[CH. 2. the former, being intended to accompany words, ought to be expreffive of the fentiment that they convey; but the latter having no connection with words, may be agreeable without relation to any fentiment: harmony, properly fo called, though delightful when in perfection, hath no relation to fentiment; and we often find melody without the leaft tincture of it *. Thirdly, in vocal music, the intimate connection of fense and found rejects diffimilar emotions, thofe efpecially that are oppofite. Similar emotions produced by the fenfe and the found, go naturally into union; and at the fame time are concordant or harmonious: but diffimilar emotions, forced into union by these causes intimately connected, obfcure each other, and are alfo unpleafant by difcordance.

These premises make it easy to determine what fort of poetical compofitions are fitted for mufic. In general, as mufic in all its various tones ought to be agreeable, it never can be concordant with any compofition in language expreffing

or in an opera, may be introduced with advantage to accompany the representation of a diffocial or disagreeable paffion. But fuch founds must in themselves be disagreeable; and upon that account cannot be dignified with the name of mufic.

It is beyond the power of mufic to raise a paffion or a fentiment but it is in the power of mufic to raise emotions fimilar to what are raised by fentiments expreffed in words pronounced with propriety and grace; and fuch mufic may juftly be termed fentimental,

expreffing a disagreeable paffion, or describing a difagreeable object for here the emotions raised by the sense and by the found, are, not only diffimilar but oppofite; and fuch emotions forced into union produce always an unpleasant mixture. Mufic accordingly is a very improper companion for fentiments of malice, cruelty, envy, peevishness, or of any other diffocial paffion; witness among a thoufand King John's speech in Shakespeare, foliciting Hubert to murder Prince Arthur, which, even in the most curfory view, will appear incompatible with any fort of mufic. Mufic is a companion no lefs improper for the defcription of any disagreeable object, fuch as that of Polyphemus in the third book of the Æneid, or that of Sin in the fecond book of Paradise Loft: the horror of the object described and the pleasure of the mufic, would be highly difcordant.

With regard to vocal mufic, there is an additional reafon against affociating it with difagreeable paffions. The external figns of fuch paffions are painful; the looks and geftures to the eye, and the tone of pronunciation to the ear: fuch tones therefore can never be expreffed mufically, for mufic must be pleasant, or it is not mufic.

On the other hand, mufic affociates finely with poems that tend to infpire pleasant emotions: mufic for example in a chearful tone, is perfectly concordant with every motion in the

fame

fame tone; and hence our taste for airs expreffive of mirth and jollity. Sympathetic joy affociates finely with chearful mufic; and fympathetic pain no less finely with mufic that is tender and melancholy. All the different emotions of love, namely, tenderness, concern, anxiety, pain of absence, hope, fear, accord delightfully with mufic and accordingly, a perfon in love, even when unkindly treated, is foothed by mufic; for the tendernefs of love ftill prevailing, accords with a melancholy ftrain. This is finely exemplified by Shakespeare in the fourth act of Othello, where Defdemona calls for a fong expreffive of her diftrefs. Wonderful is the delicacy of that writer's tafte, which fails him not even in the moft refined emotions of human nature. Melancholy mufic is suited to flight grief, which requires or admits confolation: but deep grief, which refufes all confolation, rejects for that reafon even melancholy mufic.

Where the fame perfon is both the actor and the finger, as in an opera, there is a feparate reason why mufic fhould not be affociated with the fentiments of any difagreeable paffion, nor the defcription of any difagreeable object; which is, that fuch affociation is altogether unnatural: the pain, for example, that a man feels who is agitated with malice or unjuft revenge, difqualifies him for relishing mufic, or any thing that is pleafing; and therefore to represent such a man, contrary to nature, expreffing his fenti

ments

ments in a fong, cannot be agreeable to any audience of taste.

For a different reafon, mufic is improper for accompanying pleafant emotins of the more important kind; because these totally engross the mind, and leave no place for mufic, nor for any fort of amusement: in a perilous enterprise to dethrone a tyrant, mufic would be impertinent, even where hope prevails, and the prospect of fuccefs is great: Alexander attacking the Indian town, and mounting the wall, had certainly no impulfe to exert his prowess in a fong.

It is true, that not the leaft regard is paid to these rules either in the French or Italian opera: and the attachment we have to operas, may at first be confidered as an argument against the foregoing doctrine. But the general tafte for operas is no argument: in these compofitions the paffions are fo imperfectly expreffed, as to leave the mind free for relifhing mufic of any fort indifferently; and it cannot be disguised, that the pleasure of an opera is derived chiefly from the mufic, and scarce at all from the fentiments: a happy concordance of the emotions raised by the fong and by the mufic, is extremely rare; and I venture to affirm, that there is no example of it, unless where the emotion raised by the former is agreeable as well as that raised by the latter *.

The

* A cenfure of the fame kind is picafantly applied to the French ballettes by a celebrated writer : "Si le Prince

" eft

The subject we have run through appears not a little entertaining. It is extremely curious to observe, in many instances, a plurality of caufes producing in conjunction a great pleasure: in other inftances, no lefs frequent, no conjunction, but each cause acting in oppofition. To enter bluntly upon a subject of fuch intricacy, might gravel an acute philofopher; but taking matters in a train, the intricacy vanifheth.

Next in order, according to the method propofed, come external effects; which lead us to paffions as the causes of external effects. Two coexistent paffions that have the fame tendency, must be fimilar: they accordingly readily unite, and in conjunction have double force. This is verified by experience; from which we learn, that the mind receives not impulfes alternately from fuch paffions, but one ftrong impulse from the whole in conjunction; and indeed it is not eafy to conceive what should bar the union of paffions that have all of them the fame tendency.

Two paffions having oppofite tendencies, may proceed from the fame caufe confidered in dif

ferent

"eft joyeux, on prend part à fa joye, et l'on danfe: s'il "eft triste, on veut l'égayer, et l'on danse. Mais il y a “bien d'autres fujets de danfes; les plus graves actions "¿t la vie fe font en danfant. Les prêtres danfent, les

foldats dansent, les dieux danfent, les diables danfent, 66 on danfe jufques dans les enterremens, et tout danfe à 66 propros de tout."