: . s TMBRE. 



TIMBREL, musical instrument of the highest antiquity; the 

 tfmpMun len of the Roman poet*, and, in the opinion of all writers 

 i any authority, the same, in an almost unaltered state, as that now 

 known in erery part of Europe under the names of tabor, tambourine, 

 tambour dt Ba*pu, to. 

 TIME (in Music) is: 



I. The measure of the duration of sound. 



II. That which divides a bar into two or three equal part*, and sub- 

 divides these. 



HI. The movement that is, the quickness or slowness of a 

 composition. 



1. The decree of sound, or pitch, U shown by the place on the staff 

 of any one of the characters called notes ; but ita duration U known by 

 the particular note ; that is, as minim, or crotchet, *c. The longest 

 note, in relation to time, used in modern music, is the semibreve, 

 which is considered the measure-note, and its average length is about 

 four beats of a healthy man's pulse. The five other notes are pro- 

 portionate parts of this. Thus the minim U in duration J of a semi- 

 breve; the crotchet is J, 4c. : consequently two minims, or four 

 crotchets, 4c., are equal to one semibreve, as exhibited in the annexed 

 table: 



. 4 



. 8 



. 16 

 . 8J 



2. Time is cither duple or triple. The former divides every bar, or 

 measure, into 2, lor 4, Ac., equal parts ; the latter into 3, or 6, &c. 

 Times are marked by the letter C, also by this letter barred ({), and 

 by figures. The C, whether barred or not, indicates Common Time ; 

 that is, duple time, having one semibreve, or iU equivalent in notes, in 

 each bar. Figures represent the fractions of a semibreve, the upper 

 figure the numerator, the lower the denominator. When the nume- 

 rator is 2 or 4, the time is duple ; when 3, it u triple ; when 6 or 12, 

 it is compound-common ; and when 9, it is compound-triple. But in 

 reality, there are only two times binary and ternary ; or duple and 

 triple. 



3. The term Time has hitherto had a third meaning annexed to 

 it in musical language, by its employment in the sense of movement, 

 a 'practice which has produced some confusion. The Italian word 

 Tempo, signifying the same, is now growing into use. [METRONOME ; 

 RHYTHM. ]j 



TIMK. This word may be considered either with reference to our 

 abstract idea of the thing signified by it, or to the measures of it which 

 have been contrived for use in the business of life. Something on the 

 first point of view will be found in the article SPACK AND TIMK, to 

 which the following may be added. 



\\li.nwethink of time in the usual manner, it is of a real thing 

 external to ourselves, which we cannot help imagining to have an 

 existence and a measure, both of which would remain though those 

 who now speculate upon the conception were annihilated. A little 

 more consideration shows that we are indebted for the idea to suc- 

 cessions of observed events, or at least for the power of applying the 

 idea to external objects. No description can be adequate ; if we jay 

 that change necessarily implies time, and that the perception of that 

 which it being different from that which wa, suggests the notion ol 

 an interval, we see that we have already fully assumed the idea of time 

 in the words u and teat. But we may say that space and the objects 

 which fill it exist independently of ourselves, and would undcrg< 

 changes though we were not in existence to perceive them, and that 

 therefore the times which those changes require would also exist ; this 

 involves the whole of the most abstruse part of metaphysics, and U 

 much beyond the scope of our article. We shall therefore turn to the 

 mode of measuring time ; we have a thorough conviction that time is a 

 magnitude, that is, has its more and leu. We must ask ourselves in 

 the first instance what we mean by a greater or a smaller time. 



In the perception of time as a magnitude, that is, of intervals ol 

 time as containing more or less of duration, we refer in the fin 

 instance to a habit derived from continual acquaintance with those 

 great natural successions on which the usual actions of our lives depend 

 with which we can constantly, though unconsciously, compare the 

 duration of our thoughts and actions. There is no more an absolute!; 

 long or short time wan there is an absolutely great or little space 

 these words are only comparative. If, for example, any one were to 

 affirm that the universe was continually growing less and less, all iU 

 parts altering in the same proportion, and the dimensions of the 

 human race with the rest, in such manner that the whole solar system 

 would now go into a nut-shell, such as nut-shells were a thousam 

 years ago, it would be impossible either for him to prove it, if true 



TIME. 4 



or for any one else to prove the contradiction, if false. In like 

 manner if any one were to lay that the revolutions of all the 

 heavenly bodies were continually accelerating, but that the properties 

 of matter were also continually altering, and the speed with which 

 deas are formed and communicated, and muscular efforts made, con- 

 inually increasing : it would be impossible to prove a con trad: 

 The oriental story is the best illustration of this : A prince was 

 ridiculing the legend of Mohammed being taken up by an angel, and 

 lolding many long conferences with his Creator, and having many 

 views of heaven and hell to the smallest details, in so short a time, 



aking with reference to things upon earth, that on hisbein^ drought 

 Jack, the water had not quite flowed out of a jug which he had dropped 

 rom his hand when the angel caught him. A magician at the court 

 of this prince checked his laughter by offering to prove the possibility 

 of the story, if his highness would only dip his head into a basin of 

 water. The prince consented, and the instant his head was immersed, 

 found himself lying by the sea-shore in a strange country. After a 

 reasonable quantity of malediction upon the magician, he found him- 

 self obliged by hunger to go to a neighbouring town, and seek the 

 Beans' of support. In time he became independent, married, and 

 wought up a family, but was gradually stripped of all his substance by 

 bsses, and buried his wife and children. One day ho threw himself 

 nto the sea to bathe, and on lifting his head out of the water, found 

 that he had only lifted it out of the basin, the magician and the 

 courtiers standing round. On his bitterly reproaching the magician, 

 ;he latter aasuredhim, and was confirmed by all the bystanders, that he 

 lad done nothing but just dip his head into the basin and, lift it out 

 again. Of course the prince expressed no more doubts about the story 

 of Mohammed, and however much any reader of the two tales may 

 hi uk that neither u true, a little reflection will show that either mi/jht 

 e so. Perhaps the allegory might have been suggested 1>\ v 

 known to take place in dreams ; there is evidence enough that many of 

 the longest of these illusions really occupy no more than, if so much as, 

 a second or two by the pendulum. [DREAMS.] 



In the laws of motion it seems as if , so to speak, matter took cogni- 

 sance of time ; a particle of matter will continue to describe equal 

 spaces in equal time*, until acted on by force from without. Yet it 

 would be possible to state this law as follows, in such a manner as to 

 avoid the comparison of quantities of duration. If two particles acted 

 on by no external ^forces, are at A and a at the same epoch of dura- 

 tion, and at n and 6 at the same subsequent epoch, then if A c be in 

 times A B, and if a c be m times a 6, the law of motion is that c and c 

 will be respectively attained at the same instant. The mathematician 

 will readily see that the equations of motion do not depend upon the 

 absolute recognition of time as a measurable quantity, but that any moving 

 particle, as A, being acted on by no force, the distance A c, described 

 in the time (, might be introduced into all formula; instead of the time, 

 without any question as to whether, time being physically considered, 

 the space A c varies as the time. It U enough that the uninfluenced 

 motion of any other particle should be connected with that of the 

 standard particle by the law above described. But though we can thus 

 avoid the idea of measurement of time, we cannot get rid of its 

 existence or of the notion of succession of epochs ; grant that we can 

 reduce dynamics to a (Aeon/ of rimulluneoui praitiims of particles of 

 matter, without reference to the absolute length of time employ, d in 

 passing from one position to another, there is still the notion of 

 in the notion of simultaneous. But, nevertheless, the idea of succession 

 thus introduced is hardly, if at all, more physical than that which 

 comes into most of the branches of pure mathematics, a point on which 

 it will be worth while to dwell for a moment. 



When Newton, in his doctrine of fluxions, or flowing quantities, 

 imagined length, space, solidity, and number itself, to be generated by 

 a continual and gradual flow, as a line by the motion of a point, a 

 surface by that of a line, and so on, it was objected that he introduced 

 the ideas of tune and motion, both of which were foreign to pure 

 mathematics, and properly belonged to mechanics. To get rid of these 

 intruders, the theory of limits, which the notion of fluxions immediately 

 requires, was attached, not to flowing quantities, but to variable 

 quantities. Let x be a variable quantity, is one of the most common 

 phrases of the systems which have superseded that of Newton. Now 

 variation means change ; it is never pretended that a variable has two 

 values at once. All the difference is, that by Newton the object of 

 consideration is supposed to grow larger or smaller, while the moderns 

 pass in thought from a larger quantity to a smaller, or vice vend, 

 taking one first and the other afterwards. If so slight a difference as 

 this be worth a contest, the distinction of pure and mixed science must 

 be trivial enough : the fact is, that both systems consider successive 

 values, and tuccettitm it time. If two computers were to quarrel which 

 was the purer arithmetician, the one who stood still and counted the 

 carriages as they passed by him, or the other who walked from one to 

 another and counted them as they stood still, they would, to UK, 

 much resemble some of the disputants for and against the principle of 

 fluxions. 



The actual measure of time depends upon our being able to secure 

 successions of similar events which shall furnish epochs separated by 

 equal intervals of time. We cannot do this by our thoughts, except 

 approximately, and for short periods. The memory of a musician, 

 aided by the sentiment or feeling of time which is part of a good ear 



