MUSIC. 
What a caufe of regret for the lover of the art, that no 
veftiges can be traced of what ancient raulic really was; 
and that, in the rapid flood of ages, all records fit to beam 
a light on fo interefling a fubjeCt have been entirely fwept 
away. We have indeed treatifes and works of the Greeks 
upon ancient mufic, but they are of no ule; for the moll; 
learned profelfors of modern harmony cannot underftand 
them. The tedious niceties of everlafting windings 
through' die labyrinth of a diflefited diapafon ; the pecu¬ 
liar characters of their tetrachords, and the heavy cloud 
that fits upon the knowledge of their notation ; may be 
fet down as real caufes of diftrefs to the feelings of the 
mufician, as well as to the curiofity of the antiquary. 
In laid introduction to the hiftory of this heavenly art 
among the ancients, the learned and celebrated Dr. Bur¬ 
ney lays, with no lefs ingenuity than truth, “ What the 
ancient mufic really was, it is not now eafy to determine ; 
but of this we are certain, that it was lomething with 
which mankind was extremely delighted. For not only 
the poets, but the hiftorians and philofophers, of the bell 
ages of Greece and Rome, are as diffufe in its praifes as 
of thofe arts concerning which fufiicient remains are 
come down to us to evince the truth of their panegyrics. 
And fo great was the fenlibility of the ancient Greeks, 
and fo foft and refined their language, that they feem to 
have been to the reft of the world what the modern Ita¬ 
lians are at prefent. For of the laft, the language itfelf 
is mufic ; and their ears are fo refined, and fo accuftomed 
to fweet founds, that they are rendered faftidious judges 
of mufic both by habit and education.'" The doCtor might 
perhaps have added, by nature ; for the harmonious glow 
of the delightful climate of Italy feems to have imprefled 
upon the delicate nerves and corporeal frame of the in¬ 
habitants fuch an exquifite l’enfibility, that one might 
fuppofe that, tranfported young, or even born of Italian 
parents under the rougher climates of the north, the 
child would w'arble his infant tones with more fweetnefs 
and variety than the people among whom he might be 
accidentally placed. The doCtor adds with great frank- 
nefs, “The fubjeCt itfelf of ancient mufic is fo dark, 
and writers upon it fo difcordant in their opinions, that I 
fhould have been glad to have waved all difcuflion about 
it; for, to fay the truth, the ftudy of ancient mufic is 
now become the bufinefs of an antiquary more than of a 
mufician.” (Hill, of Mufic. Lond. 1776. vol. i. p. 3.) 
We entirely agree with this author in what we have 
quoted above. For, indeed, how can any one fuppofe 
that writers of talie and delicate feelings, like Arilfotle, 
Pliny, Plutarch, &c. &c. who had a foul to feize upon, 
and attach itfelf to, whatever was good in the fine 
arts, could have been miftaken as to rpufical perfor¬ 
mances, and to its nearly fupernatural influence upon 
the pafiions and afrefitions of mankind? “ Arifioxenus 
ppfitively fays, that, if mufic was introduced in banquets 
and feftivities, it was principally becaufe, wine being apt 
to excite agitation and tumult in the body and heart of 
thofe who drink it too freely, mulic pofleffes the power 
of bringing both to a calmer date by the arrangement 
and fymmetry of its founds.” (Piut. de Mufica, chap. 67.) 
Doubts have been raifed as to the propriety and juft- 
nefs of the praifes bellowed by Pliny and others upon 
the lkill of the Greeks under Alexander, in the art of 
painting. The talents of an Apelles, a Zeuxis, a Par- 
rhafius, have been brought into quefiion, and their per¬ 
formances compared, by modern barbarians, to thofe of 
our bed fign-painters. But what has been the victorious 
anlwer to thefe doubts: fee the remains of their inimi¬ 
table works in fculpture in general, and flatuary in par¬ 
ticular! See their Apollo, their Laocoon, their Venus 
de Medicis, and thouiands of others! Can any man of 
fenfe fuppofe that the writers who had tafte enough to 
feel, and genius to defcribe, thefe miracles of fculpture, 
could have been miftaken as to the lifter art, painting ? 
Pliny had feen the Laocoon, and the works of Apelles: 
Jxe admires them all, and defcribes them with the fame 
2 & 
enthufiafm. The conclufion is obvious. Both fculpture 
and painting delerved the fame encomiums. Let us now 
apply this argument to mufic, and we muft reft con¬ 
vinced that, as Burney fays, mufic, among the ancients 
was “ lomething with which mankind was extremely 
delighted.” 
But Pome one may afk, what might be the tranfports of 
admiration, or the fneer of difguft, the chill of deep 
impreftion, or the death-like apathy, of a Pericles or a 
Rofcius, at hearing the overture of the Clemenza di Tito 
by Mozart, or of the Anacreon by Cherubini, as they 
are performed by the beft orcheftras in Europe, and their 
aftonilhing felf-playing reprefentative, that grand organ 
the Apollonicon ? It is impoffible to anfwer the queftion : 
we have no remaining data. Were the common and 
fudden jolts of the human voice in full declamation 
written down and called mufic ? or the uniform tenor of 
the theatrical flute, as ’.veil as the oaten reed in the mea¬ 
dows of Enna, where Theocritus’s goat-herds ufed to lull 
their brooks and their flocks to deep, by the lengthened 
monotony of their pipes—were thefe confined notes the 
acme of melody in thofe times?—who can tell? Deaf 
to the founds of antiquity, ignorant even of the pronun¬ 
ciation of ancient languages, but keen of hearing re- 
fpeCting modern mufic, we are not eafily convinced that 
Greek and Roman harmonifts were comparatively equal 
in tafte and lkill to our own. Yet, that never-failing 
ftandard, thofe delightful fpecimens of tuneful organs 
which nature has bountifully placed on every tree, in 
every bufii, when the feathered choriffers of fpring, dim¬ 
mer, and autumn, celebrate in full bands the riling of. 
the fun, the type of their Creator; the notes of the 
nightingale, of the blackbird, of the red-breaft, and of 
the thrulh, are Hill the fame, the unchanging patterns of 
genuine melody; and, if the cotemporaries of Tyrteus, 
endowed with the keeneft fenfations of harmony, did, as 
we do, admire and praife the warblings of the grove, how 
could they liften to a fyllem of mufic much inferior to 
our’s ? We muft therefore conclude that, though an im¬ 
penetrable veil has been dropped by the hand of time 
between ancient mufic and our ears, the greateft part of 
what we read concerning it in contemporary writers, does 
not deviate much from reality and truth. 
Befides, had not this art attained a great degree of per¬ 
fection, as well as painting and ftatuary, what could 
have induced the hiftorians to be fo careful, fo relpeCl- 
lully minute, in preferving the names of thofe who had 
either invented or performed in the different mufical 
modes. In his amufing treatife on mufic, Plutarch alone 
mentions about feventy worthies of this kind, who were, 
moftly, both, poets and muficians; for poetry and mufic 
W'ere leldom feparated, and thefe two filter mules ufed to 
go hand in hand to the banquetting-hall, or walk at the 
head of conflicting armies. 
The molt barbarous tribes of favages had at all times 
their mufical entertainments'; and does not the fuller* 
negro folace his flaviih hours by what to him is mufic, 
although to us it appears but a fad and conllant itera¬ 
tion of the fame doleful founds ? The “ rans des va- 
clies,” whole modulation, fimple, and nearly uniform 
like nature, expreffes in a few bars the trickling down of 
fmall Itreams of water among the ftupendous rocks and 
delightful valleys of Swifterland, united to the quicker 
movement of a paltoral dance in the bolom of the Alps; 
this ancient fpecimen of rude melody, as old perhaps as- 
the nation of the Allobroges, (who long preferved their 
freedom, and kept aloof the claws of the Roman eagle,) 
has been handed down to us by tradition ; and every one 
knows that thefe genuine and national founds have the 
magic power of calling forth tears of regretful memory 
from the eyes of the Swifs peafant, when he hears them 
in any country ever fo diltant from the rugged rocks and 
fnowy ridges where he was born. So much for the 
power of mufic, even'in its uncultivated ltate, upon 
the feelings of man. 
.1 
Ill 
