mpositions. I suppose all the
different kinds of verses to be found in our odes, which have any measure
at all, might be arranged under one or other of these two musical times;
allowing a note or two sometimes to precede the commencement of the bar,
and occasional rests, as in musical compositions: if this was attended
to by those who set poetry to music, it is probable the sound and sense
would oftener coincide. Whether these musical times can be applied to the
lyric and heroic verses of the Greek and Latin poets, I do not pretend to
determine; certain it is, that the dactyle verse of our language, when
it is ended with a double rhime, much resembles the measure of Homer
and Virgil, except in the length of the lines. B. Then there is no
relationship between the other two of these sister-, Painting and Music?

_P_. There is at least a mathematical relationship, or perhaps I ought
rather to have said a metaphysical relationship between them. Sir Isaac
Newton has observed, that the breadths of the seven primary colours
in the Sun's image refracted by a prism are proportional to the seven
musical notes of the gamut, or to the intervals of the eight sounds
contained in an octave, that is, proportional to the following numbers:

Sol. La. Fa. Sol. La. Mi. Fa. Sol.
Red. Orange. Yellow. Green. Blue. Indigo. Violet,
1 1 1 1 1 1 1
9 16 10 9 16 16 9

Newton's Optics, Book I. part 2. prop. 3 and 6. Dr. Smith, in his
Harmonics, has an explanatory note upon this happy discovery, as he terms
it, of Newton. Sect. 4. Art. 7. From this curious coincidence, it has
been proposed to produce a luminous music, confiding of successions
or combinations of colours, analogous to a tune in respect to the
proportions above mentioned. This might be performed by a strong light,
made by means of Mr. Argand's lamps, passing through coloured glasses,
and falling on a defined part of a wall, with moveable blinds before
them, which might communicate with the keys of a harpsichord; and thus
produce at the same time visible and audible music in unison with each
other. The execution of this idea is said by Mr. Guyot to have been
attempted by Father Cassel without much success. If this should be
again attempted, there is another curious coincidence between sounds and
colours, discovered by Dr. Darwin of Shrewsbury, and explained in a paper