Scud. Oh God!
What an internal joy my heart has felt,
Sitting at one of these same idle plays,
When I have seen a Maid’s Inconstancy
Presented to the life; how glad my eyes
Have stole about me, fearing lest my looks
Should tell the company contented there,
I had a Mistress free of all such thoughts.
He replies to his friend, who adjures him to live.
Scud. The sun is stale to me; to-morrow morn,
As this, ’twill rise, I see no difference;
The night doth visit me but in one robe;
She brings as many thoughts, as she wears stare
When she is pleasant, but no rest at all:
For what new strange thing should I covet life then;
Is she not false whom only I thought true?
Shall Time (to show his strength) make Scudmore live,
Till (perish the vicious thought) I love not thee;
Or thou, dear friend, remove thy heart from me!—
C. L.
Ancient Music
SUPERIOR TO MODERN.
“That the music of the ancients,” says Jeremy Collier, “could command farther than the modern, is past dispute. Whether they were masters of a greater compass of notes, or knew the secret of varying them the more artificially; whether they adjusted the intervals of silence more exactly, had their hands or their voices further improved, or their instruments better contrived; whether they had a deeper insight into the philosophy of nature, or understood the laws of the union of the soul and body more thoroughly; and thence were enabled to touch the passions, strengthen the sense, or prepare the medium with greater advantage; whether they excelled us in all, or in how many of these ways, is not so clear however, this is certain, that our improvements in this kind are little better than ale-house crowds (fiddles) with respect to theirs.”
The effects of music among the ancients, are said to have been almost miraculous. The celebrated ode of Dryden has made every one acquainted with the magic power of Timotheus over the emotions of the human heart. And all, who have read any thing of ancient history, must have remarked the wonderful effects attributed to the musical instrument in the hand of a master.
Among a hundred other stories, which evince the power of music, is the following: