favour of the former, against fome writers of note; and maintains, that a war will be fooner terminated, and in a manner more advantageous for a people, when the fovereign commands his armies in perfon.

Our Author confiders all branches of knowledge, except thofe already mentioned, not only as prejudicial, but even of the most pernicious confequence both to a prince and the state, at the head of which he is placed. The demonftration of this paradox (for fuch at leaft the violence of Signor Planelli's expreffion renders it) is the fubject of the third Chapter; in which this Author, though learned himself, exerts all his power of argument and perfuafion to banifh learning from the throne, or rather, ought we to fay, to prevent its making its way thither. We think that this exclufion of learning from Royalty is fufceptible of reftrictions and modifications, to which our Author has not given a proper degree of attention, and which refult from the natural character, genius, and capacity of a prince, as well as from the conftitution of the government over which he prefides. We fhould not like to fee a monarch writing commentaries on Terence or Ariftophanes, or making bad or middling poems himself; but we fhould rather be edified than offended, if we met with annotations of a royal pen on certain paffages of Livy, Tacitus, or the Commentaries of Cæfar.-Est modus in rebus.

After having finished his plan of education for the head, our Author proceeds to that part of his plan that relates to the heart. He points out the manner in which a wife governor may rectify the irregular propenfities, improve the good difpofitions of his royal pupil, and form in his mind that love of his fubjects, and that spirit of active application to business, that are the two eflential conftituents of the character of a good prince. This is the fubject of the fourth Chapter; and in the fifth and following Chapters he fhews, that from thefe two qualities all other princely virtues naturally flow. His illuftrations of this plan of royal or princely education discover a confiderable fund of knowledge, and more efpecially an intimate acquaintance with the hiftory and interefts of the European ftates.

AR T. XXI.

Ffai fur la Mufique Ancienne et Moderne.-An Essay on Ancient and Modern Mufic. In Four Volumes. 4to. (containing 1681

Pages.) With Cuts. Paris. 1780.

THIS

HIS is the work of a fcholar, a performer, a composer, and a man of exquifite tafte. It is the refult of thirty

years

years reading, as'the Author tells us, and of the extracts made from fome thousands of volumes on the fubject of mufic, accompanied with his own reflections on the nature, power, and branches of that charming art. It was originally defigned to occupy a place in another work, by the fame hand, intitled, A Voyage through Switzerland and Italy; but its bulk increasing' beyond expectation, required its being published apart.

The Introduction contains an interesting inquiry concerning the mufic of the ancients. Of the aftonishing effects of that mufic accounts have been given, which, if genuine, our Author is rather difpofed to attribute to the extreme fenfibility of the Greeks and Afiatics, than to the tranfcendent excellence of their art, or the extraordinary merit of their performers. A warm climate, lively paffions, a kcen tafle for pleasure, finenefs of organs, and above all, perhaps, the cuftom of joining perpetually with mufic the charms of poetry, all these are circumftances which account more or less for the extraordinary effects of mufic in ancient times. Plato maintained, that the inmoft feelings and thoughts of the mind might be diftinctly reprefented and expreffed by different notes of the lyre: our Author proves this to be impoffible; he expofes alfo, with learning and judgment, the ignorance of the Athenian fage, with refpect to this branch of the fine arts; and though he acknowledges, that the ancients cultivated mufic with zeal and affiduity, that they looked upon it as an object of great importance in the education of their children, who were taught to fing before they were taught to read, and that fome of their greatest men made mufic a serious object of ftudy; yet he is perfuaded, that the ancients made very little progress in the fcience of found; and he appears to us to have proved this point with a high degree of plaufibility, if not with irrefragable evidence. That the Greeks had the art of painting founds, or writing mufic, is certain; but what can be more fabulous than Ariftotle's ftory of the horfes of the Sybarites, throwing their riders, by dancing to the flutes of the Crotoniates, who had ufed that ftratagem to conquer their enemies, as they knew the education of thefe animals, and how much they were affected by the harmony and melody of founds?

This idle ftory, which Athenæus took from a book of Ariftotle +, long fince loft, is adopted by Pliny; and another Roman author of high note I tells one, ftill more ridiculous, of

*M. DE LABORDE, who comes indeed fomewhat late after Dr. BURNEY, and other able writers on this fubject, but not too late to be read with pleasure and inftruction by the lovers of this fine art. This book treated of the republic of Lybaris. Varro de Re Ruftica.

certain

certain floating islands in Lydia, which firft danced into a circle at the found of a flute, and afterwards came gently together, and formed a line along the borders of the lake.

The

M. DE LABORDE's Work is divided into fix Books. first treats of mufic in general, its divifion, its antiquity, its origin, the uses to which it was first applied, the state of that art among the Jews, Chaldeans, and other Oriental nations, as alfo among the Egyptians, Grecians, Romans, and Italians. It alfo treats of the dances, geftures, and the public plays of the ancients, &c. We find, moreover, in this first Book a compendious hiftory of mufic, from the Gauls down to the present time, an account of the origin and progress of that art among the Chinese, the Hungarians, the Perfians, Turks and Arabians. The details here are learned, entertaining, and furnith a great variety of agreeable inftruction. The Author has made confiderable ufe of Father Amiot's Memoir concerning the Chinese mufic, and of the excellent Memoirs of M. Burette and the Abbé Rosier, concerning the music of the ancients. At the conclufion of this firft Book he has placed fome precious remains of antiquity relative to the subject of his Work, as, 1st, The only Fragments of Grecian mufic that are known, with a Tranflation by M. Burette ;-they confift of three Hymns; one to Calliope, another to Apollo, and a third to Nemefis (fet to Mufic, in four Parts, of which the Greek found or tune makes the treble), and the firft eight verses of the first Pythic Ode of Pindar. 2dly, A Table of the Notes of the Grecian Mufic, vocal and inftrumental, compared with the Notes of Modern Music. This Table, perfectly well executed, exhibits the 1610 characters which have been preferved by Alypius, and it will certainly be of great ufe in decyphering the pieces of Grecian mufic that may be found in the manufcripts of Herculaneum and Pompeïa.

In the fecond Book we meet with a history, accompanied with figures, of the mufical inftruments of the ancients, divided into three claffes; wind-inftruments, pulfatile, and stringed. His obfervations upon the defects of the harpfichord in particular are learned and ingenious. The fubjects that employ our Author in the remaining part of this book are-the M of the Ruffians-the Opera-the Comic Opera-the Opera (called by the French) Bouffon-the Spiritual Concert-the Fraternity of St. Julien de Menetriers-the Music of the Modern Greeks-the Sounding Stones of China-the Music of the Siamese-the Lyric Poetry and Mufic of the Morlachians.

See in this Appendix the mention made of this treatife, in our extract of the fifth and fixth Volumes of the Memoirs of the Chincte Millionaries.

The

The third Book of this learned and entertaining Work contains the abridgment of a Treatife on Mufical Compofition, to which the Author has fubjoined, 1ft, A general table of unifons, together with a notice of the extent and powers of all the different inftruments, and alfo of the different kinds of voices. 2dly, A comparative table, in which he endeavours to prove,, that the term mode, as employed by the ancients, is equivalent to what we call tone; with this difference only, that in each mode they went only through the degrees of the octave, whereas our tones extend much farther. 3dly, Several pieces of mufic of the fixteenth and feventeenth centuries.-In this book M. DE LABORDE is fometimes an opponent of the celebrated J. J. ROUSSEAU, whofe incomparable Dictionary of Mufic has been lately aflaffinated in English, and fome of whofe doctrines are, in our opinion, refuted here with the utmoft evidence. As these refutations are interefting, we intend to communicatè some fpecimens of them to our Readers in a fubfequent Article.

The fourth Book may very well be intitled, A Book of Songs; and however light this title may be, its contents are far from being frivolous, Songs are among the characteristical marks, from which an obferver will learn much of the genius, fpirit, and character of a people; and it will appear from the Historico-Poetico-Mufical details, into which our Author here enters, that the French excel other nations in their amorous fatirical, and Bacchanalian fongs. This Book is divided into twelve Chapters, of which the titles are as follows: Reflections on Songs Of Grecian Songs-Of Roman Songs-Of the changes that have taken place in the French language-Of French Songs, and the Poetical Songsters (or the ballad-making Bards) of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries-Songs of Coucy-A Table of the Songs of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, contained in the manuscripts of the Vatican, of the King of France, of the Marquis of Palmy, of Meff. de St. Palaye, de Clairambaut, et de Noailles-Concerning fome French Lyric Poets of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries -Songs of Denmark, Norway, and Iceland-Erfe Songs and Poems -Songs of Perigord, Strafburg, and Auvergne-Select French Songs, fet to Mufic, in four Parts-Songs of Gascogne, Bearne, Languedoc, and Provence-Grecian Dances-Dances of the Savages, Ruffians, Grecians, Chinese, and of feveral provinces in France.

[To be continued.]

*By the word amorous, we do not mean love, nor any thing out of the fphere of gallantry. It is almoft only among the Italian and British bards that love is fung with genuine fenfibility.

ART.

ART. XXII.

Sammlung Antiquarischer Auffoetze, &c.-A Collection of Difcourfes on feveral Points of Antiquity. By M. HEYNE, Counsellor, &c. at Hanover. Vol. II. Leipfic. 1779.

THIS fecond Part of M. Heyne's interefting Collection TH contains a variety of inftructive and entertaining matter relative to ancient literature and the arts. The first Difcourfe in this fecond Part treats of the famous Laocoon. Notwithftanding all the accounts we have of that fublime groupe in the writings of the Abbé Winkelman and other virtuofos, the Reader will here find perhaps new inftruction with refpect to its difcovery, together with ingenious remarks on what has been faid concerning it by Pliny, Virgil, and other writers, and a critical history of the art that is difplayed in it. The fecond Difcourfe contains an inquiry into the real or fuppofed diftinctions between the Fauns, Satyrs, Silenufes, and Pans. The third contains a curious account of the authors which Pliny followed in his Natural Hiftory. The fourth is a Difcourfe on the Tereuticum, or carving, efpecially that kind mentioned by Pliny, which was the art of moulding or cafting figures in relievo. The fifth exhibits farther illuftrations of the fculpture of the ancients in ivory; as alfo a Memoir concerning the manner of working in ivory, communicated to our Author by M. Spengler of Copenhagen, in which he fhews, that the turning lathe was not neceflary to the formation of ivory ftatues, and mentions feveral ancient remains of fculpture in that fubftance, that are fill to be met with in the cabinets of the curious, particularly the head of a woman in the Royal collection at Copenhagen.

ART. XXIII.

Kurzgefafste Gefchichte der Hungern, &c.-A Compendious History of the Hungarians, from the earlieft to the present Time, collected from the most faithful Hiftorians and the most authentic Manufcripts. By M. CHARLES GOTTLIEB VON WINDISH. Prefburg and Leipfic. 1779.

W

E formerly mentioned a General Hiftory of Hungary by M. de Sacy, Royal Cenfor at Paris. That which is here announced has been compofed under the protection of the government, and of confequence the Author must be fuppofed to have had the ampleft fources of information, though not that unbounded liberty and independence to which alone we must look for impartiality. In the ancient parts of this hiftory, he

*See Review, vol. lviii. p. 384.

has