166 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 147. 



I remember also a passage in Buchanan : 



" Quid solem loquar aut lunam ? quid c.ttera coeli 

 Sidera, qua; peragunt non fequo tramite cursuin, 

 Inque chori ludunt speciem, et nunc lumine juacto 

 Mutua conspirant, spatiis nunc dissita longis, 

 Quoeque suum servant diversa lege tenorem?" 



De Sphcera, lib. i. p. 420. 

 AmstelEedami, 1687, 12mo. 



Cowley also sings : 



" Quales (crediderim) divum edidit aiiribus olim 

 Concentus mundi sacer, et dulcissimus ordo, 

 Cum lites elementorum Natura diremit, 

 Disposuitque modis divinitus omnia justis." 



Plautarum, lib. v. page 306. Lond. I6S8, Svo. 



And though in the notes to his Pindaric " Ode 

 on the Kesurrection " he seems to think such 

 Pythagorean ideas as more befitting poetry than 

 sound philosophy, I must adduce a very quaint 

 passage from his Davideis likewise : 



*' Tir ungovern'd parts no correspondence knew, 

 An artless war from thwarting motions grew; 

 ■Till they to number and fixt rules were brought 

 IJy the Eternal Mind's poetique thought : 

 Water and Air he for the Tenor chose, 

 Earth made the Base, the Treble Flame arose, 

 To th' active Moon a quick brisk stroke he gave. 

 To Saturn's string a touch more soft and grave. 

 The motions strait, and round, and swift, and slow. 

 And short and long, were mixt and woven so. 

 Did in such artful Figures smoothly fall. 

 As made this decent measur'd Dance of all. 

 And this is Musick." — Lib. i. p. 13. 1668, folio. 



In the notes to Grey's edition of Hudibras there 

 is some learning collected in a short compass, and 

 some references are given on the subject. The 

 reason assigned by Butler for our not hearing the 

 music of the spheres is this : 



" Her voice, the music of the spheres, 

 So loud, it deafens mortals' ears : 

 As wise philosophers have thought, 

 And that's the cause we hear it not." 

 Part II. canto i. 1.617. vol. i. pp. 316-7. 

 Dublin, 1744. 



Shakspeare, as already quoted, has assigned a 

 different reason ; and Milton closely follows him 

 in the "Arcades." 



" After the heavenly tune, which none can hear 

 Of human mould, with gross unpurged ear." 



Indeed Milton had written an academic exercise 

 at Cambridge, " De Concentu Sphaerorum," in 

 which he explains the theory of Plato. Thomas 

 Warton gives mucli additional information in his 

 notes upon the " Arcades," and illustrates Milton 

 by himself: he gave some further description of 

 this music, Par. Losi, lib. vii. 558. And as 

 Beaumont's Psyche is less known, I may as well 

 extract a passage from it : 



294. 

 " With that the musick of the spheres burst out. 

 Pouring a deluge of soul-ravishing layes : 

 With which a while tho' David's fingers fought. 

 His mortal strings so high he could not raise ; 

 ' My harp must yield,' he cry'd, ' but yet my heart 

 Shall in your loftiest accents bear her part.' 



295. 

 " Indeed those airs are so refin'd, that none 

 But purest hearts' spiritual strings can be 

 Stretch'd to their chords' full compass ; this a^one 

 That consort is, to which the melody 

 You with the name of musick honour here 

 Is only learned gratings of the ear." 



Page 241, Cambridge, 1702, folio. 



I have one quotation more to make, but it must 

 be a long one, as it seems to contain almost all that 

 can be said upon the subject. It is from Bishop 

 Martin Fotherby, and includes the opinions of the 

 more ancient writers, as well as of Bede, St. An- 

 selm, Boethius, and Du Bartas. It is strange to 

 find such an argument pressed into the controversy 

 with atheists : but the whole chapter is worth 

 reading. He says : 



" And therefore, divers of them, as they ascribe a 

 rythmical motion unto the starres ; so doe they an 

 harmonicall unto the heavens ; ymagining that their 

 moving produceth the melodie of an excellent sweete 

 tune. So that they make the starres to be dancers, 

 and the heavens to be musitians. An opinion which 

 of old hath hung in the heads, and troubled the braincs 

 of many learned men : yea, and that not onely among 

 the heathen philosophers, but also even among our 

 Christian divines. The first author and inventor of 

 which conceited imagination was the philosopher 

 Pythagoras. Who broched his opinion with such 

 felicitie and happinesse, that he wonne unto his part 

 divers of the most ancient and best learned philosophers, 

 as Plutarch reporteth. Plato, whose learning Tullie 

 so much admireth, that hee calleth him The God of all 

 Philosophers, Deuin Philosophorum, he affirmeth of the 

 heavens, that eviry one of them hath sitting vpon it a 

 sweet-singing syren, caro dng out a most pleasant and 

 melodious song, agreeing with the motion of her own 

 peculiar heaven. Which syren, though it sing of itselfe 

 but one single part, yet all of them togedier, being 

 eight in number (for so many heavens were onely hold 

 by the ancients) doe make an excellent song, consisting 

 of eight parts: wherein they still modulate their songs, 

 agreeable unto the motions of the eight celestial 

 spheres. — Arist., 1. ii. De Ccelo, c. ix. to. i. p. 588.; 

 Cic, I. iii. De Nat. Deor., p. 229. ; Plut., 1. De Musica, 

 to. ii. p. 707. ; Cic, 1. ii. De Nat. Deor., p. 205.; 

 Plato, I. X. De Rep., p. 670. Which opinion of 

 Platoes is not only allowed by Macrobius (lib. ii. 

 De Som. Scip., c. iii, p. 90.), but he also affirmeth of 

 this syren's song, that it is a psahne composed in the 

 praise of God. Yea, and he proveth his assertion out 

 of the very name of a syren: which siguifieth (as he 

 saith) as much as Deo canens, A singer unto God. But 

 Maximus Tyrius {Sertn. xxi. p. 256.) he affirmeth of 

 the heavens, that (without any such helpe of these 



