perpetual motion, yet nevertheless there have been, and ftill are, those who not only affert the contrary, but even attempt the practice of it, as appears by the pamphlet now before us, wherein the ingenious writer affures that one Orffyreus, a native of Saxony, who had an amazing turn for practical mechanics, after labouring about twenty years in fearch of a perpetual motion, and constructing in that time near three hundred different machines, at length hit on a contrivance for that purpose, which profeffor s'Gravefande, in a letter to Sir Ifaac Newton, defcribes as a fort of a drum or wheel, about 14 inches in thickness, and 12 feet in diameter; it turns upon an axis paffing through the center, and being moved flowly remains at reft upon withdrawing the force which continued the motion. I caufed the wheel (fays the profeffor) to make a revolution or two in this manner; but afterwards giving it a greater velocity, it acquired fuch an amazing celerity in lefs than two turns as caufed it to make no less than 26 revolutions in a minute, and I was informed by his moft ferene highness the landgrave of Heffe Caffel, who was then present, that the machine had preserved a motion of this fort for more than two months in a private room, where it was impoffible any fraud could have been made ufe of. I then took the liberty to afk the prince, who had feen the conftruction of the interior parts of the machine; if during the abovementioned time of its being in motion, a fraud might not have been concealed by an alteration in the difpofition of thofe parts. His highness affured me to the contrary, and moreover that the conftruction of the machine was fo very simple, that a common carpenter's boy might eafily comprehend it, and make a model of the fame fort, after having feen the infide of this.

Baron Fefcher who examined the Orffyrean Automaton in the prefence of the aforementioned illuftrious perfonage, tranfmitted a defcription of it, in a letter to Dr. Defaguliers, fimilar to that which profeffor s'Gravefande communicated to Sir Ifaac Newton; and their opinion of the faid Automaton is confirmed by the teftimonial of the landgrave himself, who appears fully fatisfied that Orffyreus's machine will preferve its motion fo long as the matter of which it is formed shall endure. But profeffor Allaman in his Animadverfions upon M. de Croufaz's Letter to Mr. s'Gravefande, feems to be of another opinion, as appears by the following extract: Il eft difficile de determiner ce qu'il faut croire de cette machine. Il me paroit cependant que fi l'on éxamine murement tout ce qui eft pour & contre Orffyreus, on peut se fixer à ceci: 1. Orffyreus eft effectivement un fou; fes machines brifées à deux differentes reprifes, pour de fort mauvais raifons, & fans aucune

necef

in our opinion, vitiate this otherwise extraordinary perfor mance, especially as Mr. Hurly appears better qualified in his facerdotal office than in arithmetical computations.

IX. Principles and Power of Harmony. 4to. 75. 6d. Baker and Leigh.

THE

'HE writers on the fubject of mufic are very numerous, and yet there is no fcience, perhaps, furnished with fo few well-written books: whether this be owing to the difficulty of the fubject, or the want of abilities in those who have treated it, we fhall not pretend to determine; but we may venture to affirm, that learning and tafte, theory and prac tice, have fo feldom been united, that they feem almost incompatible. Those who treat mufic merely as a fcience, without poffeffing the practical part, are naturally contracted in their ideas, and ufelefs to profeffors: and, on the contrary, mere practical muficians, who have feldom had either education or leisure, to qualify themselves on the fide of learning, produce nothing but crude and indigefted reveries, which a man of tafte in literature difdains to read. That this has been the cafe with fome of the most able practical musicians, we can, from our own knowledge affert. They have the ambition of paffing for men of fcience; they fpeak of Greek writers without Greek; of arithmetical proportions without figures; of ratios without geometry, and equations without algebra. The late Dr. Pepufch, a man of great learning, and of univerfal reading in mufical compofitions, attempted to explain the Greek systems; - but abftruse calculations being neceffary in the business, he had recourfe to his friend De Moivre, who was no musician, and understood the doctor as little as the doctor did Euclid: they never met without a quarrel, for as each would talk about what he did not underftand, each must by turns have been abfurd. We have been credibly informed, that the fame thing happened in France between the famous Rameau, and M. D'Alembert; and at Padua, between Tartini and Padre Colombo, the profeffor of mathematics at that univerfity.

The work before us, however, feems free from fuch objec. tions, as it appears to have been written by no half-bred scholar, or fhallow musician; but by one poffeffed of all the neceffary requifites for fuch a task.- Before we proceed to its examination, it is neceffary to explain the author's intention, which we cannot do better than by his own words.

• The

The high opinion which I had long entertained of the mufic of Sig. Tartini, together with his great reputation over all Eu» rope, for many years, made me expect fomething extraordinary from a Treatife published by him, intitled, Trattato di Mufica fe condo la vera Scienza dell' Armonia. I always imagined he had principles unknown to other artifts in his way. A fuperior effect muft imply a fuperior caufe. In this opinion I was not difappointed. I found his treatife full of many new and well-founded doctrines, practical as well as fpeculative. To give some idea of thefe, is the defign of the following short piece.

From hence it appears, that this work before us is intended as a commentary upon Tartini's Treatife of Mufic, published at Padua, 1754. Tartini was fo eminent a practical musician, that his name and works are well known to almost every lover of mufic in Europe. The author of the Present State of Mufic in France and Italy, has given a sketch of his life, which we have inserted in this Number, p. 426, to which we refer the reader but though Tartini was fo admirable on the fide of practice, he wanted, fays our author, a little of that skill in writing, which he fhewed in fo eminent a degree in compofing and playing.' In his mufical compofitions he is clear, fimple, and masterly; but in his theoretical writings he is often obfcure, confused, and unfcientific. Our author, however, in the true fpirit of criticism, has cleared his obfcurity, pointed out his er rors, reconciled his feeming contradictions, and illustrated his principles.

To follow Tartini and his commentator in every chapter, would exceed the limits allowed us for fo fhort a work; and to give extracts from a fyftem of which the principal merit is confiftency, would be to take away a link of a chain, or a component part of a whole, which owed all its beauty, or ufe, to the place it held, relatively to that whole; or to illuftrate from mufic itself, it would be taking away from an excellent concerto, a fecond violin, or tenor part, which has neither beauty nor ufe but in conjunction with the other parts.

In the author's commentary upon Tartini's first chapter, he explains very clearly the famous phenomenon of a mufical ftring or found producing its own harmony, upon which M. Rameau has built his theory of a fundamental base. This effect is fenfible only to practifed and difcriminating ears; but to fuch the tone of a great bell, the ftrings of a double base, or lowest found in a harpfichord, divide themselves into the harmonics of the whole found, in the following harmonic proportions, 1,, . Suppofe the ftring double C upon the harpsichord to be ftruck, and after the found C, its octave c, its 12th g, and its 17th or major 3d e, may be heard one after the other in the fame manner as the ftrings of an Æolian harp, tuned unifon, produce the common chord, not approxi

noble mind overthrown; or at least of one who, like Claudio, is willing to encounter darkness as a bride, and hug it in his arms.

XIV. A Series of Genuine Letters between Henry and Frances. Vols. IV. and V. 6. Richardfon and Urquhart.

WE find ourselves by no means difpofed to retract any part

of the praise which we formerly bestowed on the first and second, third and fourth parts of the fame correspondence, in Vols, III. and XXIII. of our Review. The degree of ease and delicacy with which this literary intercourfe began, like the affection of the parties concerned, has continued undiminished to its conclufion.

We never are better pleased than when we honestly have it in our power to recommend any performance to the perufal of our fair readers, whofe vivacity fo many pens are busy to mislead, and whofe virtues fo many hirelings are employed to undermine for one book written on a useful fubject or for a blameless purpose; with a view to intereft their paffions in the caufe of humanity, or enlarge their understandings with materials fupplied from the ftores of reafon; there are at least twenty produced which ferve to render their lives lefs happy, by infpiring notions of romantic felicity, which are no where to be realized on earth. What Dr. Samuel Johnson has faid in his Preface to Shakespeare, respecting the conduct and manners exemplified in the generality of dramatic exhibitions, may be with equal propriety applied to thofe of modern novelifts. To bring a lover and a lady and a rival into a fable; to entangle them in contradi&ory obligations, perplex them with oppofitions of intereft, and harrass them with violence of defires inconfiftent with each other; to make them meet them in rapture and part with agony; to fill their mouths with hyperbolical joy and outrageous forrow; to dif tress them as nothing human was ever diftreffed; to deliver them as nothing human was ever delivered, is the bulness of a modern novellift. For this, probability is violated, life is mifreprefented, and language is depraved.'

The authors of the correfpondence which we have just recommended to our readers, proceed on quite a different plan; and have been content to relate fuch adventures as unquestionably happened, and to deliver such sentiments as have really arisen in their minds. For those who think that love has an inevitable influence on the fum of life, the fober fenfations attending on that paffion are here delineated in their proper colours. In the letters that pass between Henry and his Frances, the ftream of affection flows even on, like fome gentle river which wafts the neceffaries and conveniences of

note comes into the chord, we have always the 4th of the fundamental for third found; in all other cafes we have either the fundamental note itself, or the 3d of it. I will likewife obferve, that the smaller the interval, the farther diftant is the third found; infomuch that the third found to the interval of the femitone minor G fharp, is the 26th below the loweft note. Ought not this to regulate the bafs in common practice? N. B. There is one exception to the progreffion above mentioned, which is when the chord of the 3d major is reversed.'

In fection 8, there is a want of precifion in the notation of the example given both in Tartini and his commentator, for want, perhaps, of a character to exprefs a found, which is not exactly flat, fharp, or natural, when compared with its accompaniment. E, G sharp, BD flat, have a very strange appearance; it would, upon keyed inftruments, be the chord of the 5th and 6th to E, instead of the sharp 3d, and minor 7th, for which it is meant. D natural would certainly come nearer to the interval Tartini would exprefs than D flat, Equivoques in theory fhould be moft carefully avoided, and even in practice they occafion momentary doubts, and perplex the best performers fometimes, in the execution of new compofitions.

This phenomenon of a third found is an ingenious and fertile discovery, and more favourable to melody than that upon which M. Rameau has founded his fyftem. Tartini makes his bafe fubfervient to the treble, while Rameau, on the contrary, builds his treble upon the bafe. The one draws harmony from melody, and the other melody from harmony. • To determine, says M. Rouffeau, from which of the two schools it is natural to expect the best compofition, we have only to confider which should be dependent on the other, the melody or its accompaniment."

Tartini's fecond chapter concerns the Circle, its Nature, and Signification, of which our author begins his examination in the following manner.

One

I fuppose there never was an artist of real genius, who was not folicitous to difcover the principles upon which his art was founded. Tartini is a striking proof of this affertion, throughout his whole treatise, and particularly in this 2d chapter, of which I am now to give a very short account, and to me an unpleafing one. cannot, without fome impreffions of compaffion, fee him wandering in the perplexing labyrinths of abftract ideas, almoft without a guide, or at beft with one which it is moft likely would mislead him. He must have taken infinite pains to purfue nature in a wrong path, and trace her footsteps where the feems to bave come by chance. He had fancied that harmony was to be found only in the circle, in conjunction with the fquare, which he looked upon as infeparable companions, and effentially united. They really proved in his hands, what they have been often called, magical; for I can think it little lefs than magic, that he found the mistress he was in pursuit of there, but with fo few tokens of legitimacy about her, that a man must be little less than an en

thufiaft,