XXIII. There is no doubt of the justness of this remark; neither is there any, that a master, who composes for the church, should dispose the music in such a way, and write it in such a stile, as is best calculated to promote the spiritual welfare of souls; and to sustain the majesty, decorum, and solemnity of divine worship. St. Thomas, touching upon this point, says, the chant was a salutary institution in the church, because it excited sickly souls, that is, such as were weak in spirit, to devotion. But, alas! what would the saint say, if he was to hear in the church some of the airs of these times, which, so far from fortifying the sick, enfeeble the healthy; which, instead of promoting devotion in the breast, banish it from the soul; and instead of elevating the mind to pious reflections, bring to the memory forbidden things? I repeat it again, that it is an obligation on musicians, and a very serious one, to correct this abuse. XXIV. Truly, when I reflect on the serious turn of mind for which Spaniards heretofore were remarkable, I can’t help being struck with amazement, to find at present, that we can relish no other but puppet-shew music. This looks as if the celebrated Spanish gravity, was reduced to nothing more, than stalking stiff and erect up and down the street. The Italians, by means of the false flattering insinuation, that music has been improved of late days, have made us the slaves of their taste. I, for my own part, believe what they call improvement, to be ruin and destruction, or something very near it. All intellectual arts, of whose excellencies, the understanding and the taste, cloathed with an equal degree of authority are judges, have their points, or zenith of perfection, which when they are once arrived at, he who attempts to advance them, commonly occasions their decline, and puts them in a train, which leads to their destruction. XXV. It will perhaps, with respect to the science of music, happen to Italy very soon, if it has not happened there already, just as it happened to it with regard to the Latin language, oratory, and poetry. These faculties, in the age of Augustus, arrived to that state of propriety, beauty, elegance, and natural energy, in which their true perfection consisted. Those who succeeded to that age, pretended, by the violent introduction of improper ornaments, to refine them; by doing which, they precipitated them from Nature to affectation, and from thence they afterwards fell into barbarism. The poets who succeeded Virgil, and the orators who succeeded Cicero, were thoroughly persuaded in themselves, that they had given new graces, and new excellencies to the two arts; but the keen Petronius Arbiter, after upbraiding them with their ridiculous and pompous affectation, told them very plainly, what in reality they had done: _Vos primi omnium eloquentiam perdidistis._ SECT. VII.