268 THE COMPLETE ANGLES. [PART I. 



Pet. I marry, sir, this is music indeed ! This has cheered 

 my heart, aud made me to remember six verses in praise of 

 music, which I will speak to you instantly. 



Music ! miraculous rhetoric ! that speak'st sense 



Without a tongue, excelling eloquence ; 



With what ease might thy errors be excus'd, 



Wert thou as truly lov'd as thou'rt abus'd ! 



But though dull souls neglect, 



And some reprove thee, 



I cannot hate thee, 'cause the Angels love thee. 



Ven. And the repetition of these last verses of music 



M 



Edmund Waller. 



in a hook, entitled, Select Ayres and Dialogues for one, two, and three 

 Voyces; to the Theorbo -Lute and Basse Viol. By John Wilson and Charles 

 Coleman, doctors in music, Henry Lawes and others. Fol. London, 1659. 

 Lawes will he remembered as the friend of Milton, and composer of the 

 music to his Comus. The verses in praise of Music are taken from the end 

 of the same book of songs, where they are signed W. D. , Knight, meaning 

 perhaps Sir William Davenant. 



The reader is not to wonder at this motion of Venator 1 's, nor that Pisca- 

 tor so readily accepts it. At the time when Walton wrote, and long before, 

 Music was so generally well understood, that a man who had any voice, 

 or ear, was always supposed to be able to sing his part, in a madrigal or 

 song, at sight. Peacham requires of his gentleman only to be able "to sing 

 his part sure, and at the first sight ; and, withal, to play the same on the 

 viol or lute." Compl. Gent. 100. And Philomathes, in Morley's excellent 



