138 NATURAL HISTORY. 



of these there is any report of sound that can be 

 discerned, but only motion. 



280. It was devised, that a viol should have a 

 lay of wire-strings below, as close to the belly as a 

 lute, and then the strings of guts mounted upon a 

 bridge as in ordinary viols : to the end that by this 

 means the upper strings strucken should make the 

 lower resound by sympathy, and so make the music 

 the better ; which if it be to purpose, then sympa 

 thy worketh as well by report of sound as by motion. 

 But this device I conceive to be of no use, because 

 the upper strings, which are stopped in great variety, 

 cannot maintain a diapason or unison with the lower, 

 which are never stopped. But if it should be of 

 use at all, it must be in instruments which have no 

 stops, as virginals and harps ; wherein trial may be 

 made of two rows of strings, distant the one from 

 the other. 



281. The experiment of sympathy may be trans 

 ferred, perhaps, from instruments of strings to other 

 instruments of sound. As to try, if there were in 

 one steeple two bells of unison, whether the striking 

 of the one would move the other, more than if it 

 were another accord : and so in pipes, if they be of 

 equal bore and sound, whether a little straw or 

 feather would move in the one pipe, when the other 

 is blown at an unison. 



282. It seemeth, both in ear and eye, the instru 

 ment of sense hath a sympathy or similitude with 

 that which giveth the reflection, as hath been touched 

 before ; for as the sight of the eye is like a crystal, 



