564 



AN ESSAY ON WUSIC. 



strains, containing equal numbers of tliose 

 divisions. All this is perfectly natural, but 

 perhaps, not so necessary to music as Mr. 

 Walter Young, in his excellent essay, printed 

 in the Edinburgh Transactions, appears to 

 imagine; for those who are already expe- 

 rienced musicians are generfiliy observed to 

 delight in recitative, where the rhythm is al- 

 most entirely lost ; and still more in fugues, 

 where two or three series of rhythms, almost 

 independent of each other, are carried on at 

 the same time, one part beginning its subdi- 

 visions when another h;is made some pro- 

 gress, and a third is still to follow. But the 

 pleasure derived from such compositions is, as 

 Kirnberger has observed, more intellectual 

 than sensual, arising in a great measure from 

 the consciousness of bting able to compre- 

 hend that which is " caviare to the general." 

 Rhythm is generally marked in performance 

 by a slight increase of force at the beginning 

 of each subdivision or bar; sometimes, ' and 

 in some instruments always, the change of 

 sounds, in point of acuteness and gravity, 

 or the interruption of the same sound, is a 

 sufficient distinction ; and sometimes, after 

 the rhythm has already been firmly impressed 

 on the mind, neither change of sound nor of 

 strength is perpetually repeated ; the imagi- 

 nation alone being sufficient to conceive the 

 continuation of the rhythm: but this consti- 

 tutes a kind of tempo rubato, where the per- 

 re()tion of measure is intentionally weakened 

 or suspended. The Aeolian harp pleases in- 

 deed without rhythm, but the pleasure would 

 soon be exhausted by repetition. 



The next constituent part of music is me- 

 lody. Melody may in some sense be said to 

 please on the same principle as rhythm, the 

 partiality of the mind to a regular recurrence 

 of intervals : for though we have it not in 



our power to count the single vibrations of 

 musical sounds numerically, yet we are evi- 

 dently able to compare with ease such 

 sounds as are related to each other in the 

 simplest numerical ratios. For instance, if 

 a treble and a tenor voice sing the same part, 

 there is scarcely an ear so inaccurate as not 

 to perceive their resemblance, which is pro- 

 duced by the recurrence of two vibrations of 

 the treble note at the same interval of time 

 with one of the tenor. The same love of or 

 der may easily be extended to the compari- 

 son of fifths and fourtlis, where the propor- 

 tions are as two to three, and as three to 

 four. This is enough to account in some de- 

 gree for the pleasure derived from melody, 

 or the succession of sounds bearing certain 

 proportions to each other, in respect to gra- 

 vity and acuteness: besides that the same 

 intervals, which are most melodious in suc- 

 cession, are found also to form the most 

 pleasing combination of harmony when co- 

 tamporary ; for since the preceding sound is 

 very frequently continued by reflection from 

 surrounding objects, so as to become co- 

 temporar}' with the succeeding, and perhaps 

 always remains fixed in the imagination, it 

 is obvious that sounds, in order to be per- 

 fectly melodious, must also be harmonious. 

 Add to tliis the im|)ression generally made 

 in infancy by the more or less melodious dit- 

 ties of the nurse's voice, and the connexion 

 of refined and chromatic melodies with the 

 natural expression of the moans of grief, or 

 the exclamations of J03' : and from the union 

 of all these causes it may easily be conceived 

 from whence the love of melody, as an ac- 

 quhed faculty, may, without much difficulty, 

 be derived. 



The pleasure arising from harmony is not 

 so simple and universal as that which is pro- 



