recorded for many fucceffive generations. The measure, the hu mour of the fong, might perhaps have been delivered down in this manner, but it seems scarcely poffible that the precife notes of the tune fhould have been so preserved. The method of finging fome of what we reckon our old Scotch fongs, has undergone great alterations within the compafs of my memory, and it may have undergone ftill greater before. The distinction between the sounds or tones of finging and those of speaking feems to be of the fame kind with that between the steps, gestures, and motions of Dancing, and those of any other ordinary action; though in fpeaking a perfon may show a very agreeable tone of voice, yet if he feems to intend to fhow it, if he appears to liften to the found of his own voice, and as it were to tune it into a pleafing modulation, he never fails to offend, as guilty of a most disagreeable affectation. In fpeaking, as in every other ordinary action, we expect and require that the speaker should attend only to the proper purpofe of the action, the clear and distinct expreffion of what he has to fay. In finging, on the contrary, every person profeffes the intention to please by the tone and cadence of his voice; and he not only appears to be guilty of no difagreeable affectation in doing fo, but we expect and require that he fhould do fo. To please by the choice and arrangement of agreeable founds is the proper purpose of all Mufic, vocal as well as inftrumental; and we always expect and require, that every person should attend to the proper purpose of whatever action he is performing. A person may appear to fing, as well as to dance, affectedly; he may endeavour to please by founds and tones which are unfuitable to the nature of the fong, or he may dwell too much, on those which are fuitable to it, or in fome other way he may show an overweening conceit of his own abilities, beyond what feems to be warranted by his performance. The difagreeable affectation appears to confist always, not in attempting to please by a proper, but by by fome improper modulation of the voice. It was early discovered that the vibrations of chords or strings, which either in their lengths, or in their denfities, or in their degrees of tenfion, bear a certain proportion to one another, produce founds which correfpond exactly, or, as the musicians fay, are the unifons of thofe founds or tones of the human voice which the ear approves of in finging. This discovery has enabled musicians to speak with distinctness and precision concerning the mufical founds or tones of the human voice; they can always precifely afcertain what are the particular founds or tones which they mean, by afcertaining what are the proportions of the ftrings of which the vibrations produce the unifons of thofe founds or tones. What are called the intervals; that is, the differences, in point of gravity and acutenefs, between the founds or tones of a finging voice, are much greater and more distinct than thofe of the fpeaking voice. Though the former, therefore, can be measured and appreciated by the proportions of chords or ftrings, the latter cannot. The niceft inftruments cannot exprefs the extreme minuteness of these intervals. The heptamerede of Mr. Sauveur could exprefs an interval fo fmall as the feventh part of what is called a comma, the fmalleft interval that is admitted in modern -Music. Yet even this inftrument, we are informed by Mr. Duclos, could not exprefs the minutenefs of the intervals in the pronunciation of the Chinese language; of all the languages in the world, that of which the pronunciation is faid to approach the nearest to finging, or in which the intervals are faid to be the greatest. As the founds or tones of the finging voice, therefore, can be afcertained or appropriated, while thofe of the fpeaking voice cannot; the former are capable of being noted or recorded, while the latter are not. of OF CERTAIN ENGLISH AND ITALIAN VERSES. THE HE measure of the verses, of which the octave of the Italians, their terzetti, and the greater part of their fonnets, are composed, seems to be as nearly the fame with that of the English Heroic Rhyme, as the different genius and pronunciation of the two languages will permit. The English Heroic Rhyme is supposed to confift fometimes of ten, and sometimes of eleven fyllables: of ten, when the verse ends with a single; and of eleven, when it ends with a double rhyme. The correspondent Italian verse is supposed to confist sometimes of ten, fometimes of eleven, and sometimes of twelve fyllables, according as it happens to end with a fingle, a double, or a triple rhyme. The rhyme ought naturally to fall upon the last fyllable of the verse; it is proper likewise that it should fall upon an accented fyllable, in order to render it more fenfible. When, therefore, the accent happens to fall, not upon the last fyllable, but upon that immediately before it, the rhyme must fall both upon the accented fyllable and upon that which is not accented. It must be a double rhyme. In the Italian language, when the accent falls neither upon the laft fyllable, nor upon that immediately before it, but upon the third |