Chapter 24

Some, for instance, draw all their characters with wind-instruments.—_Virgil_ takes notice of that way in the affair of _Dido_ and _Æneas_;—but it is as fallacious as the breath of fame;—and, moreover, bespeaks a narrow genius. I am not ignorant that the _Italians_ pretend to a mathematical exactness in their designations of one particular sort of character among them, from the _forte_ or _piano_ of a certain wind-instrument they use,—which they say is infallible.—I dare not mention the name of the instrument in th…