The ordinary collation of sounds is commonly made by numbers, which not referred to a real cause or foundation in nature, may be just, but withal very obscure, and imparting of no knowledge. Witness the mathematicians musical proportion. His lordship did not decline numbers, but derived them from plain truths. He found 360 the aptest for those subdivisions that music required; and applying that to an open string, or monochord, each musical tone, formed by abscission of a part of the string, is expressible by those numbers so reduced in proportion. As of the string pinched off at or 180, an octave, and as 240; and so of the rest down to the tone or second, which cuts off, and the semitone, &c. Succeeding virtuosi extended this scheme by commentaries and experiments, some adopting and others opposing its practicability.] ANNE, MARCHIONESS OF WHARTON, [DAUGHTER and co-heiress of sir Henry Lee, of Ditchly in Oxfordshire, and first wife of Thomas, marquis of Wharton, by whom she had no issue. In 1681, says Mr. Ballard 3, she was in France on account of her health. About the year 1682 she held a correspondence with Dr. Burnet, who submitted some of his poetical exercitations to her inspection. Two of her ladyship's letters, lord Orford observes, are in a very pleasing style 4. They are printed with Dr. Burnet's in the General Dictionary. One of them runs as follows, and was addressed to her husband: "Forgive me for giving you the trouble of a letter every post; but I am indeed grown so fond a fool, that I can't help it. The other day, in a fit I almost beat my brains out against the pavement, and found the want of boards; for, a little more, and it had eased you of the inconvenience of a wife. But apropo, that day your brother Hamden met Mr. Savile 5 in my lodgings; and not knowing him, began extremely to • Sir Henry Lee having no son, left his estate to be divided between this lady and her sister, the countess of Abingdon, whose memory Dryden has celebrated in a funeral panegyric entitled Eleonora. Ballard's Memoirs, p. 297. * From the General Dictionary, vol.x. p. 122. * See article of Philip, duke of Wharton. • Embassador from England to France. complain of the king's embassador for not giving an information which he thought necessary. The fat person, wanting temper, began too quick to clear himself, and so discovered himself to the lean person, and spoiled a hopeful adventure, and then laid the fault upon innocent me, who sate harmlessly meditating a quarrel between famine and plenty. As it happened there was no more but an odd excuse made by your friend, which was odd enough, but yet not worth giving you the trouble of relating. He seemed much troubled for not seeing you before you left Paris; but I told him you did not know where to find him, or had certainly seen him. He is much recovered; which signifies no more than the rest. "You see how loth I am to leave off: these are fine things to entertain you with; but rather than say nothing, I could talk all day as idly to you, as if you had no more business nor sense "Than your obedient wife and humble servant, "ANNE WHARTON." "Paris, April the first, 1681." Lady Wharton's poetical productions appear to have been: "A Paraphrase on the fifty-second Chapter of Isaiah." "A Paraphrase on the Lamentations of Jeremiah"." "A Paraphrase on the Lord's Prayer "." 6 Five chapters were printed in Nichols' Select Collection of Poems. On this paraphrase Waller addressed a copy of complimentary verses to the writer. His own two cantos of divine |