This is not strictly just as relating either to his proficiency in music, or his style as an author. Mace says of himself, “having said so much concerning the lute, as also taken so much pains in laying open all the hidden secrets thereof, it may be thought I am so great a lover of it, that I make light esteem of any other instrument besides; which truly I do not; but love the viol in a very high degree; yea close unto the lute; and have done much more, and made very many more good and able proficients upon it, than ever I have done upon the lute. And this I shall presume to say, that if I excel in either, it is most certainly upon the viol. And as to other instruments, I can as truly say, I value every one that is in use, according to its due place; as knowing and often saying, that all God's creatures are good; and all ingenuities done by man, are signs, tokens, and testimonies of the wisdom of God bestowed upon man.” So also though it is true that Thomas Mace stands distinguished among the writers on Music, yet it could be easy to find many fellows for him as far as regards peculiarity of style. A humourist who should collect odd books might form as numerous a library, as the man of fastidious taste who should confine his collection to such works only as in their respective languages were esteemed classical. “The singularity of his style,” says Sir John, “remarkable for a profusion of epithets and words of his own invention, and tautology without end, is apt to disgust such as attend less to the matter than manner of his book; but in others it has a different effect; as it exhibits, without the least reserve all the particulars of the author's character, which was not less amiable than singular.”—“The vein of humour that runs through it presents a lively portraiture of a good-natured, gossipping old man, virtuous and kind-hearted.”—The anxious “precision with which he constantly delivers himself, is not more remarkable than his eager desire to communicate to others all the knowledge he was possessed of, even to the most hidden secrets.”—“The book breathes throughout a spirit of devotion; and, agreeable to his sentiments of music is a kind of proof that his temper was improved by the exercise of his profession.”—There is no pursuit by which, if it be harmless in itself, a man may not be improved in his moral as well as in his intellectual nature, provided it be followed for its own sake: but most assuredly there is none however intrinsically good, or beneficial to mankind, from which he can desire any moral improvement, if his motive be either worldly ambition, or the love of gain.—_Ἀδύνατον ἐκ φαύλης ἀφορμῆς ἐπὶ τὸ τέλος ἐυδραμεῖν._[1] [Footnote 1: IAMBLICHUS.]