OF Music. HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL; IN A SERIES OF LETTERS FROM A GENTLEMAN TO HIS DAUGHTER. BY A. BURGH, A. M. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, PATERNOSTER ROW. ANECDOTES OF MUSIC, &c. &c. LETTER XXIV. April 19, 1813. STATE OF MUSIC IN ITALY, DURING THE SIX TEENTH CENTURY. MELODY, the child of fancy, was still held in Gothic chains, and the subject of every movement was invariable. To check imagination's wild vagaries, and restrain her wanton flights in the solemnity of supplication, humility of contrition, funereal sorrow, or even the cheerful song of gladness and thanksgiving, when addressed to the Divinity, during the celebration of sacred rites in the temple, is not only required by propriety, but duty; yet, as the confining music entirely to religious purposes borders on fanaticism, so the treating secular and light subjects with eccle VOL. II. B |