where Musick is either actually used, or its Powers describ’d, it is
chiefly said to be for these Ends. His _Twelfth-Night_, particularly,
begins with a fine Reflexion that admirably marks its soothing
Properties.

That Strain again;--It had a dying Fall.
Oh, it came o’er my Ear like the sweet South,
That breathes upon a Bank of Violets,
Stealing and giving Odour!

[Sidenote*: _Milton_ an Imitator of him.]

This _Similitude_ is remarkable not only for the Beauty of the
Image that it presents, but likewise for the Exactness to the Thing
compared. This is a way of Teaching peculiar to the Poets; that,
when they would describe the Nature of any thing, they do it not by
a direct Enumeration of its Attributes or Qualities, but by bringing
something into Comparison, and describing those Qualities of it that
are of the Kind with those in the Thing compared. So, here for
instance, the Poet willing to instruct in the Properties of Musick,
in which the same Strains have a Power to excite Pleasure, or Pain,
according to that State of Mind the Hearer is then in, does it
by presenting the Image of a sweet South Wind blowing o’er a
Violet-bank; which wafts away the Odour of the Violets, and at the
same time communicates to it its own Sweetness: by This insinuating,
that affecting Musick, tho’ it takes away the natural sweet
Tranquillity of the Mind, yet, at the same time, communicates a
Pleasure the Mind felt not before. This Knowledge, of the same
Objects being capable of raising two contrary Affections, is a Proof
of no ordinary Progress in the Study of human Nature. *The general