Letters from Barbary, France, Spain, Portugal, &c Volume 1

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1788 Excerpt: ... LETTER XXI. On Music. To Mrs. P-. IAM now going to take your advice, and try to recollect such of my observations on music as may have a chance of being new or singular, and in the order they may occur to a memory which you know to be none of the best. The vast variety of sounds, their formation, qualities, and effects, seem not to have been yet sufficiently attended to, perhaps because not of sufficient importance. But you see I know not well how, or where, to begin, without appearing too general and systematic; and I do not mean to write a formal treatise: we men are ever attempting to generalize ideas too much, and embroiling with scientific ratiocination the simplest things. Some Frenchman observes, " que trop de raifonnement etouffc le sentiment; //faudroit le laijser a ceux qui ne Vol. I. B b font font des hommes que par la teteJ" You ladies could give us very good lessons in these matters; with a little more education, many of you would render learning more agreeable and less pedantic, and would be sufficiently compressed and laconic in your reasoning, with all the advantages of a finer taste and a truer sensibility, a juster fense of simplicity, affectation, and of al! the human qualities, you might be still of more service to us. But I meant to say something more of the sounds, or component parts of language: I think they have not yet been well arranged,, nor understood; I doubt that which was understood by the Greeks is now mostly lost to us. Some of the Italian grammarians and musicians, as a Buomat-' tea, Martini, Tartini, &c. have made another beginning on these subjects of founds, language, music; and the Italians are most likely to succeed in pursuing them. Alpha Alphabetical writing was doubtless a-wonderful and important discovery. Its.gre...