ficiently exprefs its effects, we fee no reason why it may not be termed the exciting or ftimulating note, in order to avoid the adoption of a Gallicifm which the idiom of our language refuses to ratify.

In page 10 we have an exhibition of a feries of 6ths which may be fafely played or fung, by placing the minor fcale above the major.' 3ds and 6ths, though called imperfect concords, are the only intervals that can be borne in regular fuc

ceffion.

In p. 11, bar 7, in the fecond violin, there is an error in the prefs: the d was never meant by the compofer of that ingenious fragment, but B; which not only completes the series of 6ths, but avoids two octaves with the bafe.

We are glad Mr. Shield has not indulged dilettante idlenefs, by totally banishing the tenor clef. Whoever is unacquainted with the tenor fcales is not only unable to read a fcore of the prefent time, but all mufic for keyed inftruments compofed forty or fifty years ago; and foreign mufic in general becomes a cypher, as unintelligible as Egyptian hieroglyphics, particularly the vocal mufic of Italy. The score of French operas at prefent, and the harpsichord leffons of Germany, till within these ten years, were all written and printed in tenor clefs.

The first and principal difcord, the 7th, is well explained and illustrated, p. 12, as are its derivatives of 3 and 4, with its

5

Page 16. The author has ftigmatifed two paffages for which we can fee no reafon. We always thought it allowable to move from one part of a common chord to another, if octaves were avoided.

Mr. Shield has made good ufe of a Ruffian air with respect to allowances and difallowances of fucceffive fifths.

At p. 22 a very important leffon is.given for ftudents to practife in all keys. This the French call la régle de l'octave, or rule for accompanying the octave afcending and defcending. This harmonic formula, according to Rouffeau, was first publithed by M. Delaire in 1700. It is a rule which, at a young mufician's fingers' ends, would enable him to accompany with out figures any modern compofition in which there is no extraneous modulation

Page 25. The author begins a new and ufeful expedient for teaching thorough-bafs to performers on inftruments, which are chiefly confined to the melody of a fingle part, and in. capable of playing chords. The figuring preludes for treble inftruments, in the afcending and defcending feales, is well

imagined. It has not, as far as we know, been attempted bes fore. In all the books of inftructions for the violin and Ger. man flute that we have feen, the rules and precepts are wholly confined to the performance of melody, or a fingle part, without informing the ftudent whence that melody is derived. The reducing melody to chords is a useful expedient in teaching accompaniment on keyed-inftruments, for which all treatifes on harmony feem written. A violoncello player particularly wants thorough-bafs in accompanying recitatives; but this. never feems to have been thought of in teaching that inftruThe harmony of the fcales, afcending and defcending, which Mr. Shield has given for the violin and flute will do nearly as well for the violoncello and hautbois.

Page 28. We have the 9th and its accompaniments explained. In a note at the bottom of this page Mr. Shield gives an importance to this difcord from fome high but anonymous authority, to which we cannot fubfcribe. Nor can we poffibly affign any reafon for his fixing on the 9th, in preference to every other difcord, for a young compofer to study in the works of Correlli till he fully comprehends every treatment he has given to it; and then, if he has genius, he might begin to compofe.' The 9th is neither the moil agreeable, the most difficult to treat, nor the most frequently wanted of all the dif cords upon what then can this great man's opinion be erected? It has been faid in a book of maxims, that the opinions of men of great abilities are refpectable before they have given their reafons for them; but afterwards they are upon a level with the opinions of other men: for they will then depend upon reafons for fupport. not upon the authority of the character.' The examples Mr. Shield has given of the treatment of the 9th on the three fubfequent pages are very good.

But after bowing down to this great authority with refpect to the fuperior importance of the 9th, in the preliminary advertifement to the fecond part, Mr. Shield obliges his readers to renounce all authority in judging of the compofitions he has felected to illuftrate his precepts. Compofitions (fays he, p. 33) are frequently over-rated and undervalued by prejudice, therefore it appeared to me to be the mott liberal plan, to let every mufical illuftrative example recommend itfelf by its own intrinfic menit, and not by the name of the author.'

Whether Mr. Shield beftows praife, or (which feldom hap pens) cenfure on profeffors, he never mentions the perfon im plied or alluded to. This fuppreffion of names is teafing, and anfwers no purpofe where praife is given, and, for aught we' know to the contrary, may be due. If Athenæus, in his mifcellany of fragments, had concealed the names of authors whom he cites. pofterity would have been deprived of much fatisfac tion. His compilation is now become invaluable, by preferving

not only beautiful paffages to be found no where elfe, but alfo the names of the writers. Mr. Shield calls his work an harmonical mifcellany, and our defcendants may with to know the names of authors of many fpecimens of excellence in various ftyles of compofition; particularly that inferted, p. 34, as a model of grave, folemn, and grateful harmony, which muft delight all thofe who can mount up to times when true finplicity could pleafe the learned as well as the ignorant.

The fandus, inferted p. 36, is a stronger instance of good fenfe and propriety in the author of it, than ingenuity of compofition.

Part II. The fcale of intervals at the beginning of this part will be very ufeful to a young mufical ftudent; and perhaps if the fynonimous founds on keyed-inftruments had been linked together by a femi-circle or ligature thus, c* db, deb, &c. the identity would have been still more manifeft. Page 38. In treating of major and minor femitones, the notes, we fear, will puzzle the text. Perhaps the tyro would understand the following fimple rule: the fame note made accidentally flat, fharp, or natural, is a minor femitone, (to say why requires ratios ;) when the note changes place from a line to a space, or space to a line, it is a major femitone..

In the next page, the fubject of intervais is further pursued in a very clear and useful manner.

Page 40. The 4th made a difcord by the 5th is very well explained and exemplified. The objectionable ways of taking thefe chords at DE F might be eafily avoided by taking the chords in a different part of the inftrument. And the author, after discovering the malady, fhould perhaps have prefcribed a cure. Begin with C uppermoft and all will be well.

Page 41. Paffages for different inftruments drawn from the harmony of the fcale, afcending and defcending. An admirable expedient for teaching thorough-bafs to treble inftru ments, or fuch bafe inftruments as ufually play only fingle

notes.

The four next pages contain excellent leffons of accompani ment for all the best inftruments in ufe. We only object, p. 43, to the author's confining the term relative entirely to minor keys a 3d below the major. But all keys are relative that have one or more notes in common with two chords: as not only A, but E F and G are relatives to C. And we think Mr. Shield has copied Rameau and Rouffeau with rather too much servility in pp. 44 and 45: first, in accompanying the 4 with an 8th; fecondly, in the titles given to the 4th and the 6th of a key, or inverfion of the chord of the 7th: calling them the CRIT. REV. VOL. XXX. October, 1800. L

6

great and Small 6th. These titles have never been given by the Italians or the English to fuch chords. The is the appropriate chord to the 4th and major 7th of every key, afcending; and the 4 major, the chord of the 2d of every key. If, in full harmony, the 2d were accompanied by the 6 and 8th, it would be apt to involve both the composer and player in two 8ths between the bafs and one of the other parts.

Page 46. Highly praifeworthy, particularly the defcending chromatic fcale in treble and bafs. We fhall probably elfewhere have the accompaniment to the afcending chromatic fcale.

We are now arrived at what the author calls a

Repertory of chords and cadences, from the unifon to the thirteenth,' which he prefaces in the following manner.

I have lately met with an excellent little treatife on harmony, the reading of which has given me both pleasure and information; the title is dated 1731, confequently it contains many exploded doctrines, but it likewife contains principles which will be the bafis of theory in 1800, or any other century.

The author's biographers inform us that he became a pedant in the latter part of his life, and only valued the abftrufe part of the science; but, in the abovementioned work, he has condefcended to explain his theory in fuch plain terms, that I have preferred his rules and examples, for the management of the unifon, to my own.' P. 47.

This excellent little book, of which our author boasts the difcovery, is not a very uncommon work in the libraries of muficians, and has, we believe, been defcribed by Hawkins and Burney in their hiftories. It went at firft under the name of lord Cornbury, a fcholar of Dr. Pepusch; and his lordship, from his fuperior knowledge of the English language to his mafter, may have drawn it up as it was dictated to him; but the doctrine was always fuppofed to be that of the learned organift of the charter-houfe.

In the note* at the bottom of p. 48 there are fome prohibitions for which we are neither told, nor can we difcover, a reafon; particularly that which forbids the going from the. unifon to the 6th major.

From 49 to 52. We have here excellent leffons of thoroughbafs for the violin. We would only wifh, at the top of p. 50, that the word retards were changed to fuftains or continues. The bafs is a bound appoggiatura. Gracing the bafs when it is the foundation of the harmony becomes jargon; but that is not

the cafe here.

At the top of p. 51 a fharp is wanting to g in the treble

chord; and at the bottom, the notation of the tranfient shake is inaccurate. In rapid movements, there is not time for four notes: the firft fhould be fuppreffed, and the fhake begin upon the note itself.

The laws of harmony are pursued through all the figures and combinations of chords, and practical leffons of thoroughbafs given for the chief inftruments in ufe, to p. 57, where fragments of harmony are offered, of which fome are curious. At p. 58, top, the trifling alteration' propofed, is not trivial in its effects: it has lengthened the measure from fix bars to eight, and rendered a pretty paffage heavy, correctly dull, and unmeaning.

59 is a very useful page, furnished by an excellent German writer.' But Mr. Shield is conftant in concealing the names of authors whom he cites or alludes to, in order, we fuppofe, not to offend the living by praifing the dead, or the memory of the dead, by encomiums on the living. As far as p. 59 no composer or mufical writer is mentioned, except Handel once. But an implication now and then efcapes the author, not difficult for the prefent profeffors to difcover in the midst of all his purpofed concealment.

Page 60. Here we have difcords unprepared. These, the reader should be informed, are by the Italians called à pedale ; as at the cadences in Corelli's and Geminiani's folos, where tafto folo occurs, and where the chords are only played by the violin, while the right hand of the harpfichord player gives nothing but the octave of the bass.

By the fragments, which Mr. Shield quotes from different mafters, he has convinced us of his having kept good company in his musical reading and practice, not confining himself to old authors, nor taking his examples from their works alone; yet never lofing his refpect for them. We have in this treatise all the modern combinations and bold licenses which great and original genius has dared to hazard; most of which have been adopted, and, as the French express it, fait fortune (made their fortune).

We cannot, however, quite agree with Mr. Shield in the difference he makes, p. 68, between the chords of the 2 and 4. In his example of the firft, the 4th c is but an appoggiatura of that single note; and in the second there is an appoggiatura of the whole chord. The 7 here is one of the many modern licenses which are now become rules. Forty years ago the harmony of the 4 was fometimes continued in German fymphonies during a whole bar, furprising every hearer and offending

many.