a string is proportionally higher or lower, as the number of its vibrations is greater or smaller in a given time; for instance, in a second.

It is for that reason, that if we represent any sound whatever by 1, one may represent the octave above by 2, that is to say, by the number of vibrations formed by the string which produces the octave, whilst the longest string only vibrates once; in the same manner we may represent the twelfth above the sound 1 by 3, the seventeenth major above 5, &c. But it is very necessary to remark, that by these numerical expressions, we do not pretend to compare sounds as such; for sounds in themselves are nothing but mere sensations, and it cannot be said of any sensation that it is double or triple to another; thus the expressions 1, 2, 3, &c. employed to designate a sound, its octave above, its twelfth above, &c. signify only, that if a string performs a certain number of vibrations, for instance, in a second, the string which is in the octave above shall double the number in the same time, the string which is in the twelfth above shall triple it, &c.

Thus to compare sounds among themselves is nothing else than to compare among themselves the numbers of vibrations which are formed in a given time by the strings that produce these sounds. PART I. THEORY OF HARMONY.

CHAP I. Preliminary and Fundamental Experiments.

EXPERIMENT I.

19. WHEN a sonorous body is struck till it gives a sound, the ear, besides the principal sound and its octave, perceives two other sounds very high, of which one is the twelfth above the principal sound, that is to say, the octave to the fifth of that sound; and the other is the seventeenth major above the same sound, that is to say, the double octave of its third major.

20. This experiment is peculiarly sensible upon the thick strings of the violoncello, of which the sound being extremely low, gives to an ear, though not very much practised, an opportunity of distinguishing with sufficient ease and clearness the twelfth and seventeenth now in question (c).

21. The principal sound is called the generator *; * See Ge-

(c) Since the octave above the sound 1 is 2, the octave below that same sound shall be ½; that is to say, that the string which produces this octave shall have performed half its vibration, whilst the string which produces the sound 1 shall have completed one. To obtain therefore the octave above any sound, the operator must multiply the quantity which expresses the sound by 2; and to obtain the octave below, he must on the contrary divide the same quantity by 2.

It is for that reason that if any sound whatever, for instance ut, is denominated

Its octave above will be

Its double octave above

Its triple octave above

In the same manner its octave below will be

Its double octave below

Its triple octave below

And so of the rest,

Its twelfth above

Its twelfth below

Its 17th major above

Its 17th major below

The fifth then above the sound 1 being the octave beneath the twelfth, shall be, as we have immediately observed, ½; which signifies that this string performs ½ vibrations; that is to say, one vibration and a half during a single vibration of the string which gives the sound 1.

To obtain the fourth above the sound 1, we must take the twelfth below that sound, and the double octave above that twelfth. In effect, the twelfth below ut, for instance, is fa, of which the double octave fa is the fourth above ut. Since then the twelfth below 1 is ½, it follows that the double octave above this twelfth, that is to say, the fourth from the sound 1 in ascending, will be ½ multiplied by 4, or 2.

In short, the third major being nothing else but the double octave beneath the seventeenth, it follows, that the third major above the sound 1 will be ½ divided by 4, or in other words ¼.

The third major of a sound, for instance the third major mi, from the sound ut, and its fifth sol, form between them a third minor mi, sol; now mi is ½, and sol ¼, by what has been immediately demonstrated: from whence it follows, that the third minor, or the interval between mi and sol, shall be expressed by the relation of the fraction ¼ to the fraction ½.

To determine this relation, it is necessary to remark, that ¼ are the same thing with ½, and that ½ are the same thing with ¼; so that ¼ shall be to ½ in the same relation as ½ to ¼; that is to say, in the same relation as 10 to 12, or as 5 to 6. If, then, two sounds form between themselves a third minor, and that the first is represented by 5, the second shall be expressed by 6; or, what is the same thing, if the first is represented by 1, the second shall be expressed by 6.

Thus Part I.