will then accord: When the strings are in this proportion, their coincidences are more frequent than when their lengths are in any other ratio; and hence it is that the octave is the most perfect concord. If their lengths are as 2:3, which is the ratio of the fifth, every third vibration of the one coincides with every second of the other-the coincidences are not so frequent as in the octaves-and therefore the concord is not so perfect. If their lengths are such, that they never begin to describe the arcs of vibration together, but perpetually cross each other in their oscillations, then their sounds are jarring and unconsentaneous; and thus produce a discord.-After this long digression upon the Theory of Sounds, we return to the History of Music. The rites and ceremonies of the Christian church originated in the East, where Christianity was first established; and, from this period, our information on the progress of Music becomes more certain. The first regular choir for singing hymns and the service of the Church, was established at Antioch, in the time of Constantine. At this place, an order of Monks was founded, who were obliged by their rules to keep up a continual chanting-a sort of perpetual fire of Psalmody, which the Monkish writers call Laus Perennis. These ceremonies gave rise to a mode of singing which was afterwards established at Milan, and known by the name of the Ambrosian Chant, after St Ambrose, who brought it from Antioch; and this method of chanting the Psalms continued with little alteration for upwards of two centuries, when it was reformed by another father of the Church and of its music, St Gregory-in the year 600. He introduced a very considerable innovation, by increasing the four modes which were derived from the Greek music, and called Authentic, by the addition of four others which he called Plagal-(a hayos, obliquus, collateral or adjunct.) || He ba Euseb. Lib. II. c. 17. Psalmody Island, in the Diocese of Nismes, is so named from a monastery founded there, with similar observances, by a Syrian monk, from Antioch, towards the close of the fourth century. The Authentic mode is that part of the scale, contained between the Tonic and the Dominant; and the Plagal is the part below, between the Tonic and the Subdominant. In a strict Fugue, the extreme notes of the Authentic are answered respectively by the extreme notes of the Plagal-or vice versa. nished the Canto Figurato, or chants composed of notes of two kinds, viz. one note double the length of the other;-these had been borrowed from the Greeks, whose notes, regulated by the syllables of their verse, were only of those two sorts. Gregory thought this a heathenish practice, and quite an abomination; and permitted notes, of one length only, to be used;--and hence the name of Canto Fermo, which was given to the chant introduced by him, from its grave and measured character. It has been thought surprising that so few traces should be found, in the Canto Fermo, of the music of the ancient Greeks and Romans, which has been so extravagantly praised by all writers upon the subject: But we must recollect, that the persecution which the first proselytes to Christianity suffered at the hands of the Romans, compelled them to meet secretly and by night-and to celebrate their rites in caves and hidingplaces. Even the princes who at first gave the sanction of their protection to the new religion, stood too much in awe of the extensive power of the Roman empire, to set themselves openly against it, by countenancing a religion which it thought proper to oppose. Besides this, another cause operated to the exclusion of the Greek and Roman music. From the inveterate horror with which the first Fathers of the Church regarded the dissolute manners and idolatrous rites of the Pagans, they strictly forbade the adoption of any ceremonies connected, however remotely, with Paganism; and hence it was that they excluded, not only all imitations of the secular music, but also of that which, being used in the Pagan temples of worship, might have afforded better models on which to graft the chant of their own Church. The melody of the Canto Fermo was of the most simple kind. The uniform length of their notes, which, whe ther they are of the square or lozenge shape, always denote intervals of the same duration, prevented the variety of expression in the music, which the sense of the words frequently demanded: No accidental was allowed, excepting B flat, consequently there was a very great poverty in their modulation; * and their cadences were only such as were made by the flat seventh rising a whole tone before the final close. To this monotony in the Canto Fermo, owing to the ridiculous restrictions imposed upon it by Gregory, we must attribute the long infancy and child The only major keys in the Canto Fermo, were C, and its dominant and subdominant; and the only minor keys were A, and its dominant and subdominant :-and of those six, four are deficient in their scale-as, by the exclusion of accidents, there is no sensible note, or seventh, to G, A, D, or E. riod music was established in England. Austin, the monk, whom Gregory sent from Rome to convert the Saxons, is said to have been their first instructor in the mysteries of Ecclesiastical music. In 668, singers were sent into Kent by Pope Vitalian; and in 680, Pope Agatho despatched no less a person than the Precentor of St Peter's, to teach the monks of Weremouth, and to establish singing schools in the kingdom of Northumberland. About this time, also, organs began to be very generally used in Italy and Germany, and also in the English convents; and we apprehend that it was very much owing to the introduction of this instrument, that the scientific part of music began now to be cultivated. Guido Aretinus, a Benedictine monk, who lived about the year 1020, is the reputed inventor of Counterpoint. He added some notes to the scale; and to these sounds he gave the names Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La; because these were the first syllables of each hemistich, in a hymn to St John the Baptist, which, in the music, happened to form a series of six notes regularly ascending. + The note which he added below, was expressed by Gamma, according to the Greek notation; and hence the scale was called a Gamut. Franco, of Cologne, who lived also in the eleventh century, was the next person after Guido, who benefited music by his discoveries :-He invented the Time-table; and gave hints which afterwards led to the introduction of Bars: He also invented the dot, which, placed after a note, increases its duration by onehalf; and this was perhaps the greatest improvement which he introduced. Till this period, the only notes known, were the Maxima, or Large-the Long-the Breve-and the Semibreve; when Walter Odington, a Monk of Evesham, who flourished in the reign of Henry the Third, had the boldness to add another note-the Minim. He wrote a very elaborate + The verse which gave rise to these whimsical names, is- Sancti Johannis. The Italians have substituted Do, instead of Ut, as being more open for the voice; and about 150 years ago, the French added the syllable Si, to express the seventh of the key and thus the scale remains to this day. : this time, also, appeared the treatises of Marchetto, and n de Muris (who is said by some to have been an Engn), in which the use of Discords is recommended, as exto correct the cloying which attends a harmony of connly. Explanations of the Resolution of Discords are also progress which had now been made in the scientific part, very much to advance and embellish the practical parts ic. A species of composition called Motets, of a livelier than the sombre and monotonous Canto Fermo, was in; and attempts were made to introduce it into the service Church. But the rigid zeal of the holy fathers manfully d an innovation which savoured so much of secular proThey had beheld, with very jealous eyes, the addition semibreve and minim; but when motets were suggested, uld no longer contain their indignation. They petitione John XXII. that he would adopt some measures to he spirit of libertinism which was so dangerously maniitself; and, in compliance with their urgent entreaty, liness issued a decree, in which he severely animadverts he abuses which had crept into the Sacred Music of the ; and setting forth, that some profane persons had been enough to introduce wanton modulations, and to butcher ody by indecorous divisions; and that others, with no dihood, had been so captivated by these vagaries, and by y notes and novel measures of the disciples of the modern that they liked better to have their ears tickled with the eves and minims, and such frivolous inventions, than to e orthodox and established ecclesiastical chant:-he strictds the use of such innovations, under the penalty of his Ical malediction. With the same praiseworthy detestaimprovement, Odo, archbishop of Rheims, admonished ns of the monastery of Villars, to avoid such indecent e a biographical account of this learned monk, in Moreri. the original Bull, the words are Melodias hoquetis interseHis Holiness alludes, we presume, to the Neuma, or Bars, ere used about this time, and were first employed in church s breaks or pauses, to allow the singers to take breath: and interruption in the monotonous drawl of the chant, the perwere censured as hiccuping in their song. We cannot therefore wonder that the progress which music made was so slow, when the churchmen, who were then the principal cultivators of that or any other art, were restricted by the arbitrary bigotry, and timorous scruples of their superiors. But the time was now at hand, when the various causes, which had been gradually effecting a change in the languages of the South of Europe, began in like manner to produce a revolution in its music. The improvements in the languages of the South, which, since the destruction of the Roman Empire, which occasioned an incorporation of the Latin with the corrupt dialects of the Northern invaders, had such important effects on the poetry and music of those countries, that they deserve some attention. Some time before the birth of the Italian language, there had been established in Gaul, the Romanesque or Romance, so called from having had its basis in the Roman tongue. After the southern provinces were subdued by the Visigoths and Burgundians, and the northern by the Franks and Normans, there was not in that country any further irruption from the Northwhile Italy continued, for some ages after, a prey to invaders from all countries,-Germans, Hungarians, Saracens;-and thus, while each district retained its own peculiar dialect, no general language could be consolidated,—and hence it was behind Gaul in the formation of its language. The poetry and music of Provence were the boast and model of all Europe for several centuries after the time of Charlemagne. But this supremacy survived only till about the time of the crusades, when the Italian poetry and literature having acquired a strength which made it known to the rest of Europe, superseded that of the Troubadours,-which continued, for a short period longer, to linger in Catalonia and Arragon, and then expired for ever. It had, however, wrought an important change in the character of the music of that period; and its effects on this were of a more lasting nature than on the poetry-as, being transmitted by the minstrels who came into the north of Europe, the improvements were pursued in the music of the fabulous songs and romances, which succeeded the Provençal, in the northern provinces of France. Although the French were in the habit of writing their language earlier than the Italians, they were much longer in bringing it to perfection. In Italy, the use of the Latin was preserved in the courts of law, and very generally in polite conversation, but universally in composition, such as sermons, discourses |