ESSAY THE FOURTH.

A s

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 con66 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 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 46 an Art is now more perfect in itself, it is not so, when

66

*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

which goes by his name, deprived Poetry and Prose also of its Rhythm, Accent, and Cadence; and this by establishing what is called Canto Firmo, and by banishing Rhythmical singing as too lively. He would not suffer verse to be sung, or rather, perhaps, would not let it be sung as verse, which his Canto Firmo, or notes of equal length, would most effectually prevent, because it was gay and paganish.

We are not therefore to impute the drawling prolongation of notes, in our mode of Psalmody, solely to a Calvinistical original; or the general neglect of verbal Rhythm, in our first English Composers of Anthems, to any other cause, than this old Pope's misconception of musical solemnity for, as the same judicious Historian remarks in a subsequent place,* "Our first reformers were of "the same mind, and rejected the Romish mode of "Chaunting, which Ambrosius had introduced, thinking

Sapphic: See the above quoted History, Vol. II. p. 8, where also in a note the Historian tells us that Prudentius, who died A. D. 393, was the Author of most of the Hymns in the Roman Breviary. The Sapphic Hymn too, whence Guido took his names for the Gamut, ut queant laxis resonare fibris, &c. is another instance, among many, of this fact. But when Monkish and Leonine Verses afterwards came into fashion, the old Churchmen readily adopted them; and such Hymns, as jingled like the Stabat Mater dolorosa

Juxta crucem lacrymosa, &c.

were soon added to the more antient ones written in classical

measures.

* See Burney's History, Vol. II p. 22. Note (9).

"it too light, and like common singing; and that there "would be more reverence and solemnity in making 66 every syllable of equal length and importance, a prac❝tice which is still continued in parochial Psalmody."

Hence it was, that a short time after the introduction of Canto Firmo, the Melopeia of the Antients, that best of friends to their Tragic and Lyric Poets, was so entirely lost, that those, who hunt for its vestiges in Aristoxenus and other writers on Music, who existed the nearest to Classic times, have been unable to trace them. Hence it was that Pope Gregory, by adding a most unjustifiable length to solemn sounds, broke through every boundary of Nature and Reason; that sense was exiled, and sound only predominant; that the brighter beams of Poetry became eclipsed, at first totally, and of late, though sometimes partially, yet always enough to take away much of their original splendor. But the Muse became still more subservient to her younger Sister about 450 years after the Pontificate of Gregory, and sixty after Guido Aretin had formed his musical Scale or Gamut;* for, as his invention related only to an arrangement of the succession of the sounds of the Octave, it was capable at first of doing her but little

*The following chronological references may perhaps not be without their use to some of my Readers. The Greek Appellatives for the musical scale were used by Gregory, which were known to Boetius, who died 526, sixty-three years before he was Pope. The musical stave, or linear notation, was invented 950. Guido's Gamut 78 years after, in 1028.