[ 181 ] 



XXX. On the Question " Whether Musk is necessary to the 

 Orator, — to what Extent, and how most readily allainalle P" 

 By Henry Upington, Esq. 



[Continued from p. 43.] 



To Mr. Tilloch. 

 J Blah's Hill, Coil", Feb. 18, ISIB. 



Sir, — 1 HAV^E read in your January Magazine my last letter of 

 the 17th December, and am really api)rehensive that so long an 

 exclusive dissertation upon music will appear to many of your 

 readers an unnecessary procrastination of my subject. I ac- 

 knowledge the delay; and however interesting the musical ques- 

 tion may in i/^e/f appear, I am determined to conclude it within 

 this present paper, and confine myself, for the future, to its more 

 immediate a|;plication to my theme. 



Ere I commence with the formation of that lalle which I 

 promised you, I must recall your attention to the mode of calcu- 

 lation by which I suggested that it should be governed; viz. by 

 the creation oi means, and the subsecjuent division of those means 

 into the sums produced by the multiplication of the extremes — 

 in justification of which procedure I advanced, as you will recol- 

 lect, to the minor 6th, pointing out its origin from the fourth 

 and octave ; the fifth having previously proceeded from the con- 

 joint operation of the base, the fourth, and octave, — while the 

 fourth, in its turn, was generated by the base and octave alone. 



Although this retrospect may possibly serve as a competent 

 introduction to the table ; yet I would previously state in defence 

 of the fourth, one important peculiarity which elevates it above 

 all other numbers, and justly stamps it (at least in my estimation) 

 with that superiority of character insisted by the Greeks. Nature 

 then, throughout all her known operations, has uniformly as- 

 signed as the common centre between any two bodies of different 

 magnitude, some certain situation, more contiguous to the greater 

 body than to the smaller : and that this universal principle is 

 C'Cjually applicable to that branch of acoustics called .Music, as to 

 every other branch of natural philosophy, is evident, from the 

 indispensable construction of all our fixed-toned instruments. 

 Thus, with our piano-fortes the interval between any fundamental 

 and its 4th, is occupied by on\y four keys, while that between 

 the 4th and the octave of that fundamental is occupied by six. 

 The fourth, therefore, most avowedly, and not the fifth, which 

 would reverse this order of nature, must constitute the musical 

 centre, and consequently the only perfect concord. 



M 3 T.\BI.E 



