d be _La, Sol, Fa;_ and those of
the second _Fa, Mi, Fa_. In _Airs_ for a single Voice, or in
_Recitatives_, a Singer may chuse which of these _Closes_ or _Cadences_
pleases him best; but if in Concert with other Voices, or accompanied
with Instruments, he must not change the Superior for the Inferior, nor
this with the other.[79]

Sec. 2. It would be superfluous to speak of the broken _Cadences_, they
being become familiar even to those who are not Professors of Musick,
and which serve at most but in _Recitatives_.[80]

Sec. 3. As for those _Cadences_ that fall a fifth, they were never composed
in the old Stile for a _Soprano_, in an _Air_ for a single Voice, or
with Instruments, unless the Imitation of some Words had obliged the
Composer thereto. Yet these, having no other Merit, but of being the
easiest of all, as well for the Composer as for the Singer, are at
present the most prevailing.[81]

Sec. 4. In the Chapter on _Airs_, I have exhorted the Student to avoid that
Torrent of _Passages_ and _Divisions_, so much in the _Mode_, and did
engage myself also, to give my weak Sentiments on the _Cadences_ that
are now current; and I am now ready: But, however, with the usual
Protestation of submitting them, with all my other Opinions, to the
Tribunal of the Judicious, and those of Taste, from whence there is no
Appeal; that they, as sovereign Judges of the Profession, may condemn
the Abuses of the _modern Cadences_, or the Errors of my Opinion.

Sec. 5. Every _Air_ has (at least) three _Cadences_, that are all three
final. Generally speaking, the Study of the Singers of the present Times
consists in terminating the _Cadence_ of the first Part with an
overflowing of _Passages_ and _Divisions_ at Pleasure, and the
_Orchestre_ waits; in that of the second[82] the Dose is encreased, and
the _Orchestre_ grows tired; but on the last _Cadence_, the Throat is
set a going, like a Weather-cock in a Whirlwind, and the _Orchestre_
yawns. But why must the World be thus continually deafened with so many
_Divisions_? I must (with your leave, _Gentlemen Moderns_) say in Favour
of the Profession, that good Taste does not consist in a continual
Velocity of the Voice, which goes thus rambling on, without a Guide, and
without Foundation; but rather, in the _Cantabile_, in the putting forth
the Voice agreeably, in _Appoggiatura's_, in Art, and in the true Notion
of Graces, going from one Note to another with singular and unexpected
Surpr