232 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book IIT. 



the mere melody or compoHtton of notes is a thing lifclefs and in- 

 animate. And indeed a man, thougli not learned in mufic, if he 

 attend to the tune he hears, will find hlmfelf much more moved by 

 the rhythm or the t'lmc^ as we call it, than by the notes, though 

 compofed and put together with the greateH; flvill. So that what we 

 hear of the great efFeds of the antient mufic upon the fentiments and 

 paffions of men, was chiefly owing to the rhythm of it *. 



Another advantage, which the antient Greeks had over our mu- 

 fic, was that it was always accompanied with poetry : Tor the Greeks 

 never feparated thole two filler arts. Nor was fuch an entertain- 

 ment known among them, as our Concerts, in which there is no- 

 thing but mufic, without poetry or words conveying fenfe and fen- 

 timents : And it was poetry of a kind much more fuitable to mufic 

 than any poetry we have ; for it had both melody and rhythm. 



The 



* If the reader would ciefire to know more of rhythm, he may read a chapter which 

 I have written upon the fubjeft in vol. II. of the Origin and Progrefs of Language, p. 

 301. where I have explained, at confiderable length, all the feveral kinds of rhythm, 

 and have fhevvn the difference betwixt the rhythm of our verfe, and that of the an- 

 tient Greek and Latin verfe ; and among other rhythms I have obferved that which 

 is produced by the intervals betwixt the founds, p. 305. and 306. To what I 

 have there obferved I would add here, that the rhythm of our verfe. is truly of that 

 kind : For it is not a rhythm of long or fhort fyllablcs, like the rhythm of Greek or 

 Latin verfe, nor is it a rhythm at all of founds, but of the intervals betwixt founds, that 

 is, of the intervals betwixt our accented fyllables, as we call them, and our unaccented. 

 And this is different in different kinds of verfe ; for there is fometimes one unaccented 

 fyllablc betwixt the accented, and fometimes two. So that the rhythm of our verfe 

 is truly the rhythm of a drum, in which there is no difference of length, or of acuce- 

 nefs or gravity in the ftrokes, but only a difference of length betwixt them, and like- 

 wife of loudnefs. And in this refpefi: too the rhythm of our verfe is perfeftly fimliar 

 to the rhythm of a drum : For it is, by raiCng our voice more upon one fyllable than 

 another, and fo making that fyllable louder, that the fyllables are marked, the inter- 

 vals betwixt which, compared together, make, as I have faid, the intervals of our 

 verfe. 



