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Tones arife from a stroke, touch, or preffure upon strings and wires, of different fizes and tenfions, or by pinching them with the nail or finger, called pizzicotto.

Voices, thofe especially of the human fpecies, the most agreeable, are formed by the mouth opened wide, and by the lips, which shape them, clofing with rotundity in the lower tones, but open in the upper, with rotundity, expreffed by the letters a, è, i, o, u, and in the words aw, eat, ye, oh,

woo.

These founds, pure and fimple, or compounded, are the elements of vocal mufick and language; accordingly they are named in Latin vocales, vowels, or vocal founds, from the Latin word voco, to call out aloud and audibly.

When the vowels or vocal founds are nicely tried, it will be found, that only three of them can with ftrictnefs be confidered as purely fimple and independent, namely, aw, ye, woo; the others, being not fufficiently diftant or feparated from them, may be called intermediate. Thus between a in our words all, tall, fall, which

we

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OF the following fheets it need

only be faid by way of Preface, that whether eftimable or not, they have one property, that of originality.

They are indebted very little to the ancients, fuch as Ariftoxenus on Mufick, Aritotle and Horace on Poetry, and Cicero on Oratory, or to the moderns, Boffu, Dryden, Pope, Addison, or any other writer whatever, on thofe fubjects.

The observations on Mufick and Oratory are the refult of many years experience, and on Poetry, of studying the originals themfelves, Homer, the father and preceptor of mufick, poetry and oratory, and Virgil and Milton, his fons and pupils.

* See the Vignette in the Frontifpiece, where Homer, under this character and idea, is crowned by one of the Graces.

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