ture, and fometimes there comes to be from custom, a connection between certain mufical inftruments, and certain places and occafions. Thus a flute, hautboy, or bagpipe, is better adapted to the purposes of rural mufic, than a fiddle, organ, or harpsichord, because more portable, and lefs liable to injury from the weather: thus an organ, on account both of its fize and loudness, requires to be placed in a church, or some large apartment: thus violins and violoncellos, to which any degree of damp may prove hurtful, are naturally adapted to domeftic ufe; while drums and trumpets, fifes and french-horns, are better fuited to the fervice of the field. Hence it happens, that particular tones and modes of mufic acquire fuch a connection with particular places, occafions, and fentiments, that by hearing the former we are put in mind of the latter, fo as to be affected with them more or less, according to the circumstances. The found of an organ, for example, puts one in mind of a church, and of the affections fuitable to that place; military mufic, of military ideas ; and flutes and hautboys, of the thoughts and images peculiar to rural life. This may ferve in part to account for mufical expreffivenefs or efficacy; that is, to explain how it comes to pafs, that certain paffions are raised, or certain ideas fuggested, by certain kinds of mufic: but this does not prove mufic to be an imitative art, in the

fame fenfe wherein painting and poetry are called imitative. For between a picture and its original; between the ideas fuggested by a poetical defcription and the objects defcribed, there is a strict fimilitude: but between foft mufic and a calm temper there is no ftrict fimilitude; and between the found of a drum or of an organ and the affection of courage or of devotion, between the music of flutes and a paftoral life, between a concert of violins and a chearful company, there is only an accidental connection, formed by cuftom, and founded rather on the nature of the inftruments, than on that of the mufic.

It may perhaps be thought, that man learned to fing by imitating the birds; and therefore, as vocal mufic is allowed to have been the prototype of inftrumental, that the whole art must have been effentially imitative. Granting the fact, this only we could infer from it, that the art was imitative at first: but that it ftill continues to be fo, does not follow; for it cannot be said, either that the ftyle of our music resembles that of birds, or that our musical compofers make the song of birds the model of their compofitions. But it is vain to argue from hypothesis: and the fact before us, though taken for granted by fome authors, is deftitute of evidence, and plainly abfurd. How can it be imagined, that mankind learned to fing by imitating the feathered race? I would as foon fuppofe, that we learned to fpeak by imitating VOL. II.

T

the

the neigh of a horse, or to walk by obferving the motion of fishes in water; or that the political conftitution of Great Britain was formed upon the plan of an ant-hillock, Every musician, who is but moderately inftructed in the principles of his art, knows, and can prove, that, in the harp feries at leaft, the divifions of the diatonic scale, which is the standard of human mufic, are no artificial contrivance, but have a real foundation in nature but the finging of birds, if we except the cuckoo and one or two more, is not reducible to that scale, nor to any other that was ever invented by man; for birds diversify their notes by intervals which the human organs cannot imitate without unnatural efforts, and which therefore it is not to be fuppofed that human art will ever attempt to exprefs by written fymbols. In a word, it is plain, that nature intended one kind of mufic for men, and another for birds and we have no more reafon to think, that the former was derived by imitation from the latter, than that the nests of a rookery were the prototype of the Gothic architecture, or the combs in a bee-hive of the Grecian.

Mufic, therefore, is pleafing, not because it is imitative, but because certain melodies and harmonies have an aptitude to raife certain paflions, affections, and fentiments in the foul. And, confequently, the pleasures we derive from melody and harmony are fel

dom

dom or never refolvable into that delight which the human mind receives from the imitation of nature.

All this, it may be faid, is but a dispute about a word. Be it fo: but it is, notwithstanding, a difpute fomewhat material both to art and to fcience. It is material, in science, that philofophers have a determined meaning to their words, and that things be referred to their proper claffes. And it is of importance to every art, that its defign and end be rightly understood, and that artists be not taught to believe that to be effential to it, which is only adventitious, often impertinent, for the most part unneceffary, and at best but ornamental.

SECT.

How are the pleasures we derive from Music to be accounted for?

IT

T was faid, that certain melodies and harmonies have an aptitude to raise certain paffions, affections, and fentiments, in the human foul. Let us now inquire a little into the nature of this aptitude; by endeavouring, from acknowledged principles of the human conftitution, to explain the caufe of that pleasure which mankind derive from T 2 mufic.

mufic. I am well aware of the delicacy of the argument, and of my inability to do it juftice; and therefore I promise no complete investigation, nor indeed any thing more than a few curfory remarks. As I have no theory to fupport, and as this topic, though it may amufe, is not of any great utility, I fhall be neither positive in my affertions, nor abftrufe in my reasoning.

The vulgar diftinguish between the fenfe of hearing, and that faculty by which we receive pleasure from mufic, and which is commonly called a mufical ear. Every body knows, that to hear, and to have a relifh for melody, are two different things; and that many perfons have the first in perfection, who are deftitute of the laft. The laft is indeed, like the firft, a gift of nature; and may, like other natural gifts, languifh if neglected, and improve exceedingly if exercised. And though every perfon who hears, might no doubt, by instruction and long experience, be made fenfible of the mufical properties of found, fo far as to be in fome measure gratified with good mufic and difgufted with bad; yet both his pain and his pleasure would be very different in kind and degree, from that which is conveyed by a true mufical ear.

I. Does not part of the pleasure, both of melody and of harmony, arife from the very nature of the notes that compofe it? Certain inarticulate founds, efpecially when

continued,