What had she to fear from a man whose bosom was the seat of honour? What a happiness, what a triumph for her to be selected by so superior a being! She looked timidly at Alcanor. His respectful deference, his affectionate attentions, his graceful gaiety reassured her; by degrees her timidity, her reserve wore off, and without a word on either side, they were on the footing of avowed lovers. To have doubted his honour would have been sacrilege. She became a new being. She looked forward with some apprehension indeed to the situation to which her marriage would raise her; but she endeavoured to render herself worthy of it. She hourly improved in grace, gaiety, and appearance, and Alcanor became hourly more and more attached: yet so delicate were the marks of his attachment, as to be by all unnoticed, save by the conscious Cecilia!

She was now anxiously expecting the moment when his avowal should dissipate all apprehensions, when one day, after a temporary absence, as she advanced to meet him with her accustomed gladness, she was struck with the strangeness of his manner!.....Polite he was indeed; but what was mere politeness from Alcanor to Cecilia? She gazed in his face; she saw in it no answering warmth; she retired to weep, and in solitude, chid herself for her fancifulness. She returned to prove Alcanor faultless, and herself mistaken. She found him to all others cheerful, animated, gay, as usual... to her invincibly cold. Day after day passed on, and no returning kindness beamed in his eye. Hope was extinct, and thus ended forever an attachment singular in its progress, and barbarous in its termination...No opportunity now offered of speaking alone to Álcanor, and if it had, of what service would it have been to the unfortunate Cecilia? Of what was she to complain? Nothing, however, was ever fur

ther from her wishes than to complain, except to reproach Alcanor! To conceal her griefs, to conquer her feelings, to command her countenance, these were the tasks she imposed upon herself....these were the efforts that exhausted her strength,that imbittered her solitary hours, that bathed her pillow with tears!

These salutary efforts, however, succeeded, and Cecilia is a noble example that philosophy and exertion can surmount the greatest trials, and afford comfort under the heaviest misfortunes. She has devoted her time, with exemplary fortitude, to those pursuits which formerly interested her; and she finds from her laudable exertions the truest and most permanent comfort. One only reflection remains to imbitter her hours of retirement, and that is, her earnest and not unjustifiable curiosity to learn the reason of Alcanor's sudden change: but this explanation she must assuredly rest without obtaining, since she can never ask, and he seems not at all disposed to volunteer it.

That no future clouds may arise to disturb a serenity so laudably regained, must be the wish of every one who reads this recital; but what words can do justice to the unsuspected perfidy of Alcanor, who first obtained the full confidence of his destined victim, and then amused himself with watching the progress of a passion he coolly resolved to reduce to despair? Cecilia, indeed, with a delicacy of which only the most feeling mind could be capable, sometimes reproaches herself with having too readily yielded to the semblance of affection; but her own heart, and that of the trea cherous Alcanor, must fully excu pate her from this blame. T following lines, however, which obtained by an accident not to' related, prove her jealousy of h own conduct, and the acuteness her feelings.

ESSAY ON THE ARTS, COMMONLY

CALLED IMITATIVE.

IT is the fate of those maxims, which have been thrown out by very eminent writers, to be received implicitly by most of their followers, and be repeated a thousand times, for no other reason, than because they once dropped from the pen of a superior genius: one of these is the assertion of Aristotle, that all poetry consists in imitation,' which has been so frequently echoed from author to author; that it would seem a kind of arrogance to controvert it; for al

most all the philosophers and critics, who have written upon the subject of poetry, music, and painting, how little soever they may agree in some points, seem of one mind in considering them as arts merely imitative: yet it must be clear to any one, who examines what passes in his own mind, that he is affected by the finest poems, pieces of music, and pictures, upon a principle, which, whatever it be, is entirely distinct from imitation. M. le Batteux has attempted to prove that all the fine arts have a relation to this common principle of imitating: but, whatever be said of painting, it is probable, that poetry and music had a nobler origin; and, if the first language of man was not both poetical and musical, it is certain, at least, that in countries, where no kind of imitation seems to be much admired, there are poets and musicians both by nature and by art: as in some Mahometan nations; where sculpture and painting are forbidden by the laws, where wholly unknown, yet, where the dramatic poetry of every sort is pleasing arts, of expressing the passions in verse, and of enforcing that expression by melody, are cultivated to a degree of enthusiasm. It shall be my endeavour in this and music have, certainly, a power paper to prove, that, though poetry of imitating the manners of men, and several objects in nature, yet, that their greatest effect is not produced by imitation, but by a very different principle; which must be sought for in the deepest recesses of the human mind.

To state the question properly, we must have a clear notion of what we mean by poetry and music; but we cannot give a precise definition of them, till we have made a few previous remarks on their origin, their relation to each other, and their difference.

It seems probable then that poetry was originally no more than a strong, and animated expression of the human passions, of joy and grief, love and hate, admiration and anger,

sometimes pure and unmixed, sometimes variously modified and combined: for, if we observe the voice and accents of a person affected by any of the violent passions, we shall perceive something in them very nearly approaching to cadence and measure; which is remarkably the case in the language of a vehement Orator, whose talent is chiefly conversant about praise or censure; and we may collect from several passages in Tully, that the fine speakers of old Greece and Rome had a sort of rhythm in their sentences, less regular, but not less melodious, than that of the poets. If this idea be just, one would suppose that the most ancient sort of poetry consisted in praising the Deity; for if we conceive a being, created with all his faculties and senses, endued with speech and reason, to open his eyes in a most delightful plain, to view for the first time the serenity of the sky, the splendor of the sun, the verdure of the fields and woods, the glowing colours of the flowers, we can hardly believe it possible, that he should refrain from bursting into an extacy of joy, and pouring his praises to the creator of those wonders, and the author of his happiness. This kind of poetry is used in all nations; but as it is the sublimest of all, when it is applied to its true object, so it has often been perverted to impious purposes by pagans and idolaters: every one knows that the dramatic poetry of the Europeans took its rise from the same spring, and was no more at first than a song in praise of Bacchus; so that the only species of poetical composition (if we except the epic) which can in any sense be called imitative, was deduced from a natural emotion of the mind, in which imitation could not be at all concerned.

The next source of poetry was, probably, love, or the mutual inclination, which naturally subsists between the sexes, and is founded upon personal beauty: hence arose the most agreeable cdes, and love

songs, which we admire in the works of the ancient lyric poets, not filled, like our sonnets and madrigals, with the insipid babble of darts, and Cupids, but simple, tender, natural; and consisting of such unaffected endearments, and mild complaints,

*Teneri sdegni, e placide e tranquillo

Repulse, e cari vezzi, e liete paci,

as we may suppose to have passed between the first lovers in a state of innocence, before the refinements of society, and the restraints, which they introduced, had made the passion of love so fierce, and impetuous, as it is said to have been in Dido, and certainly was in Sappho, if we may take her own word for it †.

The grief, which the first inhabitants of the earth must have felt at the death of their dearest friends, and relations, gave rise to another species of poetry, which originally, perhaps, consisted of short dirges, and was afterwards lengthened into elegies.

As soon as vice began to prevail in the world, it was natural for the wise and virtuous to express their detestation of it in the strongest manner, and to show their resentment against the corrupters of mankind: hence moral poetry was derived, which, at first, we find, was severe and passionate; but was gradually melted down into cool precepts of morality, or exhortations to virtue: we may reasonably conjecture that epic poetry had the same origin, and that the examples of heroes and kings were introduced to illustrate some moral truth, by showing the loveliness and advantages of virtue, or the many misfortunes that flow from vice. Where there is vice, which is detestable in itself, there must be hate, since the strongest antipathy in nature,' as Mr. Pope asserted in

*Two lines of Tasso.

See the ode of Sappho quoted by Longinus, and translated by Boileau.

his writings, and proved by his whole life, subsists between the good and the bad:' now this passion was the source of that poetry, which we call Satire, very improperly, and corruptly, since the Satire of the Romans was no more than a moral piece, which they entitled Satura or Satyra, intimating, that the poem, like a dish of fruit and corn offered to Ceres, contained a variety and plenty of fancies and figures; whereas the true invectives of the ancients were called Iambi, of which we have several examples in Catullus, and in the Epodes of Horace, who imitated the very measures and manner of Archilochus.

These are the principal sources of poetry; and of music also, as it shall be my endeavour to show: but it is first necessary to say a few words on the nature of sound; a very copious subject, which would require a long dissertation to be accurately discussed. Without entering into a discourse on the vibrations of chords, or the undulations of the air, it will be sufficient for our purpose to observe that there is a great difference between a common sound, and a musical sound, which consists chiefly in this, that the former is simple and entire in itself like a point, while the latter is always accompanied with other sounds, without ceasing to be one; like a circle, which is an entire figure, though it is generated by a multitude of points flowing, at equal distances, round a common centre. These accessory sounds, which are caused by the aiiquots of a sonorous body vibrating at once, are called Harmonics, and the whole system of modern harmony depends upon them; though it were casy to prove that the system is unnatural, and only made tolerable to the ear by habit: for whenever we strike the perfect accord on a harpsichord or an organ, the harmonics of the third and fifth have also their own

Some Latin words were spelled either with an u or a y, as Sulla or Sylla.

harmonics, which are disschant from the principal note: These horrid dissonances are, indeed, almost overpowered by the natural harmonics of the principal chord, but that does not prove them agreeable. Since nature has given us a delightful harmony of her own, why should we destroy it by the additions of art? It is like thinking

..to paint the lily, And add a perfume to the violet.

Now let us conceive that some vehement passion is expressed in strong words, exactly measured, and pronounced in a common voice, in just cadence, and with proper accents, such an expression of the passion will be genuine poetry; and the famous ode of Sappho is allowed to be so in the strictest sense: but if the same ode, with all its natural accents, were expressed in a musical voice (that is, in sounds accompanied with their harmonics), if it were sung in due time and measure, in a single and pleasing tune, that added force to the words without stifling them, it would then be pure and original music; not merely soothing to the car, but affecting to the heart; not an imitation of nature, but the voice of nature herself. But there is another point in which music must resemble poetry, or it will lose a considerable part of its effect: we all must have observed, that a speaker, agitated with passion, or an actor, who is, indeed, strictly an imitator, are perpetually changing the tone and pitch of their voice, as the sense of their words varies: it may be worth while to examine how this variation is expressed in music. Every body knows that the musical scale consists of seven notes, above which we find a succession of similar sounds repeated in the same order, and above that, other successions, as far as they can be continued by the human voice, or distinguished by the human ear: now each of these seven sounds has no more meaning, when it is heard separately, than a single letter of