Page:Philological Museum v2.djvu/457

On Ancient Greek Music, 44^ of sacred worship ; where it is sometimes rather fitted to excite the soft and effeminate passions, than to fill the mind with an honest and calm delight — to regulate the manners , — to revive courage — and to inspire us with an awful ve- neration for the Most High and his sacred laws. And for these purposes was this art learned and cultivated by the ancients ; who by applying it to the great end for which it was given us by the Almighty, tasted in its utmost perfection. And to this we must attribute those wonderful effects men- tioned above, when they sung the actions of their illustrious men, their triumphs, their public laws, tragedies, moral instructions, and the praises of their Gods. In order there- fore to restore music to its ancient dignity and service, we have chosen the divine subject of the Psalms ; and to render it again if not of equal efficacy with that of the ancients by reason of its different laws, at least more conformable to the sacred use for which it was principally intended : namely the worship of the Deity." Such are the words of this great man ; and his compo- sitions fully bear out what he here says. Most modern musicians blame him for want of variety, poverty of har- mony, and neglect of ornament ; but I am happy to be able to justify by what little experience I have had, an observation which I have heard, that generally the older musicians become the more their admiration of Marcello'^s music increases ^^. Such men are rare in these days — perhaps (and that in an inferior degree) Jackson, of Exeter, is the only parallel which we can furnish to him. Handel was almost contemporary with Marcello. We owe much to him in every way — but less perhaps in this particular province than to those who are second only to him, Haydn and Mozart. But I am departing from my subject when I ought to be hastening to close it in. My only wish is that all my '2 There are two works of his which I much wish to see/since I think it probable that he developed in them his ideas of what ancient music was. One is a poem by Abate Conti, entitled II Timoteo" and set by him to music, founded on Dry den's Alexander's Feast ; and the other a poem by himself in which Casandra prophesies the destruction of Troy after the manner of the Casandra in the Agamemnon, and which he composed purposely to have the opportunity of expressing the deeper and more unusual passions in musical language. Vol. II. No. 5. 3 L