CENTURY III. 137 



not be seen. I judge that sound is of this latter 

 nature ; for when two are placed on both sides of a 

 wall, and the voice is heard, I judge it is not only 

 the original sound which passeth in an arched line ; 

 but the sound which passeth above the wall in a 

 right line, begetteth the like motion round about it 

 as the first did, though more weak. 



Experiments in consort touching the sympathy or 

 antipathy of sounds one with another. 



278. All concords and discords of music are, 

 no doubt, sympathies and antipathies of sounds. 

 And so, likewise, in that music which we call 

 broken music, or consort music, some consorts of in 

 struments are sweeter than others, a thing not suffi 

 ciently yet observed : as the Irish harp and base viol 

 agree well : the recorder and stringed music agree 

 well : organs and the voice agree well, &c. But 

 the virginals and the lute, or the Welsh harp 

 and Irish harp, or the voice and pipes alone, agree 

 not so well : but for the melioration of music there 

 is yet much left, in this point of exquisite consorts, to 

 try and inquire. 



279. There is a common observation, that if a 

 lute or viol be laid upon the back, with a small straw 

 upon one of the strings, and another lute or viol be 

 laid by it ; and in the other lute or viol the unison 

 to that string be strucken, it will make the string 

 move, which will appear both to the eye, and by the 

 straw s falling off. The like will be, if the diapason 

 or eighth to that string be strucken, either in the 

 same lute or viol, or in others lying by : but in none 



