f all praise.'{2} Perhaps this was a doctor's
present to a patient. Alcaeus, Anacreon, and Nonnus could not have sung
as they did under the inspiration of spirit of turpentine. We learn from
Athenseus, and Pliny, and the old comedians, that the Greeks had a vast
variety of wine, enough to suit every variety of taste. I infer the
unknown from the known. We know little of their music. I have no doubt
it was as excellent in its kind as their sculpture.

1 Trelawny's Recollections.

2 (Greek passage)
Anthologia Palatina: Appendix: 72.

_Mr. Minim_. I can scarcely think that, sir. They seem to have had only
the minor key, and to have known no more of counterpoint than they did
of perspective.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Their system of painting did not require
perspective. Their main subject was on one foreground. Buildings, rocks,
trees, served simply to indicate, not to delineate, the scene.

_Mr. Falconer._ I must demur to their having only the minor key.
The natural ascent of the voice is in the major key, and with their
exquisite sensibility to sound they could not have missed the obvious
expression of cheerfulness. With their three scales, diatonic,
chromatic, and enharmonic, they must have exhausted every possible
expression of feeling. Their scales were in true intervals; they had
really major and minor tones; we have neither, but a confusion of both.
They had both sharps and flats: we have neither, but a mere set of
semitones, which serve for both. In their enharmonic scale the fineness
of their ear perceived distinctions which are lost on the coarseness of
ours.

_Mr. Minim._ With all that they never got beyond melody. They had no
harmony, in our sense. They sang only in unisons and octaves.

_Mr. Falconer._ It is not clear that they did not sing in fifths. As to
harmony in one sense, I will not go so far as to say with Ritson that
the only use of the harmony is to spoil the melody; but I will say,
that to my taste a simple accompaniment, in strict subordination to the
melody, is far more agreeable than that Niagara of sound under which it
is now the fashion to bury it.

_Mr. Minim._ In that case, you would prefer a song with a simple
pianoforte accompaniment to the same song on the Italian stage.

_Mr. Falconer._ A song sung with feeling and expression is good, however
accompanied. Otherwise, the pianoforte is not much to my mind. All its
intervals are false, and temperament is a poor substi