importance cannot on that account be ignored. On the contrary, it becomes all the more imperative to remember that no aesthetic principle which fails to apply to it can be other than partial and provincial. It can never claim to be a law governing the whole empire of artistic beauty.
That collisions of expert taste abound in the history of music will be generally admitted. But leaving on one side minor oscillations of opinion, let us take, as an illustration of our point, the contrast between the beginning and end of the period during which music has played a known part in European culture.
The contrast is certainly most striking. Our knowledge of ancient music is unsatisfactory: but it seems to be admitted that among the Greeks harmony, in the modern sense, was scarcely used, and that their instrumentation was as rudimentary as their harmony. Of their compositions we know little. But it is plain that, however exquisite may have been the airs rendered by means so modest as these, their charms to modern ears would be thin and colourless compared with those that modern music itself is able to convey,—not because the Greek genius was inferior, but because it had not the means, in this particular art, of giving itself full expression. Titian limited to a lead pencil.
