in poets are written in common time; the French
heroic verses, and Mr. Anstie's humorous verses in his Bath Guide, are
written in the same time as the Greek and Latin verses, but are one bar
shorter. The English grave or heroic verses are measured by triple time, as
Mr. Pope's translation of Homer.

But besides these little circles of musical time, there are the greater
returning periods, and the still more distant choruses, which, like the
rhimes at the ends of verses, owe their beauty to repetition; that is, to
the facility and distinctness with which we perceive sounds, which we
expect to perceive, or have perceived before; or in the language of this
work, to the greater ease and energy with which our organ is excited by the
combined sensorial powers of association and irritation, than by the latter
singly.

A certain uniformity or repetition of parts enters the very composition of
harmony. Thus two octaves nearest to each other in the scale commence their
vibrations together after every second vibration of the higher one. And
where the first, third, and fifth compose a chord the vibrations concur or
coincide frequently, though less to than in the two octaves. It is probable
that these chords bear some analogy to a mixture of three alternate colours
in the sun's spectrum separated by a prism.

The pleasure we receive from a melodious succession of notes referable to
the gamut is derived from another source, viz. to the pandiculation or
counteraction of antagonist fibres. See Botanic Garden, P. 2. Interlude 3.
If to these be added our early associations of agreeable ideas with certain
proportions of sound, I suppose, from these three sources springs all the
delight of music, so celebrated by ancient authors, and so enthusiastically
cultivated at present. See Sect. XVI. No. 10. on Instinct.

This kind of pleasure arising from repetition, that is from the facility
and distinctness, with which we perceive and understand repeated
sensations, enters into all the agreeable arts; and when it is carried to
excess is termed formality. The art of dancing like that of music depends
for a great part of the pleasure, it affords, on repetition; architecture,
especially the Grecian, consists of one part being a repetition of another;
and hence the beauty of the pyramidal outline in landscape-painting; where
one side of the picture may be said in some measure to balance the other.
So universally does repetition contribute to our pl