thefe hints to a Gentleman of your great abilities fo humbly recommending myfélf to your favour and patronage, I remain, &c. I fhall add to the foregoing letter, another which came to me by the fame penny-post.” From my own apartment near Charing-Crofs. Honoured Str, H ture. Aving heard that this nation is a great ehcourager of ingenuity, I have brought with me a rope-dancer that was caught in one of the woods belonging to the Great Mogul. He is by birth a monkey; but fwings upon a rope, takes a pipe of tobacco, and drinks a glafs of ale, like any reasonable creaHe gives great fatisfaction to the quality; and if they will make a fubfcription for him, I will fend for a brother of his out of Holland that is a very good tumbler; and alfo for another of the fame family whom I defign for my Merry Andrew, as being an excellent mimick, and the greatest droll in the country where he now is. I hope to have this entertainment in a readiness for the next winter; and doubt not but it will please more than the opera or puppetfhow. I will not fay that a monkey is a better man than fome of the opera-heroes; but certainly he is a better reprefentative of a man, than the most arti*ficial compofition of wood and wire. If you will be pleafed to give me a good word in your paper, you fhall be every night a fpectator at my show for "nothing * N° 29 Tuesday, April 3. -Sermo linguâ concinnus utraque Hor. Sat. 10. 1. 1. ver. 23. Both tongues united sweeter founds produce, T HERE is nothing that has more startled our English audience, than the Italian Recitativo at its first entrance upon the ftage. People were wonderfully furprised to hear Generals finging the word of command, and Ladies delivering meffages in musick. Our countrymen could not forbear laughing when they heard a lover chanting out a billet-doux, and even the fuperfcription of a letter fet to a tune. The famous blunder in an old play of Enter a King and two Fiddlers folus, was now no longer an abfurdity; when it was impoffible for a hero in a defert, or a princefs in her clofet, to fpeak any thing unaccompanied with mufical inftruments. But however this Italian method of acting in Reci tativo might appear at first hearing, I cannot but think it much more juft than that which prevailed in our English opera before this innovation: The tranfition from an air to recitative mufick being more natural, than the paffing from a fong to plain and ordinary fpeaking, which was the common method in Purcell's operas. The only fault I find in our prefent practice, is the making use of the Italian Recitativo with English words. To go to the bottom of this matter I must observe, that the tone, or (as the French call it) the accent of every nation in their ordinary speech is altogether different from that of every other people; as we may see even in the Welsh and Scotch, who border fo near upon us. us. By the tone or accent, I do not mean the pronunciation of each particular word, but the found of the whole fentence. Thus it is very common for an English Gentleman, when he hears a French tragedy, to complain that the actors all of them fpeak in a tone; and therefore he very wifely prefers his own countrymen, not confidering that a foreigner complains of the fame tone in an English actor. For this reafon, the recitative musick, in every language, fhould be as different as the tone or accent of each language; for otherwife, what may properly exprefs a paffion in one language, will not do it in another. Every one who has been long in Italy knows very well, that the cadences in the Recitativo bear a remote affinity to the tone of their voices in ordinary converfation, or, to fpeak more properly, are only the accents of their language made more mufical and tuneful. Thus the notes of interrogation, or admiration, in the Italian mufick (if one may fo call them) which resemble their accents in difcourfe on fuch occafions, are not unlike the ordinary tones of an English voice when we are angry; infomuch that I have often feen our audiences extremely mistaken as to what has been doing upon the ftage, and expecting to fee the hero knock down his meffenger, when he has been asking him a queftion; or fancying that he quarrels with his friend, when he only bids him good-morrow. For this reafon the Italian artists cannot agree with our English muficians, in admiring Purcell's compofitions, and thinking his tunes fo wonderfully adapted to his words; because both nations do not always exprefs the fame paffions by the fame founds. I am therefore humbly of opinion, that an Englife compofer fhould not follow the Italian recitative too fervilely, but make ufe of many gentle deviations from it, in compliance with his own native language. He may copy out of it all the lulling foftnefs and dying falls (as Shakespear calls them,) but fhould ftill remem"ber that he ought to accommodate himself to an English audience; and by humouring the tone of our voices in ordinary converfation, have the fame regard to the accent of his own language, as thofe perfons had to theirs whom he profeffes to imitate. It is obferved, that feveral of the finging birds of our own country learn to fweeten their voices, and mellow the harshness their natural notes, by practifing under those that come of from warmer climates. In the fame manner I would allow the Italian opera to lend our English mufick as much as may grace and foften it, but never entirely to annihilate and deftroy it. Let the infufion be as ftrong as you pleafe, but ftill let the fubject-matter of it be English. A compofer fhould fit his mufick to the genius of the people, and confider that the delicacy of hearing, and taste of harmony, has been formed upon thofe founds which every country abounds with: In short, that mufick is of a relative nature, and what is harmony to one ear, may be diffonance to another. The fame obfervations which I have made upon the recitative part of mufick, may be applied to all our fongs and airs in general. Signior Baptift Lully acted like a man of fenfe in this particular. He found the French mufick extremely defective, and very often barbarous. However, knowing the genius of the people, the humour of their language, and the prejudiced ears he had to deal with, he did not pretend to extirpate the French mufick, and plant the Italian in its ftead; but only to cultivate and civilize it with innumerable graces and modulations which he borrowed from the Italian. By this means the French mufick is now perfect in its kind; and when you fay it is not fo good as the Italian, you only mean that it does not please you fo well; for there is scarce a Frenchman who would not wonder to hear you give the Italian such a preference. The mufick of the French is indeed very properly adapted to their pronunciation and accent, as their whole opera wonderfully favours the genius of 'fuch a gay airy people. The chorus in which that opera abounds, gives the parterre frequent opportunities of joining in confort with the ftage. This inclination of the audience to fing along with the actors, fo prevails with them, that I have fometimes known the performer on the ftage de no more in a celebrated fong, than the clerk of a parish-church, who serves only to raise the pfalm Pfalm, and is afterwards drowned in the mufick of the congregation. Every actor that comes on the ftage is a beau. The Queens and Heroines are fo painted, that they appear as ruddy and cherry-cheeked as milk-maids. The fhepherds are all embroidered, and acquit themfelves in a ball better than our English dancing-masters. I have feen a couple of rivers appear in red ftockings; and Alpheus, instead of having his head covered with fedge and bull-rufhes, making love in a fair full-bottomed periwig, and a plume of feathers; but with a voice fo full of shakes and quavers, that I fhould have thought the murmurs of a country-brook the much more agreeable musick. I remember the last opera I faw in that merry nation was the Rape of Proferpine, where Pluto, to make the more tempting figure, puts himself in a French equipage, and brings Ajcalaphus along with him as his Valet de Chambre. This is what we call folly and impertinence; but what the French look upon as gay and polite. I fhall add no more to what I have here offered, than that mufick, architecture, and painting, as well as poetry, and oratory, are to deduce their laws and rules from the general fenfe and taste of mankind, and not from the principles of thofe arts themselves; or in other words, the tafte is not to conform to the art, but the art to the tafte. Mufick is not defigned to pleafe only chromatick ears, but all that are capable of distinguishing harsh from difagreeable notes. A man of an ordinary ear is a judge whether a paffion is expreffed in proper founds, and whether the melody of thofe founds be more or less pleafing. C VOL. I. F Wednesday, |