appears to confift always, not in attempting to please by a proper, but by fome improper modulation of the voice. It was early discovered that the vibrations of chords or ftrings, 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 diftinctness and precision concerning the mufical founds or tones of the human voice; they can always precifely ascertain 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 those founds or tones. What are called the intervals; that is, the dif ferences, in point of gravity and acuteness, between the founds or tones of a finging voice, are much greater and more distinct than those of the speaking 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 minutenefs of thefe intervals. The heptamerede of Mr. Sauveur could exprefs an interval fo fmall as the feventh part of what is called a comma, the smallest interval that is admitted in modern Mufic. Yet 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 greateft. As the founds or tones of the finging voice, therefore, can be afcertained or appropriated, while thofe of the speaking voice cannot; the the former are capable of being noted or recorded, while the latter are not. OF CERTAIN ENGLISH AND ITALIAN VERSES. HE meafure of the verfes, of which the ΤΗ octave of the Italians, their terzetti, and the greater part of their fonnets, are compofed, feems 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 fuppofed to confift fometimes of ten, and fometimes of eleven fyllables of ten, when the verse ends with a fingle, and of eleven, when it ends with a double rhyme. The correfpondent Italian verse is fuppofed to confift fometimes of ten, fometimes of eleven, and fometimes of twelve fyllables, according as it happens to end with a single, a double, or a triple rhyme. The rhyme ought naturally to fall upon the last fyllable of the verfe; it is proper likewife 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 |