An Enquiry into the Fine Arts. By Thomas Robertfan, Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 4to. 17. 15. in Boards. Cadell.

THERE is an aukwardness in the title of this work which prejudices the reader against it; and the prejudice is ftronger, as the fubject ought to be elegantly treated. The author himself obferves, that ufeful books may be written in a mode that is minute and abftrufe, as well as in one that is general and plain.' He prefers the latter, and thinks that a treatise on the Fine Arts ought to rife with the fubject, and fpeak to the audience of all mankind.' We entirely agree with him in opinion; but, if this was his aim, he has not been very fuccessful in attaining it. To pafs by minute objects, but to treat of great ones minutely, is a fecret in fine writing in general, which feems to have been known only to a few.' To pursue this plan, requires an acute judgment, and an exact difcrimination: our future remarks will afcertain how far the author is qualified for the task.

Mr. Robertfon profefles, in the first volume, to enquire into the ancient and modern state of mufic, as the chief of the fine arts which apply to the ear.' He chufes to begin with modern mufic, which is the fubject of the firft chapter; the fecond is on ancient mufic; the third contains fpeculations on mufic; and the fourth, fifth, and fixth, the hiftory of the fcience. These are followed by a poftfcript on the mufic of the South Sea iflanders; and the whole is preceded by an introductory difcourfe.

The author, in his introduction, thinks that the love of ornament, the paffion on which the fine arts are founded, precedes the gratification of natural appetites.

The traveller, arriving in countries where the people were in the rudeft ftate, where they hardly knew how to drefs food, or keep off the weather, has always remarked a paffion for finery. The favage is indolent; to look out for his daily nourifhment, feems a force upon his nature: but fhew him a toy, and he will use prayers, or fraud, or violence, to obtain it. In the favage ftate, the study of fine things has always been greater than of things that are neceffary.'

He feems to forget that the favage muft exist before he can defire; and that he cannot exift without fatisfying hunger. But to go on,

It is vain to enquire into the order of the arts of neceffity and of pleasure; which firft, which laft, made their appearance. They appeared both upon the fame day, the moment men exifted. Fully formed by the hands of God, man fet his foot upon the earth; but his fteps were left to his own guid

ance,

ance, and his road to his own direction. While the arts of amufement and of fubfiftence were thus born together, the former appear to have been fooneft advanced. Nature gave caves to favage men to retire to; and more food, with little cost of time in acquiring it, than they could use. Hence the neceffary arts, after making a few fteps, foon became ftationary for ages; till, at length, population entreafing the demand for food, men were under the neceffity to invent, to migrate, or to ftarve. It was not fo with the other arts. Men had little to do but to practise them, Ages of idleness were bestowed upon them. Rude people learned to dance, before they could hew timber, or fhape ftone: they painted their bodies long before they clothed them: while the palate had little choice of meats and drinks, the eye was courted with fhining ores, and fhells, and feathers: while the hand had yet to learn its cunning, the ear toiled not to relish fweet melody. The arts of pleasure, in fuch times indeed, are in a molt imperfect ftate; yet it is to thefe arts chiefly, that rude ages are devoted. If there be men bufied about neceffaries more than about any other things, it is the bulk of men in the most refined times: it is the ftupid labourer and mechanic: it is the merchant at his books: it iş the liberal and learned themfelves, amid the tasks of study and the functions of office; their pleafures, properly fo called, being fnatched at intervals; for all their other amufement, however gennine, arifes merely from their being employed. The favage dreffes, dances, and fings.'

In this paffage, the opinion is much limited; and, if the author had proceeded a little farther in the enquiry, he would have found the refult fo obvious, that the whole would probably have been excluded from the work. The amulements

of the favage are certainly the origin of the fine arts; but it is of little confequence whether they preceded or followed the gratification of hunger. It would have been a more important fubject of enquiry, to have examined the favage ftate in general, and to have obferved in what circumftances these amufements are most frequent. Many favages, after fatisfying their appetites, fink into the moft torpid infenfibility, till new calls roufe them into action. In this inveftigation, fomething might have been found to be owing to climate, not as a caufe influencing a particular contexture of the nervous fyftem; but as inviting its inhabitants into the open air, and inspiring a placid chearfulness. This view would not indeed have explained every particular occurrence, nor is it our prefent object to fupply defects.

Mr. Robertfon next examines the commonly received principle, that the fine arts are imitative. He denies that they are fo; and mufic ought, he thinks, to be particularly excepted.

cepted. That mufic is not an imitative art was, we believe, frit afferted by Mr. Jackfon, in a preface to one of his early publications. Mr. Robertson observes that we, after Aristotle, continue to fay, that the fine arts imitate, and are ever and anon contradicted by examples, in which there is no imitation. He afferts that the fine arts, poetry excepted, have never flourifhed in our island fo much as, upon the continent; that, not having fine artifts, we are in danger of not knowing what are fine arts, for in architecture, painting, fculpture, and chiefly mufic, we not only do not execute ourselves, but fcarely know what is executed by others.' If this be true, it is fo of painting only; architecture, and of the pureft ftyle, is more prac tifed in England than in any other country; and mufic, the immediate fubject of our author's Enquiry, undoubtedly flou. rishes more in this kingdom than in any other. London is the great centre to which all muficians of eminence tend; and there are, at this time, more capital performers affembled in it than in all Europe befides.

In the chapter on Modern Mufic, our author begins with enquiring into the nature of founds, and examines their fym pathifing effects in inanimate and animated bodies. The medical effects of mufic may, he thinks, be owing to this fympathy, fince the bones and nerves may be the ftrings of the human machine.' But this doctrine is now exploded; and we need not infift. on its abfurdity. All thefe, and more fupernatural effects, have been attributed to ancient mufic: the modern art pretends to nothing more than charming the fenfe.

Mr. Robertfon divides the qualities of mufical found into force, polifh, and time. Polith is a term of his own invention, and not a very happy one; we also think that the term low, is improperly contrafted to loud;' becaufe in mufical difcuffions, it is always oppofed to high." What he means by faying that tune is nothing else but time,' exceeds our comprehenfion. Tune is a found of a given pitch, and time the duration of it: in this way it has ever been confidered by every writer on the fubject. Our author is exceedingly prolix on the firft elements of mufic; and, from thence, takes occafion to fpeak of modern performances, which it is pretty clear that he is unacquainted with.

All human guide fails, when the masterly is to be executed. Muficians fpeak of certain occafions, when the ordinary rules both of time and of tune may be fet afide; and these are the occafions of eloquence and of fire. Here fome poor fidler is left to himself. He murders Corelli: directions fhould farely be given to ordinary artifts: fome few rules fhould be handed down, guiding them, where they are most apt to err, to the

fpirit

fpirit of the compofer who may be long ago dead; and whose works, imperfectly committed to writing, they are prefenting, with many innovations of their own, to the public. It is to be doubted, if Corelli could at this day recognize his own compofitions in a concert of mufic: befides other alterations, fo many graces, as they are called, being added; and fo much fimple majefty, taken away.'

This justly characterifes the music of feventy or eighty years ago; but the moderns play precisely the notes fet before them. The account of the different intervals and modes is moft unreasonably protracted, because there is nothing new in it. We think the fame of his fpeculations in the third chapter.

In the Hiftory of Mufic, Mr. Bruce is frequently mentioned. As this gentleman has not yet communicated his difcoveries to the public, we cannot judge of their importance. The

harp of inexpreffible beauty,' as published by Dr. Burney, cannot be like any musical inftrument, because there is nothing to resist the tension of the strings. That fame learned The ban' who painted it muft, for an ancient, be miferably igno rant of the make of mufical inftruments.

It is impoffible to follow our author regularly. Where we agree with him, it is when he takes up the opinions of others; for he advances very little from himself but what is liable to exception. The best part of this volume is, in our opinion, the account of the progrefs of mufic in England, and the character of fome of our compofers. The author has read a great deal on this fubject; but does not seem to poffefs fufficient genius to distinguish what is proper to retain, and what to reject. We shall felect, as a fpecimen, part of this work where.Mr. Robertfon must have been rather an observer than a copyift; and confequently where his account is more valu able and original, ' ***

The two moll general claffes into which the Highland mufic feems to divide itself, are derived from the two different inftruments which that mufic has chiefly employed: the harp and voice on the one hand, and the bagpipe on the other. String and v cal mufic being fo compatible with one another, and, of confequence, having been fo generally conjoined in practice, have taken the fame fubjects, and have had the fame character. The bagpipe, from its nature, has stood alone, and its mufic has been peculiar to itself.

Harp and vocal mufic, the former of those two claffes appears to have been fubdivided among the Highlanders into two others fongs adapted to times of relaxation and eafe; and fongs that always accompanied labour.

. The

"The former of those fubdivifions, which may be called reftfongs, and probably the more ancient, feem to have been chiefly employed upon fubjects of an hiftorical, heroic, and tragic kind the air grave and melancholy, without a chorus; and fung by one or more voices throughout. And fuch chiefly are what have been called the ancient lament-fongs of the Highlanders. Some of the more primitive of thefe airs appear to be only a fhort imperfect chaunt, or kind of recitative; having little regularity in the measure; and to which, perhaps, they owe their charm; of a grave, flow, and deeply melancholy caft. The most tender and mournful airs, it is faid, belong to this fpecies.

The latter fubdivifion, the labour-fongs, for the purpose of which they are said admirably to be conftructed, a purpose now fo fingular in Europe, have had in general a lefs deep and ferious fubject, though ftill plaintive for the greatest part, in their nature. Being fuited to the exertions of labour, to which they have been applied, they have at all times admitted of a chorus; a chorus, which feems to belong peculiarly to an active music. The airs here, which have been fung at land, have been called luinig, and those which have been fung at fea, iarram; the luinig the more quick and chearful of the two. The iarrams or rowingfongs feem, from the unstable and tragical element over which they were performed, to have acquired the character which has been given to them, of graveness and forrow. They are commonly in a flow measure; the ear performing the rythmus, or beating of time.

* The modulation both of the luinig and iarram is said to be very fimple; there being scarcely any tranfition from one key to another, unlefs from the original key to that of the fixth, or correfponding minor mode, and the reverfe of that, although fome ftrains conclude upon the fifth, yet that key is never regularly introduced and established.

Bagpipe mufic wears a very different afpect from that of the voice and harp, fuitable unto the nature of the inftrument, and unto the occafions upon which it is employed. It has gone under various names; but thefe rather arifing from the variety of occafions, than implying different fpecies of mufic: fuch as the pibrach, a march or battle-tune; the cruinichadh, gathering or beat to arms; the failte, a falutation, or complimentary piece of martial mufic to the chief. Befides these is mentioned the lament, played ftill at funerals in the Highlands. The pibrach and cruinichadh, a proper martial mufic, confift of an air with variations, but in a fingular movement. A flow air begins the piece; the variations become quicker and quicker to a degree of violence, rifing, if we may fay fo, to the boiling point; and the flow air, at laft returning again, forms the conclufion. The melody of the variations is often ftrange and uncommon.• What feems to characterize pibrach mufic, is the great contraft both in modulations and in measures. The air is fimple

in