hardly deferve a place in an elementary book.

We were com

forted by the fober fragments from the graceful Pergolefi, and the fublime Purcell.

Chap VIII. On the Analysis of Air, and the Conduct of Subject. Though this is a very neat and promifing title, yet but little is performed, and that little, perhaps, worfe than nothing; for the whole chapter is fo full of contracted notions and prejudices, that, if it teaches any thing, it will be a contempt for what fhould be admired, and admiration for what fhould long fince have been forgotten.

It was natural, from the title, to expect that the Author would have extended his inftructions to rythmical periods, and phrafeology, inftead of confining them wholly to the repetition of the fame traits of melody in different keys throughout the piece, from the beginning to the end; which he recommends under the notion of adhering to a theme or fubject. A Painter never repeats the fame figure, nor a Poet the fame line or thought, in the fame piece; but each fupports, contrafts, and gives relief to a good idea, by diffimilar, yet relative and congruous figures and reflections.

That unity of melody (not famenefs of paffage) which Rouffeau has fo well defcribed and recommended (Lettre fur la Muf. Fran.) is the greatest vice in compofition, according to our Author (43). And the fymmetry of Measure and proportion of Phrafe, which Mufic wants as much as Poetry, he has only mentioned (46.) in a note, in order to pass a cenfure upon it. This fort of measure should not fhew itself in Sacred Mufic; as infpiring levity into the ignorant, and disgusting perfons of judgment with its impertinence and abfurdity.' But would there be lefs gravity or dignity in a folemn air, if the phrafes were measured and divided into equal or aliquot parts? The periods of fuch melody fhould not be thort, light, or frivolous; but fhould always par take of the rythmus and metre of the words. The Author forgets that there are even ferious, folemn, and religious dances; and feems to have had in his mind nothing but jigs, hornpipes, country-dances,-and the dance of St. Vitus.

In the days of Corelli and Handel, preaching upon or rather, a perpetual repetition of the original text, and reference to it, was the fashion, and expected; and our Author wishes to eternize the practice. But fo many paffages have been fince invented, and fo much graceful and airy melody is floating about Europe, that to make one or two paffages, repeated in the fame or different parts, ferve for a whole movement, would be starving the ear in the midft of plenty. Handel frequently burst these bonds afunder, and flew to a second subject before the first was quite exhaufted; but he would have done, it still more, had he lived and written in our times; for he had genius fufficient to fet him at the head of whatever ftyle he chose to cultivate. REV. Sept. 1786. The

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The Air at the end of the overture in Sofarmes is masterly and ingenious if you will; but furely the eternal repetition of the fame three notes every other bar would be pronounced tiresome in any other compofer.

It is easy to perceive, both from the selection of the fpecimens, and from the commentary upon them, that Mr. Jones is but a fuperficial admirer even of his favourite triumvirate: for he appears to be but imperfectly acquainted with their real merit; and to be wholly a stranger to what they found ready done to their hands.

It is hardly poffible to read this book, without entering a little into the fpirit of mufical party. We fufficiently revere the three great and refpectable Mafters whom this Author fets up as models; an honour which they certainly deferve, in Mufic of their own time and ftyle; but we cannot join in his exclufive admiration of thefe great Muficians, and contempt for almoft every thing that has been produced fince their decease.

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We have never met with lovers, much lefs judges, of Music, who imagined that Air might be left to the wildness of nature.' Every one wishes for, and admires a good fubject, and pretty paffages, arifing from that fubject. It is perhaps from the greater abundance of these that our (Tottenham-Court) Critic concludes the harmony of modern compofers to be vicious.

Parallels have been drawn between Mufic and Poetry in other books; and Mufic has been called a language with grammatical construction, figures, and forms of speech. But when our Author tells us, that Measure is not neceffary to melody, and in this differs from Air,' he is not only fomewhat new, but, we think, inaccurate.

The allowing that a more wild and unmeafured fucceffion of acute and grave founds will conftitute melody, which is now generally fynonymous with Air, is an improper, unusual, and unneceffary diftinction, which can only confufe and miflead a mufical ftudent.

Syntaxis, he tells us, is applicable to the continuation or carrying on of the air or subject, with a juft arrangement of correfpondent periods in a mufical paragraph.'-And what, at length, does he mean, but that perpetual repetition of the fame paffage, which he afterwards calls the antecedent and confequent, and which the Italians as well as the French have long contemptuously called Rofalia? And accordingly, at the bottom of p. 48, we are told, that the confequent is fometimes but the repetition of the antecedent in the next related key.'——Again,

* This term Dr. Burney tells us, in one of his mufical Tours, had its rife from a Sicilian faint, celebrated in the golden Legend for telling her beads more frequently than any other in the holy Rubric.

p. 50, we are told, that Air is further diverfified, by taking the measure of it, and applying it to a different order of femitones, and by transferring it from a major to a minor key, or from a minor to a major key:' which doctrine is illuftrated in Ex. CXXXI. by the repetition of one common vulgar paffage in four different keys: as who fhould fay, "folly mortals fill your glaffes; Folly mortals fill your glaffes; Jolly mortals fill your glaffes; Folly mortals fill your glaffes." A moit ingenious and amufing diverfification!

But the most complete fpecimen of determined and perfevering repetition, which we have feen, is the Author's cookery, Ex. CXLIII; where, in what he is pleafed to call an Air, with eight or ten divifions or variations, the fame old paffage is repeated four times in each divifion. Indeed the whole bufinefs is a mere cento from a leffon of Handel, that was compofed at the beginning of the prefent century, when both the style and paffages were new; but of what use it can now be to a young Compofer, after being fo long played, and often plundered, by his admirers, we are unable to difcover.

The Author might have told us, that for the fafe way of introducing femitones in chromatic melody, Ex. CXXXV. he is obliged to Domenico Scarlatti *.

To object' (fays Mr. Jones, p. 51.) that fuch reasonable reftrictions' (as thofe he lays down from old authors concerning Chromatic) are obfolete, and that we have now got above them all, though they are founded in nature [the nature of chromatic!], is to fuppofe, that the fenfe of man, as it was in Corelli's days, may turn into nonfenfe, and be the better for it?Very jocularly faid! But to imagine, on the other hand, that an Árt fhall receive no improvement, in upwards of 60 years, from the cultivation and utmost efforts of fo many profeffors of diligence and abilities, is fuppofing, that Genius and Corelli died together, and were buried in one and the fame

grave.

The Author's friend, of whom he fpeaks, p. 52, feems to have illuftrated the effect of augmentation by a very apt fimile; and to confefs the truth, we have always more admired the ingenuity than effects of fuch relics of Gothic labour.

Frittering common chords into vulgar divifions (53.) which is so easy to do, and fo unmeaning when done, is one of thofe precepts (of which there are many in point of taste, in the book). that will do a mufical ftudent much more harm than good.

In analyfing the beginning of a beautiful movement by Eichner, Ex. CXLIV. the Author, by inverting the parts, has given another inftance of his utter ignorance of double-counterpoint; and in bar 3, the bass D with a requires an afcent to E, and was

See his Leffons, Book II.

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never

never known, when thus accompanied, to defcend to C with a common chord..

Determined to give no quarter to any Mufician that was ever guilty of good tafte, our Author has fallen foul on poor Alberti (45. and 59), who in the midft of Gothic barbarifm was the fit that taught the harpfichord to fing; not by long and inaudible binding notes, but by graceful, elegant, and refined meJody. Some of Pergoleft's movements in the Stabat mater difguft him with their mixture of modern Italian melody, and affectation of fecular Air' (52). Tartini's Chromatic makes every body miferable when they hear it' (40.); and Haydn and Boccherini are fo defultory and unaccountable (by his rules) in their way of treating a fubject, that they may be reckoned among the wild warblers of the wood; and, compared with Handel, are tea-table babblers' (49).

Unluckily, Mr. Jones's mufical reading has not only been fcanty and fuperficial, but during paroxyfms of inveterate prejudices; and he feems too much to have trufted to his own powers, in writing this book; often imagining that he has made. discoveries, when he but verges on what has been already well explained in other books. Nor is his knowledge in compofition fufficiently profound to render his own examples valuable, either by their originality or learning. Indeed his partialities weigh him down, and drag him not only from liberal ideas, but from good tafte, and that good fenfe which fome of his phyfiological writings led us to expect from him on the fubject.

On a careful perufal of this work, we are perfuaded that the Author is felf-taught, and has not been accustomed to teach others if he had, his definitions would have been shorter and clearer, and his materials more methodized.

Tartini's doctrine, as a theorift, however great his reputation as a practical Mufician, made but few converts. Rameau's, with the fame advantages of fcience and popularity, were long difputed. Whether our Author, with unprofeffional knowledge, and a name ftill to make, both as a theoretical and practical Mufician, is not too decifive, prejudiced, and erroneous in his opinions, either to ferve his own party, or depreciate the mufic he affects to diflike, is a problem which time only can folve.

If our Author had convinced us that he knew what had been. done in other countries, whence we have fo long drawn our' chief (upplies in compofition and performance, he would have merited the thanks of artifts as well as ftudents; but with fo fcanty a fhare of knowledge in the art, it feems to border on prefumption to imagine that a whole nation would unanimoufly join in creating him fupreme Dictator in the republic of Mufic.

Upon the whole, if this work had been likely to diminish the Jabour of the Mafter or Scholar, to correct the national tafte, or

extend the regions of mufical invention, fcience, or practice, the Author would have deserved the thanks of the Public as well as of every lover of Mufic, among whom, none would more readily and fincerely have joined than ourselves.

ART. IV. Encyclopædia Britannica; or a Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, &c. on a Plan entirely new. Compiled from the Writings of the beft Authors; the most approved Dictionaries; the Tranfactions and Memoirs of learned Societies, &c. Illuftrated with above two hundred Copper-plates. 10 Vols. 4to. 121. in Boards. Edinburgh, Balfour and Co.; Robinsons, London.

S it is not ufually the intention of thofe who compile Dic

A tionaries, to teach the Arts and Sciences, the only advant

tage they can with propriety afford, and the ufe to which they are principally adapted, is to refresh the memories of thofe who are already well grounded in fundamentals, or to give immediate though fuperficial information to those who require no more. Hence biographical, hiftorical, geographical, and other dictionaries, are of great confequence, and have ever been efteemed valuable furniture in the libraries of the learned: but the cafe is widely different with refpect to feientific dictionaries. They ought not to contain even the rudiments of fcience, much less complete treatises on any particular fubject; fince by that means the compilers would increase the size of their work to an unwieldy bulk, and in a great measure defeat the purpofe originally intended.

In the performance before us, which is a fecond and much enlarged edition of a work noticed in our 50th volume, p. 301, we meet with a variety greatly furpaffing that of any former collection of the kind, publifhed in this kingdom.

Biography forms a confiderable part of this Encyclopædia; thofe articles which we have examined are faithful copies or extracts from Bayle, the Biographia Britannica, and other productions of a fimilar nature; and fuch lives as are abridged, seem to be executed with judgment. Men, who in any remarkable manner have fupported their character, diftinguished themselves in their profeffions, or merited fame and applaufe for the services they have done to their country, to mankind, or to fcience, have always met with fome ready pen to gratify public curiofity, and tranfmit to pofterity the memory of their actions, their useful discoveries, and inventions, or literary compofitions. Hence arifes a material objection to the generality of LIVES; for most of the memoirs of illuftrious men that are handed down to us, have been written by thofe who were friends, or admirers of the principles, of that perfon whofe life was the object of their attention and, in many inftances, instead of impartial hiftories, we too frequently meet with warm and unlimited panegyrics. This

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