XV. With respect to harmony and concordances, authors, who have examined the thing with much attention, assure us, the antients knew no other than the third, the octave, and the double octave; adding, that they were entirely ignorant of the concerto, or music of different tones; and therefore all their accompanyments, either of an instrument with the voice, or of one voice, or one instrument with another, were constantly in unison. It may be asked now, what excellencies could be contained in a music, which was so limited and so simple? Or what comparison can you imagine there is between that and ours, either to delight the ear, or give satisfaction to the understanding? XVI. I have acknowledged, that this objection is specious, but deny that it is conclusive. In the first place, the parts of Plutarch’s works, as well as those of other authors, from whence they pretend to have collected this system of antient music, are so complicated and obscure, that nothing can with certainty be determined on the credit of them; hence it comes to pass, that writers, in their reasonings and disquisitions on this subject, are much divided in their opinions. XVII. In the second place, I do not assent, that music, on account of its being somewhat the more simple, is the less delicious or pathetic. I acknowledge, that the variety in that, as in all other things, contributes to the delight of it; but then the variety ought to be confined within certain limits, for that, like every other thing, has two vicious extremes, the one of which is incurred by excess, the other by deficiency. If the variety is very small, you soon grow tired of it, and it seems rather surfeiting. If it is excessive, the soul is disturbed and bewildered by the many parts of the object, and by being tossed and hurried from one to the other, is not allowed, nor has it leisure, for that extatic suspension, in which the most intense part of the pleasure consists. I have seen an infinite number of people, much more regaled by hearing a good voice, accompanied by a guittar just scraped, than by hearing a concert of many voices and instruments; and I have sometimes seen a person of very good talents shed tears of delight and tenderness, on hearing a guittar played pointedly, and with expression; which never would have happened to him, by hearing a symphony of various instruments, although he should have attended such performances ever so often. The musicians of these times boast exceedingly of the improvements they have made in their profession, and of having, from an insipid, heavy, coarse harmony, advanced to a sweet, airy, and delicate music; and many of them have been brought to conjecture, that the practice of this faculty in the present age has been carried to as high a degree of perfection, as it is capable of attaining. In my Discourse on Music in the first volume of the Theatrico Critico, I made a comparison between antient