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variety and fimplicity of structure may contribute fomething to the agreeableness of mufic, as well as of poetry and profe. Variety, kept within due bounds, cannot fail to please, because it refreshes the mind with perpetual novelty; and is therefore studiously fought after in all the arts, and in none of them more than in mufic. To give this character to his compofitions, the poet varies his phrafeology and fyntax; and the feet, the paufes, and the found of contiguous verfes, as much as the fubject, the language, and the laws of verfification will permit: and the profe-writer combines longer with fhorter es fentences in the fame paragraph, longer with fhorter clauses in the fame fentence, and even longer with fhorter words in the fame claufe; terminates contiguous claufes and fentences by a different cadence, and constructs them by a different fyntax; and in general avoids all monotony and fimilar founds, except where they are unavoidable, or where they may contribute (as indeed they often do) to energy or perfpicuity. The mufician diverfifies his melody, by changing his keys; by deferring or interrupting his cadences; by a mixture of flower and quicker, higher and lower, fofter and louder notes; and, in pieces of length, by altering the rhythm, the movement, and the air: and his harmony he varies, by varying his concords and difcords, by a change of modulation, by contrafting the afcent or flower motion of one VOL. II.

Y

part

part to the defcent or quicker motion of another, by affigning different harmonies to the fame melody, or different melodies to the fame harmony, and by many other contri

\vances.

Simplicity makes mufic, as well as language, intelligible and expreffive. It is in every work of art a recommendatory quality. In mufic it is indifpenfable; for we are never pleased with that music which we cannot understand, or which feems to have no meaning. Of the ancient mufic little more is known, than that it was very affecting and very fimple. All popular and favourite airs; all that remains of the old national mufic in every country; all military marches, churchtunes, and other compofitions that are more immediately addreffed to the heart, and intended to please the general tafte; all proverbial maxims of morality and prudence, and all thofe poetical phrases and lines, which every body remembers, and is occafionally repeating, are remarkable for fimplicity. To which we may add, that language, while it improves in fimplicity, grows still more and more perfect: and that, as it lofes this character, it declines in the fame proportion from the ftandard of elegance, and draws nearer and nearer to utter depravation *. Without fimplicity, the varieties of art, instead of pleafing, would only bewilder

See Le Vicende della Litteratura del. Sig. Carla Denina.

the

the attention, and confound the judgement.

Rhythm, or Number, is in mufic a copious fource of both variety and uniformity. Not to enter into any nice fpeculation on the nature of rhythm*, (for which this is not a proper place), I fhall only obferve, that notes, as united in mufic, admit of the diftinction of quick and flow, as well as of acute and grave; and that on the former distinction depends what is here called Rhythm. It is the only thing in a tune which the drum can imitate. And by that instrument, the rhythm of any tune may be imitated moft perfectly, as well as by the found of the feet in dancing:-only as the feet can hardly move fo quick as the drumfticks, the dancer may be obliged to repeat his ftrokes at longer intervals, by fuppofing the mufic divided into larger portions; to give one stroke, for example, where the drummer might give two or three, or two where the other would give four or fix. For every piece of regular mufic is fuppofed to be divided into fmall portions (feparated in writing a by crofs line called a bar) which, whether they contain more or fewer notes, are all equal in refpect of time. In this way, the rhythm is a fource of uniformity; which

* The nature of Rhythm, and the feveral divifions of it, are very accurately explained by the learned author of An Effay on the origin and progress of language, vol. 2. p. 301.

pleafes, by fuggesting the agreeable ideas of regularity and fkill, and, ftill more, by rendering the mufic intelligible. It also pleafes, by raifing and gratifying expectation : for if the movement of the piece were governed by no rule; if what one hears of it during the prefent moment were in all refpects unlike and incommenfurable to what one was to hear the next, and had heard the laft, the whole would be a mafs of confufion; and the ear would either be bewildered, having nothing to rest upon, and nothing to anticipate; or, if it should expect any stated ratio between the motion and the time, would be difappointed when it found that there was none. That rhythm is a fource of very great variety, every person must be fenfible, who knows only the names of the mufical notes, with fuch of their divifions and fubdivifions as relate to time; or who has attended to the manifold varieties of quick and flow motion, which the drum is capable of producing.

As order and proportion are always delightful, it is no wonder that mankind fhould be agreeably affected with the rhythm of mufic. That they are, the universal use of dancing, and of the " fpirit-ftirring drum," is a fufficient evidence. Nay, I have known a child imitate the rhythm of tunes before he could speak, and long before he could manage his voice fo as to imitate their melody; -which is a proof, that human nature is fufceptible

fufceptible of this delight previously to the acquirement of artificial habits.

V. I hinted at the power of accidental affociation in giving fignificancy to musical compofitions. It may be remarked further, that affociation contributes greatly to heighten their agreeable effect. We have heard them performed, fome time or other, in an agreeable place perhaps, or by an agreeable perfon, or accompanied with words that defcribe agreeable ideas; or we have heard them in our early years; a period of life, which we seldom look back upon without pleasure, and of which Bacon recommends the frequent recollection as an expedient to preferve health. Nor is it neceffary, that

fuch melodies or harmonies fhould have much intrinfic merit, or that they fhould call up any distinct remembrance of the agreeable ideas affociated with them. There are feafons, at which we are gratified with very moderate excellence. In childhood, every tune is delightful to a mufical ear; in our advanced years, an indifferent tune will pleafe, when fet off by the amiable qualities of the performer, or by any other agreeable circumftance.-During the laft war, the Belleifle march was long a general favourite. It filled the minds of our people with magnificent ideas of armies, and conqueft, and military fplendor; for they believed it to be the tune that was played by the French garrison when it marched out with the honours of war, and furrendered