g6 On RTTHMICJL MEASURES. 



will communicate no fentiment but that of ridicule or of 

 difguft. 



To change the meafure or the number of equal times in a 

 bar, in the courfe of a (hort ftrain or rythmical claufe, has, fo 

 far as I know, never been attempted by a modern mufician, 

 and probably would not be tolerated. And yet, if we are to 

 believe the accounts, which have been transmitted to us by an- 

 cient authors, this practice was not unfrequent amongft the 

 muficians of Greece. The verfes, to which they adapted muiic, 

 were often compofed of unequal feet, fuch as trochees and 

 fpondees, which they refpe&ively confidered as meafures of 

 three and of four equal times, and thefe occurring fometimes 

 alternately ; and we are told that the mufic rigidly obferved the 

 meafure of the verfes. If this was indeed the cafe, it is a lin- 

 gular fact in the hiftory of mufic, to which perhaps no parallel 

 has been found. After the many clear and exprefs testimonies 

 to the truth of that fact, which have been given by enlighten- 

 ed authors, who were natives of the country, and who may 

 be fuppofed to have been well acquainted with, and to have had 

 frequent opportunities of hearing that mufic, it may appear 

 highly prefumptuous to exprefs the fmalleft doubt with regard 

 to it. There are, however, fome considerations which ftrongly 

 incline me to indulge at leaft fome degree of fcepticifm, and to 

 fuppofe that nature, perhaps without their confcioufnefs, might 

 at times prevail over fyftem. 



I formerly obferved, that to count off alternate parcels of 

 two and of three equal times, and thereby to form aggregates 

 of five, is by no means impracticable ; but that it requires an 

 uneafy effort of the attention, and that both the performer and 

 the hearer feel a ftrong defire to have the even number of fix 

 times completed, either by a lengthened found, or by a filence. 

 I may here add, that neither is it impracticable to form alter- 

 nate parcels of three and of four times, but that, as the num- 

 ber feven, the aggregate of thefe, is lefs agreeable and fatis- 



factory, 



