ESSAY THE FOURTH. As s many cursory observations have been made in the preceding Essays, which tended to prove how far Music, considered as an ally to Poetry, has deviated from what it was in the ages we call classical, it may seem to my Reader unnecessary to add any thing more on that subject. And indeed it was not my original intention so to do. Yet, if the fact be sufficiently proved, the causes, which have gradually operated to establish it, have not either been with sufficient precision historically deduced, or yet critically examined. To have done this in either of the two former Essays would have too much interrupted their particular subjects, and, like too long an Episode in a didactic Poem, impeded their progress. I have therefore thought it best to consider this point separately. And I flatter myself that the brevity and method, by which I shall extract the chronological notices of our two voluminous Musical Historians respecting this matter, will give the less informed Reader not only a general knowledge of the subject, but that if he admits my additional reflections on the various fluctuations, not of Musical Science but of Taste, he will find the causes of this imperfect alliance sufficiently ascertained. I must however previously observe, that although the Music of antient Greece and Rome might be a necessary assistant both to their Poets and Orators, we are not thence to conclude, that it was (when considered as a separate Art) then more perfect than it is at present. I was of this opinion in very early youth, and communicated my sentiments to my friend Mr. Avison in a letter which he was pleased to adopt, and to insert in one of the notes to his Essay, which therefore, supported by such authority, I shall here with a little variation repeat. "The* antients, when they speak of the marvellous "effects of Music, generally (I might have said con"stantly) consider it as an adjunct to Poetry. Now an "Art, in its progress to its own absolute perfection, may "arrive at some intermediate point, which is its point "of perfection, considered as an Art to be united with "another Art; but not to its own, when taken separately. "If then the Antients carried Melody to that precise 66 point, it is probable, they pushed the musical Art as far "as it would go, when considered as an adjunct to Poetry, "but Melody united with Harmony is the perfection of "Music as a single Science. Hence then we may deter"mine the specific difference between the antient and "modern Compositions, and conclude, that if Music as "an Art is now more perfect in itself, it is not so, when * See Essay on Musical Expression, 2d Edit. p. 72. <considered as a kind of vehicle to Poetry." Thus then by allowing to antient and modern Music their separate merits, I endeavoured to cut the Gordian knot, which it has not been in the power of the profoundest Musical Critics to unravel. That the antient Musicians, who composed the modes for every species of metrical composition, attended strictly to the laws of each respective Metre, to which they adapted their melodies, is a matter universally assented to; and that this attention to Rhythm, Accent, and Quantity continued to the days of the Emperor Constantine historical evidence is not wanting; for then, when Christianity became the established religion, the Ambrosian Chaunt, governed by those antient rules, was spread from the Church of Milan through the rest of the Roman Empire.* It was not till near two hundred years after, that Pope Gregory, by introducing the Cantus * See Burney's History of Music, Vol. II. p. 17, and Note. Ambrosius was made Bishop of Milan A. D. 374, Gregory in 590. That some part of the sacred Music of the Apostles and their immediate successors, when among their Gentile converts, was governed by the rules of Greek Poesy is by no means improbable, or that the Music of the Hymns, which were first received into the Church, wherever Paganism had prevailed, might have resembled that species of Rhythmical Music, which had been used for many years in Pagan ceremonies. The Versification of those Hymns gives us good reason to believe that this might have been the case. Examples may be found in all the antient Breviaries, Missals, and Antiphonaries, as well as in the modern, of every species of Metre, which has been practised by the Greek and Roman Poets, particularly the Alcmanian, Alcaic, and |