CENTURY II. 69 



capable to discern several men, by their voices, and in 

 the conjugation of letters, whence articulate sounds 

 proceed ; which of all others are most various. But in 

 the sounds which we call tones, that are ever equal, 

 the air is not able to cast itself into any such variety ; 

 but is forced to recur into one and the same posture 

 or figure, only differing in greatness and smallness. 

 So we see figures may be made of lines, crooked and 

 straight, in infinite variety, where there is inequality ; 

 nit circles, or squares, or triangles equilateral, which 

 ire all figures of equal lines, can differ but in greater 

 or lesser. 



104. It is to be noted, the rather lest any man 

 should think that there is any thing in this number 

 of eight, to create the diapason, that this compu 

 tation of eight is a thing rather received, than any 

 true computation. For a true computation ought 

 ever to be by distribution into equal portions. Now 

 there be intervenient in the rise of eight, in 

 tones, two beemolls, or half notes : so as if you 

 divide the tones equally, the eight is but seven whole 

 and equal notes ; and if you subdivide that into half- 

 notes, as it is in the stops of a lute, it maketh the 

 number of thirteen. 



105. Yet this is true, that in the ordinary rises 

 and falls of the voice of man, not measuring the tone 

 by whole notes, and half-notes, which is the equal 

 measure, there fall out to be two beemolls, as hath 

 been said, between the unison and the diapason : and 

 this varying is natural. For if a man would endea- 



