During the sixteenth century, and a great part of the next, many of the most eminent musical theorists of Italy employed their time in subtle divisions of the scale, and visionary pursuits after the ancient Greek genera; nor was this rage wholly confined to theorists, but extended itself to practical musicians, ambitious of astonishing the world by their deep science and superior penetration, though they might have employed their time more profitably to themselves, and the art they professed, in exploring the latent resources of harmonic combinations and effects in composition, or in refining the tone, heightening the expression, and extending the powers of execution, upon some particular instrument. These vain enquiries certainly impeded the progress of modern Music; for hardly a single tract or treatise was presented to the public, that was not crowded with circles, segments of circles, diagrams, divisions, sub-divisions, commas, modes, genera, species, and technical terms drawn from Greek writers, and the now unintelligible and useless jargon of Boethius.
