Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1878 edition. Excerpt: ...according to the measure usually given to the spondee." Pope in his "Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus," has mercilesslyt ridiculed the accounts of the power attributed to music by the ancients, and we must say that we feel inclined to agree with the author of "The Dunciad," when he refuses to give credence to accounts which are certainly over-seasoned with that quality known as the "miraculous." 403.--An Indirect Hint. Musicians as a rule love good cheer, both liquid and solid; fortunately for this predilection they have been at all times favoured guests of the wealthy, and perhaps no class in the whole community has had so large an experience of the hospitality of great men. That this rather undignified position of musical artists is no new thing is shown by the following story of ancient date: Philoxenus, who taught Antigenides the flute--and who, Burney says, "was so great an epicure that he is said to have wished for a throat as long as that of a crane, and all palate, in order to prolong the relish of the delicious morsels he swallowed--being served with a small fish at the table of Dionysius of Syracuse, and seeing an enormous turbot placed before the tyrant, put the head of the little fish close to his mouth, and pretended to whisper to it: then placed it close to his ear, as if to receive the answer more distinctly. Upon being AN INDIRECT HINT. 161 asked by Dionysius for an explanation of this mummery, he said, fI am writing a poem, sir, upon Galatea, one of the Nereids, and as I want information concerning several particulars relative to her father Nereus, and the watery element, that are quite out of my ken, I was in hopes of obtaining some satisfaction from this fish; but he tells me that...
