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flight of an hundred steps, which lead from the terrace above to the lawn below. You have been in the practice of visiting this amiable family twice a week after dinner, and as it is a maxim of your own, that a man may take as much exercise in walking a mile up and down stairs, asin ten on level ground," what an opportunity was here for you to have had exercise in both these ways? Did you embrace it, and how often ? Franklin. I cannot immediately answer that question.

Gout. I will do it for you; not

once.

Franklin.-Not once? Gout.-Even So. During the summer you went there at six o'clock. You found the charming lady, with her lovely children and friends, eager to walk with you, and entertain you with their agreeable conversation : and what has been your choice? Why to sit on the terrace, satisfying yourself with the fine prospect, and passing your eye over the beauties of the gardens below, without taking one step to descend and walk about in them. On the contrary, you call for tea, and the chess-board; and lo! you are occupied in your seat till nine o'clock, and that beside two hours play after dinner; and then, instead of walking home, which would have bestirred you a little, you step into your carriage. How absurd to suppose that all this carelessness can be reconcileable with health without my interposition!

Franklin.-I am convinced now of the justness of Richard's repoor mark, that, "Our debts and our sins are always greater than we think

for."

Gout. So it is! you philosophers, are sages in your maxims, and fools in your conduct.

Franklin. But do you charge among my crimes, that I return in a carriage from Mr. B's?

Gout. Certainly: for having been

seated all the while, you cannot object the fatigue of the day, and cannot want therefore the relief of a carriage.

Franklin.-What then would you have me do with my carriage?

Gout.--Burn it, if you choose ; you would at least get heat out of it once in this way; or if you dislike that proposal, here's another for you: observe the poor peasants who work in the vineyards and grounds about the villages of Passy, Anteuil, Chaillois, &c.; you may find every day among these deserving creatures, four or five old men and women, bent and perhaps crippled by weight of years,. and too long, and too great labour. After a most fatiguing day, these. people have to trudge a mile or two to their smoky huts. Order your coachmen to set them down. That is an act that will be good for your soul; and at the same time, after your visit to the B'S if you return on foot, that will be good for your body.

are.

Franklin.-Ah! how tiresome you

Gout.-Well then, to my office; it should not be forgotten, that I am your physician. There.

Franklin-Ohhh! what a devil of a physician!

Gout.-How ungrateful are you to say so! Is it not I, who, in the character of your physician, have saved you from the palsy, dropsy, and apoplexy? one or other of which would have done for you long ago, but for

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that as any objection, As to quacks, I despise them they may kill you indeed, but cannot injure me. And as to regular physicians, they are at last convinced, that, the gout in such a subject as you are, is no disease, but a remedy; and wherefore cure a remedy?but to our business There.

Franklin--Oh! Oh!-for heaven's sake leave me; and I promise faithfully never more to play at chess, but to take exercise daily, and live temperately.

Gout. I know you too well. You promise fair; but after a few months of good health, you will return to your old habits; your fine promises will be forgotten like the forms of the last year's clouds. Let us then nish the account and I will go. But I leave you with an assurance, of visiting you again at a proper time and place; for my object is your good, and you are sensible now, that I am your real friend.

no pleasure in hearing this music. Many pieces of it are mere compositions of tricks. I have sometimes, at a concert, attended by a common audience, placed myself so as to see all their faces, and observed no signs of pleasure in them during the performance of a great part that was admired by the performers themselves; while a plain old Scotch tune, which they disdained, and could scarcely be prevailed on to play, gave manifest and general delight. Give me leave, on this occa. sion, to extend a little the sense of your position, that "melody and harmony are separately agreeable, and in union delightful," and to give it as my opinion, that the reason why the Scotch tunes have lived so long, and will probably live for ever (if they escape being stifled in modern affected ornament) is merely this, that they are really compositions of melody and harmony united, or ra ther that their melody is harmony. I mean the simple tunes sung by a single voice. As this will appear

On the HARMONY and MELODY of paradoxical, I must explain my mean

the Old SCOTCH Tunes.

In a Letter from Dr Franklin to Lord
Kaimes.

IN my passage to America I read your excellent work, the Elements of Criticism, in which I found great entertainment. I only wished you had examined more fully the subject of music, and demonstrated that the pleasure artists feel in hearing much of that composed in the modern taste, is not the natural pleasure arising from melody or harmony of sounds, but of the same kind with the pleasure we feel on seeing the surprising feats of tumblers and ropedancers, who execute difficult things. For my part take this to be really the case, and suppose it the reason why those who are unpractised in music, and therefore unacquainted with those difficulties, have little or

ing. In common acceptation, indeed, only an agreeable succesion of sounds is called melody, and only the co-existence of agreeable sounds, harmo

ny.

But since the memory is capa ble of retaining for some moments a perfect idea of the pitch of a past sound, so as to compare with it the pitch of a succeeding sound, and judge truly of their agreement or disagreement, there may and does arise from thence a sense of harmony between the present and past sounds, equally pleasing with that between two present sounds. Now the construction of the old Scotch tunes is this, that almost every succeeding emphatical note is a third, a fifth, an octave, or in short some note that is in concord with the preceding note. Thirds are chiefly used, which are very pleasing concords. I use the word emphatical to distinguish those notes which

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That we have a most perfect idea of a sound just past, I might appeal to all acquainted with music, who know how easy it is to repeat a sound in the same pitch with one just heard. In tuning an instrument, a good ear can as easily determine that two strings are in unison by sounding them separately, as by sounding them together; their disagreement is also as easily, I believe I may say more easily and better distinguished, when sounded separately; for when sounded together, though you know by the beating that one is higher than the other, you cannot tell which is. I have ascribed to memory the ability of comparing the pitch of a present tone with that of one past. But if there should be, as possibly there may be, something in the ear similar to what we find in the eye, that ability would not be entirely owing to memory. Possibly the vibra. tions given to the auditory nerves by a particular sound may actually con tinue some time after the cause of those vibrations is past, and the agreement or disagreement of a subsequent sound become by comparison with them more discernible. the impression made on the visual nerves by a luminous object will continue for twenty or thirty seconds.Sitting in a room, look earnestly at the middle of a window a little while when the day is bright, and then shut your eyes; the figure of the window will still remain in the eye, and so distinct that you may count the panes. A remarkable circumstance attending this experiment, is, that the impression of forms is better retained than that of colours; for af. ter the eyes are shut, when you first discern the image of the window, the

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panes appear dark, and the cross bars of the sashes, with the window frames and walls, appear white or bright; but if you still add to the darkness in the eyes by covering them with your hand, the reverse instantly takes place, the panes appear luminous and the cross bars dark. And by removing the hand they are again reversed. This I know not how to account for.-Nor for the following; that after looking long through green spectacles, the white paper of a book will on first taking them off appear to have a blush of red; and after long looking through red glasses, a greenish cast; this seems to intimate a relation between green and red not yet explained. Farther, when we consider by whom these ancient tunes were composed, and how they were first performed, we shall see that such harmonical successions of sounds was natural and even necessary in their construction. were composed by the minstrels of those days to be played on the harp accompanied by the voice. The harp was strung with wire, which gives a sound of long continuance, and had no contrivance like that of the modern harpsichord, by which the sound of the preceding could be stopt the moment a succeeding note began. To avoid actual discord, it was therefore necessary that the succeeding emphatic note should be a chord with the preceding, as their sounds exist at the same time. Hence arose that beauty in those tunes that has so long pleased, and will please for ever, though men scarce know why. That they were originally composed for the harp, and of the most simple kind, I mean a harp without any half notes but these in the natural scale, and with no more than two octaves of strings, from C to C, I conjecture from another circumstance which is, that not one of those tunes, really ancient, has a single artificial half

no!

note in it, and that in tunes where it was most convenient for the voice to use the middle notes of the harp, and place the key in F, there the B, which if used should be a B flat, is always omitted, by passing over it with a third. The connoisseurs in modern music will say I have no taste, but I cannot help adding, that I believe our ancestors, in hearing a good song, distinctly articulated, sung to one of those tunes, and accompanied by the harp, felt more. real pleasure than is communicated by the generality of modern operas, exclusive of that arising from the scenery and dancing. Most tunes of late composition, not hav. ing this natural harmony united with their melody, have recourse to the artificial harmony of a bass, and other accompanying parts. This support, in my opinion, the old tunes do not need, and are rather confused than aided by it. Whoever has heard James Oswald play them on his violoncello, will be less inclined to dispute this with me. I have more than once seen tears of pleasure in the eyes of his auditors, and yet, I think, even his playing those tunes would please more, if he gave them less modern ornament.

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drawing near the term of life, wishes before that period to see them joined in the holy bonds of matrimony, but chiefly the young lady, for whom she wishes to find a husband of character; and a batchelor would be preferred, between the age of thirty and forty, of a mild and religious turn, irreproachable conduct, and an income between four and five thousand

francs a year. The lady is twentyfour years of age, of an elegant person and agreeable countenance, and a serious and solid character. Her fortune consists in thirty-six thou-" sand francs of patrimonial inheritance, free of all debts; with almost as much more on the death of her mother. The son is five years older, with an equal fortune, and an honourable situation."

"An amiable lady, entering into the autumn of her age, of a lively disposition, good education, and irreproachable manners; now at the head of an establishment adapted to her sex, and worth between twentyfive and thirty thousand francs; wishes to marry a batchelor aged between forty and fifty, with a revenue between three and four thou sand francs, health, and good morals.”

"A lady of twenty-seven years of age, of irreproachable conduct, and an education above her situation in life, which, without being unhappy, nevertheless obliges her to have recourse to her talents for a decent subsistence, yet, having withal.some neat furniture, and some sparings from her gains, desires to unite her destiny by the religious bonds of matrimony to that of a man of sense, of a mild character, who has some employment, or trade, independent of a wife. His age would be a matter of complete indifference."

"A young lady, in the spring of

her age, living with her father, who has no other child, desires to be united in marriage to a batchelor of a mature age, who unites a decent

income

income to a person full of health, The lady is of a most agreeable appearance, and possesses, in the second degree of perfection, vocal and instrumental music. Her father will leave her an income of between two and three thousand francs."

"A batchelor aged forty-nine, of an agreeable and very healthy person, lively character, and fond of the pleasures which decency permits, enjoying ten thousand francs of territorial revenue, wishes to marry a young lady of good birth, aged between eighteen and twenty-five, of sweet disposition, similar taste, and income between two and three thousand francs. His intention is to make a contract of marriage to the last liver."

"A young man of twenty-nine years, of good birth, and belonging to a respectable family, which has procured him a careful education, so that he profits of several agreeable talents which produce a decent subsistence, can only offer them, together with his person, which, without vanity, may please a reasonable wo. man, such as he would desire, who must be amiable, and possess an easy income. Her age is wholly indiffer

ent."

"A widower aged forty-three, without any incumbrance, of a handsome stature, oval face, brown hair and beard, florid complexion, every appearance of health, large black eyes announcing the mildness of his character, mouth of a middle size, white teeth in perfect preservation; born of honourable parents, and having received an education in the liberal studies, of a very easy character, though reserved till he know his company, lively, and not fond of expensive and noisy pleasures, but of those which he finds at a charming country house, where he lives in the neighbourhood of Versailles, and possessing a clear income of three thousand francs, wishes to marry a lady between thirty and thirty-six years

of age, of similar inclinations, either unmarried or a widow, without children, without natural defects, and preferring, like him, a rural life; with nearly an equal fortune."

The following is a letter from a lady dated from the banks of the Marne near Paris. "Far from the noise of the city, in a retreat which the presence of my loved parents rendered agreeable to me, I have attained my twenty-sixth year without thinking of hymen; but the tribute which every mortal must pay to pature having for ever separated me from those who alone received my care, and occupied my thoughts, this retreat, formerly so pleasant, appears a desart, and I feel the necessity of repairing the void which that loss has occasioned. After having borne, beyond the term exacted by decency, but surpassed by my grief, the mournful marks, the tears and regret which I owe to their memory, I wish to divert my mind from the melancholy which has overwhelmed me for fifteen months, and to unite myself with a prudent man of a mild and complaisant character, holding an honourable situation in the capital, so as to maintain a house above the middling rank. The heiress of five thousand francs a year, I offer him this patrimony. He will find my person rather plump than delicate, rather fresh than beautiful, with more good sense than wit, more of practical philosophy than of science; but a good heart and flexible character. It is to your sagacity, Mr Mediator, that I entrust this research, begging you to place me on the list of your subscribers."

"A young man, without actual fortune, but having a person and education fit to appear in any com pany, and an amiable character, such as may please any reasonable and sensible woman; of respectable parents who were formerly very rich, and are still at their ease, but have a nume.

rous

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