By John Lambert, Esq. 327 
been the knowledge of a well-educated musician of those days to 
the accomplishment of being able to play a Jullien Polka, or sing 
a modern sentimental song! 
But setting aside mere presumption, and turning to the authors 
of antiquity, what do we find ? 
Aristides Quintilian, one of the seven Greek authors whose 
works are published by Meibomius,! states that vocal Music consists 
of three things, viz., Melody, Rhythm, and Words, and he defines 
Rhythm to consist of various times or beats joined together in a 
certain order. Again, he tells us that by simple time he means an 
interval so short as to be indivisible, just as the Geometricians define 
a point to be something without parts. Compound time is that which 
is capable of division: of which one is double, another treble, another 
quadruple the length of the first, and soon. And the same author 
afterwards states that sometimes musical Rhythm is merely prosaic, 
and not depending upon a regular return of the same measure, as 
in Poetry. 
To the same effect are all the Greek authors, and we find Plato 
affirming that none can be a Poet or Musician to whom the nature 
of Rhythm is unknown. 
Amongst the Romans, Cicero and Quintilian are equally clear 
as to the nature and importance of Rhythm. Indeed it would be 
impossible to find an opposite sentiment in a single writer of 
classical antiquity. 
Amongst the early Christian writers the most important is St. 
Augustine, who felt so keenly the importance of Rhythm as the basis 
of Music, that he devotes the whole of his six books on Music to 
that one point alone; and he tells us, that in the necessary ad- 
mixture of long and short words, of accented and unaccented 
syllables, accompanied with an appropriate elevation or depression 
of the voice, as in ordinary conversation, we daily practice the 
principles which guide the Poet and Musician in the cultivation of 
their respective arts. 
But of all those who have written on this subject, there is no one 
who has thrown so much light on the construction of the Music 
1 Antique Musicw Auctores. Amsterdam: 1752. 
202 
