4
in the bar. ['Bars' were not in general use till the end of the 16th
century, but the principle was the same. The bars themselves are
merely a convenience.]

Sesquialtera is more complicated, and means 'three notes are sung to
two of the same kinde'; and 'Sesquitertia is when four notes are sung
to three of the same kinde.' 'But' (Morley adds), 'if a man would
ingulphe himselfe to learn to sing, and set down all them which
Franchinus Gaufurius [1496] hath set down in his booke De
Proportionibus Musicis, he should find it a matter not only hard but
almost impossible.'

Ornithoparcus, in his Micrologus (1535), gives us an idea of the way
this subject of proportion was treated by more 'learned' writers. He
says (1) that music considers only the proportion of inequality, (2)
that this is two-fold--viz., the greater and the lesser inequality.
(3) The greater inequality contains five proportions, namely,
multiplex, superparticular, superpartiens, multiplex superparticular,
and multiplex superpartiens.

This is more amusing than instructive, perhaps. The three last lines
of this passage refer to the various stories of real or pretended
cure of disease by the use of particular pieces of music. One of the
best known of these diseases is 'Tarantism,' or the frenzy produced by
the bite of the Tarantula, in Italy.

Kircher, a learned Jesuit (1601-1680), gives an account, in his
"Musurgia," of the cure of this madness by certain airs, by which the
patient is stimulated to dance violently. The perspiration thus
produced was said to effect a cure. In his "Phonurgia nova" (1673)
Kircher actually gives the notes of the tune by which one case was
cured.

In this connection, Kircher mentions King Saul's madness, which was
relieved by David's harp playing. This is certainly to the point, and
may well have been in Shakespeare's mind. [See George Herbert's poem,
'Doomsday,' verse 2.]

Our modern Tarantellas derive their name and characteristic speed from
the old Tarantula.

_Lear_ I, ii, 137. Edmund pretends not to see Edgar's entrance.

_Edmund (aside)._ Pat he comes, like the catastrophe of the
old comedy: my cue is villainous melancholy, with a _sigh
like Tom o' Bedlam_.--O! these eclipses do portend _these
divisions_. _Fa, sol, la, mi._

Songs like 'Tom o' Bedlam,' mad-songs they were called, were very
commonly sung in England in the 17th century. The tune and words of
the original 'Tom a Bedlam' are t