1 СНАР. Of Hearing. very sensibly felt at the performance of some of Handel's choruses in Westminster Abbey: but, as they were in harmony, the sensation was not at all unpleasant. On the contrary, if I could conceive any sensation to be sublime, I should admit this to be so: but the sentiment of sublimity belongs to the affections of the mind, and not to organic sensation; as I shall fully show in examining that part of my subject. 5. The sensual pleasures of sound, to which I wish at present to confine my inquiries, are in their modes and progress nearly analogous to those of taste. Very young persons almost always prefer the sweet tones of a flute, or the female human voice, unaccompanied and without any technical modulation, to any more complicated harmony: but these simple tones, by being often repeated with little variety, grow vapid and tiresome; while mixtures, when once the relish for them is acquired, give permanent pleasure by varying it through every possible mode of combination; and still further varying these modes of combination by all the diversities of modulation-by swells, cadences, &c.; which render music one of the most delightful of gratifications, even when considered merely as a gratification of sense, independent of character and expression; which belong not to the sensations, which it causes; but to the mental sympathies and associated ideas, which those sensations excite and renew. 6. For there are certain modulations of tone, which instinctively express certain mental sympathies; and, without the intervention of any determinate notions or ideas, convey the sentiments of one mind, and awaken those of another with more unerring precision and emphatical energy, than the artificial medium of articulation can ever attain. Such are the various modulations of tone, by which birds and quadrupeds express their parental and sexual affections; and their sentiments of anger, resentment, or defiance: expressions, whose meaning is always clear and unequivocal; and which are understood as perfectly by those who have existed but a day, as by them, who have lived years; no young animal of any kind ever mistaking the murmur of affection for the growl of anger, or the cry of joy for the whine of distress. 7. Similar modulations of tone also serve, as a natural medium of communication of corresponding sentiments, in the human race, before the artificial one of articulation is acquired or understood; very young children. always perceiving, by the tone of voice, in which they are spoken to, whether they are applauded or reprimanded, long before they CHAP. IV. Of Hearing. CHAP. Of Hearing. have learned to affix any determinate ideas to the particular words uttered. 8. To this natural and instinctive effect of the different modulations of tone is owing, in a great measure, the effect of what we call expression in music at least of that which may properly be called sentimental expression; since it excites sentiments merely; whereas another kind of expression excites ideas also: but this depends upon the principle of association, which will be considered apart. The primitive music of all nations is, I believe, of this sentimental kind; music, as well as painting and poetry, being in its principle an imitative art*; and, though science may delight in that various and complicated harmony, which displays the skill of the composer, and the dexterity of the performer, without either pleasing the sense, or touching the heart; yet the mass of mankind, I believe, never find any gratification in music, but such as arises either from sweet tones, pleasing combinations, or such modulations, as either through instinctive. feeling, or habitual association, awaken pleas ing sympathies. The first of these is a sen-. sual, and the second a sentimental pleasure; while that, which is peculiarly felt by the learned, may be properly called an intellectual Aristot. Poet. f. iii. СНАР. IV. pleasure: for this likewise is really a pleasure, and one that may be as reasonably and properly cultivated as either of the others; as I Of Hearing. shall show in treating of the pleasures of the understanding. It is one, indeed, which I am utterly incapable of enjoying: but that is no reason why I should treat it with contempt, according to a too common practice; which, however, always indicates a narrow, or an uncultivated mind; and generally both. 9. As music consists in the melody of inarticulate sounds, so does poetry, as far as it can be considered as a gratification of sense, in that of articulate sounds: but as articulation consists in the division and interruption of tones, and harmony in their undulating flow into each other, it must be owned that articulate and melodious sounds seem to be of very adverse dispositions; and accordingly we find, that articulation is almost always partially suppressed in singing, even by those, who pronounce most distinctly; the pure or mute consonants, which alone mark distinct articulation, being softened down into liquids or aspirates. 10. Indeed, it appears to me, that the most melodious versification affords very little, if any at all, of mere sensual gratification; the regularity of metre or rhyme being rather calculated to assist memory and facilitate ut E CHAP. IV. Of Hearing. terance, than to please the ear; which, in music, is always most delighted with irregular combinations: for, though the same closes to particular periods are sometimes repeated at stated intervals, it is generally in lighter compositions, where the music is not principal, but adapted to the verse. 11. Music, too, is still music, upon whatsoever instrument it be performed; nor does that, which was composed for the harp, cease to be melody when performed on the violin. But the metre of one language, when applied to the words of another, ceases to have any effect at all; as has been abundantly proved by the hexameters, Sapphics, Alcaics, &c. which have at different times, and from different authors, appeared in English less like poetry could scarcely have been produced by the machine of Logado. Nevertheless the metres are exactly the same, as those which are felt to be so musical in the Greek and Latin; and as the tones in both are limited by us to our own habitual pronunciation of the five vowels, there cannot be any great difference in them, as modified to our utterance. 12. The relations of measure and quantity are fixed and determinate, and liable to no variation from the difference of the materials to which they are applied. They must, there |