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in all other things. And I depend upon thoſe great Qualities, upon their exquiſite Diſcernment, their exact Juſtice, and their magnanimous Spirit of Liberty, when I preſume to oppoſe a popular and prevailing Caprice, and to defend the Engliſh Stage, which together with our Engliſh Liberties has deſcended to us from our Anceſtors, to defend it againſt that Deluge of Mortal Foes, which have come pouring in from the Continent, to drive out the Muſes, its Old Inhabitants, and ſeat themſelves in their ſtead; that while the Engliſh Arms are every where Victorious abroad, the Engliſh Arts may not be vanquiſh’d and oppreſs’d at home by the Invaſion of Foreign Luxury.
There is no Man living who is more convinc’d than my ſelf of the Power of Harmony, or more penetrated by the Charms of Muſick. I know very well that Muſick makes a conſiderable Part both of Eloquence and of Poetry; and therefore to endeavour to decry it fully, would be as well a fooliſh, as an ungrateful Task, ſince the very efforts which we ſhould make againſt it, would only ſerve to declare its Excellence, it being impoſſible to ſucceed in them, but by ſupplies which we ſhould borrow from its own Harmony. Muſick may be made profitable as well as delightful, if it is ſubordinate to ſome nobler Art, and ſubſervient to Reaſon; but if it preſumes not only to degenerate from its ancient Severity, from its ſacred Solemnity; but to ſet up for itſelf, and to grow independant, as it does in our late Opera’s, it becomes a meer ſenſual Delight, utterly incapable of informing the Underſtanding, or of reforming the Will; and for that very Reaſon utterly unfit to be made a publick Diverſion, and then the more charming it grows, it becomes the more pernicious. Since when it is once habitual, it
muſt
