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hi? govtrnrwent, and of concurring with others, and particu- 

 larly with Albinus, who was accufed and convicled on the 

 prefumption of hoping, as it was faid, the liberty of Rome. 

 " If Albinus be criminal," exclaimed Boethius in the pre- 

 fence of the kin^, " the fenate and myfclf are guilty of the 

 fame crime. If we are innocent, Albiiuis is equally entitled 

 to the proteftion of the laws." The advocate of Albinus 

 was foon involved in the danger and perhaps the guilt of 

 his client ; their fignaturc, which they aflerted to be a for- 

 gery, was affixed to the original addrefs, inviting the emperor 

 Juliin to deliver Italy from the Goths ; and three witnelfes 

 of honourable rank, but probably of infamous charafter, at- 

 teiled the treafonable defigns of the Roman patrician. Upon 

 this kind of evidence, Boethius was committed to cuttody, 

 and rigoroufly confined in the tower of Pavia ; and a fcrvile 

 fenate", at the diftance of t;co miles, pronoimced a fentence 

 of confifcation and death againll the moft illuftrious of its 

 members. During his conlinement, he compofed his treatife 

 " De confolatione philofophias," mentioned in the fequel of 

 this article ; and at length the executioners of Theodoric's 

 mandate fulfilled the favage commiflion with which they 

 had been entrulted, or, perhaps, even exceeded it, by tiie 

 mode of putting him to death. Some fay that he was be- 

 headed ; but others relate, that a ilrong cord was faftened 

 round his head, and forcibly tightened, till his eyes almoft 

 ftarted from their fockets ; and he was then beaten with 

 clubs till he expired. This event happened, according to 

 fome, in the year 526, but according to others in 524. Boe- 

 thius, in his lad hours, derived fome comfort from the fafety 

 of his wife, of his two fons, and of his father-in-law, the ve- 

 nerable Symmachus. But Symmachus, perhaps indifcreet 

 in the mode of tellifying his grief, was fometime after dragged 

 in chains from Rome to the palace of Ravenna, and there 

 put to death, A. D. 525. Theodoric, it is faid, experienced 

 the bitternefs of felf-reproach, and the anguifh of an unavail- 

 ing repentance for the murder of thefe two illuftrious fe- 

 r.ators, Boethius and Symmachus. His daughter Amala- 

 funtha is faid to have rellored to the fons of Boethius the 

 confilcated eftates of their father. 



His celebrated tradl on niufic, divided into five books, was 

 flrft printed in black letter, with his treatifes on arithmetic and 

 geometry, at Venice, 1499. It is remarkable, that in this 

 copy the Greek of the famous yf?/a/?M confultum, againll Ti- 

 motheus at Lacedcemon, is omitted ; though it was afterwards 

 found in a beautiful MS. of Boethius, De mufica, 15 B. IX, 

 of the I Ith centur)', in the Britifh IMufeum, where the infa- 

 mous chromatic (pjjpjuaTo^) is faid to have been fubftituted by 

 that mufician to their grave and fimple enharmonic (Eva^(.(wiw), 

 in the fame manner as it is printed in the Oxford edit, of Ara- 

 tus. (See Differt. on the Muf. of the Ancients, p. 27.) 



It feems iiecefTary here to give fome account of this fa- 

 mous treatife on mufic by Boethius, which, to read, was 

 lon^T thought necelTai-y to the obtaining a mufical degree in 

 our univerfities ; and which, with great parade, has been fo 

 frequently praifed, quoted,and pronounced, by writers on that 

 art, to be of the greatctt importance to every mufician, yet 

 contains nothing but matters of mere fpeculation and theory, 

 tranflated from Greek writers of higher antiquity ; wiiich, 

 if neceffary to be known at this time, would be more pro- 

 fitably lludied in the original ; but the theory of every 

 art being vain and ufelcfs, unlefs it guide and facilitate 

 pra£lice, the definitions, calculations, and reveries of Boe- 

 thius, are no more ufeful or effential to a modern mufician 

 than Newton's Pnnctpta to a dancer. 



In the proemium, or introdu£l:on to his firft book, " De 

 Mufica," he treats of the morality of mufic, and gives us all 

 •the old {lories concerningits miraculous powers of exciting 

 virtue, reprefGng vice, curing difeafes, &c. And in this 



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book we find whence Zarlino, and all the Italian writers on 

 mufic, down to Padre Martini, drew their extenfive divifions 

 of muiic into viiiintane, human, and irjirumtntal. For Boethius 

 fays, " Trcs effe Mulicas," lib. i. cap. 2. So had Anil. 

 Quintilianus informed us, long before the birth of Boethius. 

 And as far as we are able to divine at prefent concerning thefe 

 dillinftions, the ancients meant by mundane mufic, the mufic 

 of the fpheres. By human, or humane mufic, the perfect 

 organization of our frame, and the union of foul and body. 

 By the laft only, the inilruinentai, we are brought to 

 real mufic, by the grateful production and union of tuneful 

 founds. 



Then we have definitions, fuch as are given in Euclid 

 and all the Greek writers, on harmonics and fpeculative 

 mufic in Meibomius. After which, we have the doftrines of 

 proportion and ratios, inllituted by Pythagoras, who would 

 not trull to the various and fallacious judgment of the fcnfes, 

 but had recourfe to reafon and calculation to fettle his doubts. 

 The account of the difcoveries and harmoiiial laws eftabli(hed 

 by Pythagoras, not only inferted in Bottliius, but all fub- 

 fcquent writers, is taken from Nicomachus, one of the feven 

 Greek writers on mufic in Meibomius. In the fame book, 

 we have a very fuperficial and unfatisfadlory account of the 

 genera. But we are indulged with feveral chapters on the 

 mufic of the fpheres from " Cicero de Repub." lib. vi. where 

 the fuppofed analogy between the planets and the feptenarj, 

 or feven founds in mufic, is aflerted. 



At the clofe of this book, chap, xxxiv. Boethius ellimates 

 theory and fpeculation far above praftice in mufic. But 

 what, we may aflv, is the ufe to the world of fuch a theory 

 as he defcribes, without praclice ? Or, indeed, praclice, 

 without the fuppurt of what is now underftood by theory ? 

 The fpeculative theoriils, confined to meditation and ex- 

 periments in hannonics, talk of mufic without bearing it ; 

 and the mere praftician hears it, without uuderflanding it. 

 Boethius allows him oidy to be a mufician who can exa- 

 mine, judge, and give reafons for what is done. Here we 

 have the origin of the verfes afcribed to Guido : 

 Muficorum et cantorum. 

 Magna eft diftantia, i<.c. 

 The whole fecond book is relative to the difpute between 

 the Pythagoreans and Arifloxenians, which is not yet fettled, 

 about dividing the fcale, whether by the ear, or by num.bers. 

 All the muficians in Europe are now difputing whether we 

 ftionld temper our fcales on fixed inllruments, or adopt the 

 triple progrtfiion of Pythagoras, and tune by perfect ^ths. 

 See TRii>LE PpvOGression, and Temperament. We 

 have here the tone-major and tone-minor to difcufs ; which 

 we talk about, but never feci or think of the diftindlion in 

 our modidation or performance. The apotoms, comma, and 

 limma, are left for the amufement of fpeculative harmoniits 

 to talk about, and for muficians to pradife with their ears 

 and (\ngc\s, fc;ns y f/en/L-r. 



In the third book, Boethius continues his controverfy 

 with the Ariftoxenians, and proves what has been long 

 fettled, that there is no fuch thing in mufic as a literal /ja/f- 

 note. The odlave is faid to contain five tones and two ftmi- 

 tones ; and in the temperament of equal participation, the 

 twelve femitones of the oAave muft be nearly equal. 



In book iv. the fubje6t is purfued of fplitting of tones ; 

 for the ancients could " divide and fubdivide a tone from 

 fouth to fouth-weil fide." 



We were very much difappointed formerly at the non- 

 performance of a promife made book v. at chap. 3. the 

 title of which is " Muficarum per Grxcas ac L;:tinas litcras 

 notarum nuncupatio." But Meibomius fays the promife 

 dots not extend to the Roman notation in the Seldon MS. 

 at Oxford ; ncr had the Romans any notation of their own 



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