in the ancient music, a term to which we have no one corresponding in our language.

The melopeia, or the art of arranging sounds in succession so as to make melody, is divided into three parts, which the Greeks call lepsis, mixis, and chrepsis; the Latins jumptio, mixtio, and ufsus; and the Italians presa, mecolamento, and ufo. The last of these is called by the Greeks xeretia, and by the Italians pettia; which therefore means the art of making a just discomfert of all the manners of ranging or combining sounds among themselves, so as they may produce their effect, i.e., may express the several passions intended to be raised. Thus it shows what sounds are to be used, and what not; how often they are feverishly to be repeated; with which to begin, and with which to end; whether with a grave sound to rise, or an acute one to fall, &c. The pettea constitutes the manners of the music; chooses out this or that passion, this or that motion of the soul, to be awakened; and determines whether it be proper to excite it on this or that occasion. The pettea, therefore, is in music much what the manners are in poetry.

It is not easy to discover whence the denomination should have been taken by the Greeks, unless from xeretia, their game of chefs; the musical pettea being a sort of combination and arrangement of sounds, as chefs is of pieces called xeretia, calculi, or "chefs-men."