"
Algarotti says, "Those airs alone remain for ever engraven on the memory
of the public, that paint images to the mind, or express the passions,
and are for that reason called the speaking airs, because more congenial
to nature, which can never be justly imitated but by a beautiful
simplicity, that will always bear away the palm from the most laboured
refinement of art."
The author has ventured to give the following air, which he fancies
would almost suggest the words of the song to which Sir John Finett is
supposed to have appropriated it. As we have before mentioned, the tune
is traditionary, possessing some of the peculiar characteristics we have
described. It bears a considerable resemblance to the ancient Jewish
music, and likewise to the airs generally given to the little snatches
of old ballads in Shakespeare's plays, which are supposed to have been
handed down successively from the performers in his time; being then
probably "household" music more ancient than the ballads themselves.
This opinion seems warranted by the poet himself in that beautiful
allusion, with which he introduces one of the songs of the _Clown_, in
Twelfth Night--
"Mark it, Cesario; it is old and plain:
The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,
And the free maids that weave their thread with bones,
Do use to chant it; it is silly sooth,
And dallies with the innocence of love
Like the old age.
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