_The Narrative is resumed and concluded. A learned Lecture upon Harmony,
by which the unlearned hearer is not greatly edified._
Since you make so polite a tender of your patience, said De Lancaster,
to me, who have already put it to so hard a trial, I must resume my
narrative from the landing of Brute and his Trojans, when my ancestors
established themselves on this very spot, I do not say in this very
castle, under Camber, the second son of the aforesaid Brute.
Lud-Hurdibras was the grandson of Camber, and King Bladud was the son of
Hurdibras: he built, as is notorious to all the world, the city of
Bath, and was the projector of those salubrious baths, that _William of
Malmsbury_ would fain ascribe to Julius Cæsar, which I pronounce to be
an egregious anachronism, and you may take it _meo periculo_.
I take it at my own peril, said the colonel; for I have seen Bladud
himself with these very eyes standing centinel over the bath of his own
making, and I never met with any body hardy enough to dispute his title
to it.
Let it pass then! He was a benefactor to mankind by the institution of
those baths, and might have been more eminently so, had his opinion upon
the practicability of men’s flying in the air been established upon
experiment. I confess there is much plausibility in the project, but I
am also aware of some difficulties attending it, which merit
consideration. I do not say it may not be achieved, but I am not
prepared to recommend the undertaking to any friend, whose life is of
immediate consequence to his family.
It would be a famous lift, said the wooden-legged warrior, to people in
my mutilated predicament; and though I am not quite disposed to the
experiment myself, any body else, who is so inclined, will have my good
wishes.
That was exactly the language, cried De Lancaster, of King Bladud’s
courtiers, and the learned men of the time. They unanimously declared
that many notable discoveries might be struck out in astrology, which
was the reigning study of the day, if men would fly up high enough to
look after them; but they were not impatient to be amongst the first to
fly upon those discoveries. My ancestor however, who was then about the
person of the king, and an enthusiastic admirer of the sublime and
beautiful, went a step beyond them all, and actually contrived a very
ample and becoming pair of artificial wings, which in the judgment of
the very best mechanics then living promised all possible success to the
experiment. Upon their exhibition in presence of the sovereign and of a
committee specially appointed, so charmed was King Bladud with the skill
displayed in their construction, that he was graciously pleased to
authorize and empower the inventor himself to make trial of his own
pinions, with free leave to fly as far and as high as he saw fit, and to
perch at discretion wherever it might suit him, the chimney tops and
lattices of the chambers even of the maids of honour not excepted.
Happy man! cried Wilson; this was a roving commission of a most tempting
sort, and I hope your ancestor had too much gallantry to hesitate about
embracing it.
I beg your pardon, replied De Lancaster, my ancestor was not a man of
that forward character as to aspire to situations, that ought to be
above the ambition of a subject, but when this flattering offer was with
all becoming thankfulness most modestly declined, King Bladud himself
(as my ancestor no doubt foresaw) had the aforesaid wings fitted to his
royal shoulders; ascended the roof of the temple of Apollo (at that time
the loftiest edifice in the city of Troy-nouvant) and launching himself
into the air confidently, as became a prince so sagacious and
philosophical, committed his sacred person to the protection of Apollo
and the artificial supporters, which promised him so delicious an
excursion. Whether the fault was in the wings themselves, or in King
Bladud’s want of dexterity in the management of them, is not for me to
determine; but history puts it out of doubt that the attempt was fatal
to the adventurous monarch. He fell headlong on the steps of the temple,
(as you see in the picture fronting you) and was dashed in pieces in the
twentieth year of his reign, and the two hundred and twentieth from the
landing of Brute. All the world believed my ancestor a lost man, but
Lear, son of Bladud and heir to his kingdom, being a prince of a most
noble nature, and sensible to whom he was indebted for his so early
elevation to the throne, rewarded the artificer of his father’s pinions
by empowering him to affix them to his armorial bearing of the harp, and
from that hour to this the harp of the bard between the wings of Bladud
has been the proper and distinguishing shield of the De Lancasters, as
not only the records of the herald’s office, but the head of every spout
appertaining to the castle, can testify and evince.
The spouts alone would satisfy me, said the colonel, but the heralds and
the spouts together are authorities incontestible; but since you have
named Lear, I should wish to know if he is that very Lear, who,
according to the drama of our poet Shakespear, having parted his kingdom
between his two ungrateful daughters Gonerill and Regan, ran mad upon
the reflection of his own folly for having done it.
For his madness, replied De Lancaster, there is no authority. He
bestowed his eldest daughter Gonerill in marriage to Henuinus, Duke of
Cornwall, and Regan to Maglanus, Duke of Albania. His youngest daughter
Cordelia, who was justly his favourite, married Aganippus, prince of
Gallia, and succeeded to the crown at Lear’s death, being the first of
her sex, who had ever borne the title of queen absolute and governess of
Britain. After the decease of Aganippus she fell a victim to the malice
of her nephews Cunedagius and Morgan, sons of her unworthy sisters, and
being thrown into prison by them, died, after a reign of only five
years, by her own hand. The usurpers, who at first agreed to divide the
empire, soon rose in arms against each other, and Morgan was slain in
Cambria by Cunedagius, where the place of his death is yet called
Glen-Morgan, or Morgan’s Land, now in the possession of the friend, to
whom we meditate to-morrow’s visit.--But I am hastening to release you,
and conclude my narrative--The line of Brute, the Trojan, ended in the
year 3476 with Ferrex and Porrex, sons of old King Gorbodug, who swayed
the sceptre through a period of sixty and two years. During the whole
time of the Pentarchy, that took place upon the decease of the
abovenamed sons of Gorbodug, my family appear to have kept close in
their Cambrian retirement, till the reign of Mulmutius Dunwallo,
immediately subsequent to the Pentarchy. It was then that a learned
ancestor of mine assisted Mulmutius in compiling that incomparable code
of laws, which being turned into Latin from the British language by
Gildus Priscus, was in time long after translated into English by the
great King Alfred, and by him incorporated amongst his famous
statutes.--And now, my good friend, as I have always determined to have
nothing to do with modern history, I here wind up my long detail,
congratulating myself that those, from whom I trace my blood, had the
good sense to keep close in their quarters in Cambria upon the landing
of the Romans, never deigning to mix or intermarry either with them or
the Picts, who came with Roderic A. D. 73, or with the Saxons, who first
entered the land A. D. 390, or with the Danes in the time of Egbert,
much less with the Normans in a more recent period, but remained pure
and unadulterated from the days of Samothes, the grandson of Noah, to
the present moment, in which I have the honour of thanking you for the
attention, you have been pleased to bestow upon a detail, which I fear
has been extremely tedious and unentertaining to you throughout.
Assure yourself, my good sir, replied Wilson, that the attention I have
bestowed on your narrative has been amply repaid by the entertainment I
have received from it. You have given me a history of my native country,
which in many parts was perfectly new to me, and if it had had no
concern whatever with your genealogy, still it would have been
interesting to me, who have never thought, nor had the curiosity to
enquire, about the annals of a time so very distant. That you have
authorities for what you have narrated I cannot doubt, for I am sure you
are incapable of a voluntary fiction, which, if any such there is, must
rest with others, not with you. As for the gratification you may derive
from the persuasion, that you can trace your descent from the son of
Noah, and by consequence, through Noah, even from Adam himself, grace
forbid I should attempt to lessen it, persuaded as I am, that you have
too much consideration for Moses to enlist with the Pre-Adamites. At the
same time I am free to own, that my respect for you, being founded on
the virtues of your character, receives little addition from the
circumstances of your pedigree; let me not however be considered as an
abettor of plebean sentiments; I acknowledge a degree of prejudice for a
well-born gentleman, and so long as you display the wings of King Bladud
only on the shoulders of King Bardus’s harp, I look with respect upon
your ancient banners; and henceforward when blind David Williams shall
make your castle hall resound with his melodious harp, I shall recollect
with pleasure that you have not only a natural delight, but also an
hereditary interest, in that noble instrument. I am myself a lover of
music; but it is a love without knowledge, for I neither know the
practice, nor ever studied the theory of it. I like this tune, and I
can’t tell why; I don’t like that, and can assign no reason for it. If
music only creates surprise in me by the wonderful execution of a
performer, I scarcely wish to hear it above once; if it moves my
passions, and elicits (as it sometimes will) my tears, I could listen to
it, as I may say, for ever; no repetition can exhaust the charm. What
this is I cannot define, and for that very reason I suppose it to be
nature; for art admits of explanation, but there is no logic, that
applies to instinct.
This was an unlucky remark, and the colonel stepped a little out of his
natural character when he risqued it: had he kept clear of definitions,
and said nothing about instinct, he might have escaped a lecture on the
Harmonics, which now became unavoidable, and he heard himself addressed
as follows--
You discern correctly, my good colonel, as to effect, not so as to
cause. You say there is no logic, that applies to instinct; I say there
is no instinct, that applies to rationality: the brute creation is
submitted to it, and directed by it; man must not offer to degrade his
virtues, or defend his vices, by a reference to instinct: the plea of
impulse will not save the criminal; for there are no propensities, which
reason may not conquer. From what you tell me I perceive that you
understand as much of music as ninety-nine in a hundred, who affect to
profess it, and more than many, who profess to teach it, forasmuch as
you feel it: now as there can be no effect without a cause, depend upon
it, there is a reason why you feel exactly in the manner you describe,
and in no other, though to investigate that reason, and intelligibly
describe it to you, cannot be done without a more intimate knowledge of
the constituent properties and powers of music, than falls to many
people’s lot to attain. To descant upon these at present would take up
more time than either of us would perhaps find convenient to devote to
it. I will postpone it to a better opportunity, when I flatter myself I
shall be able to relate to you so many striking instances of the
astonishing powers of harmony, as will set that sacred science in a
stronger and a clearer light, than you may be as yet aware of. Believe
me, it is one of the sublimest studies, that the human faculties can
embrace. The systems, that have come down to us from the Greek and Roman
harmonists, as well as all that has been written by the moderns on that
subject, are above measure difficult, elaborate and recondite--
Then I shall never understand them, said the colonel, nor desire to have
any thing to do with them.
Pardon me! resumed De Lancaster: If leisure now served, I could give you
specimens of the pains I have taken in the way of illustration, not only
with the learned treatise of _Vincentio Galilei_, a noble Spaniard,
published in the year 1581, but also with the Satyricon of _Martianus
Capella_, as edited and illustrated by the celebrated Grotius in his
early years. Permit me to say that I could give you the scale, and mark
out to you the distinct semitones of _Quarlino_, _Giovanni Bardi_, and
_Pierro Strozzi_. This would be demonstration, that could not fail to
edify, and at the same time I would adduce such evidence, as should
prove to you that my ancestorial harp was the very prototype of that,
which _Epigonus_ of _Ambracia_ was said to have played upon with forty
strings, when he first taught the Sicyonian minstrels to lay aside the
plectrum, and employ their fingers in the place of it: when _Julius
Pollux_ therefore gives this new-constructed harp the name of Epigonium
in honour of Epigonus, it is a mere trick, after the custom of the
Greeks, to arrogate all originality to their countrymen, and defraud my
ancestor of his prior title to give name to his own invention. In like
manner I can detect their plagiarism, when they ascribe the invention of
the double-headed plectrum to Sappho, whilst I have models still in my
possession, that prove it to have been the very identical plectrum in
general use, when my ingenious ancestor struck out a better practice. I
am therefore very naturally interested to prevent my ancestorial harp
from being confounded with the seven-stringed lyre, ascribed by Homer to
Mercury, of which the testudo formed the sounding-board; much less would
I have it mistaken for that delineated by _Hyginus_ with crooked arms,
and least of all with the suspicious model in the museum of the Medici.
All this, my dear sir, said the colonel, I should be extremely delighted
with, were I capable of understanding it; but alas! how should I, who
was never accustomed to admire any thing above the crash of a regimental
band, comprehend a single word of what you have been saying to me? That
I am capable of preferring one tune before another is all I pretend to,
but to assign any reason for that preference is what I do not pretend
to.
Yet there is a reason, resumed De Lancaster, and that reason is not
inscrutable to all, because not enquired into by you. That _tones_ have
power over the human feelings will not be disputed; but tones have
different properties, and of course different operations: the one,
entire, full and legitimate _tone_ contains within itself a variety of
divisional parts, by the expression and application of which various
passions may be excited, and various effects produced. The full tone
may be resolved into the half-tone, or _hemitonium_; the half-tone into
the quarter-tone, or _diesis_; neither does its divisibility stop here,
for the diesis may be again resolved, first, into its proper
quarter-tone, or _tetartemoria_, which be pleased to observe, is also
called _enarmonios_; secondly, into its third of a tone, or
_tritemoria_, (which by the way is the true chromatique) and thirdly and
lastly, into a tone, which involves a third part of a full tone and half
a third, and this is called _hemiolia_--And now, my good friend, having
given you some insight into the various combinations and resolutions of
musical tones, according to the system of the Greek writers on the
harmonics, (which, though briefly stated, cannot fail to be perfectly
clear to your comprehension) I think I may trust you to discover the
reason, why certain modulations and assortments of tones are pleasing to
you, and others not. These are the elements of all harmony, and as you
are now fully possessed of the definition of them, you cannot possibly
find any difficulty in the application.
I am under no difficulty at all, cried the colonel, in finding out when
I am pleased, and that being the only discovery I have any concern in, I
will trouble you no further to explain to me why I am pleased, but take
your word for having given me the true reason, and be content.
Here the lecture ended as many lectures do: the expounder was perfectly
satisfied with the instruction he had imparted, and the disciple was
entirely reconciled to remain in ignorance of what he did not wish to
understand.
At this moment Cecilia opportunely entered the room, and the
recollection of Sir Owen’s proposal instantly occuring to her father, he
desired to have a little private talk with her, and Wilson on the hint
withdrew.