This inclination he kept at first in check, but by degrees it gathered strength enough to master him.
There is no doubt in my mind that the music of the _Gagliarda_ of Graziani helped materially in this process of mental degradation.

It is curious that Michael Praetorius in the "Syntagma musicum" should speak of the Galliard generally as an "invention of the devil, full of shameful and licentious gestures and immodest movements," and the singular melody of the _Gagliarda_ in the "Areopagita" suite certainly exercised from the first a strange influence over me.

I shall not do more than touch on the question here, because I see Miss Maltravers has spoken of it at length, and will only say, that though since the day of Sir John's death I have never heard a note of it, the air is still fresh in my mind, and has at times presented itself to me unexpectedly, and always with an unwholesome effect.

This I have found happen generally in times of physical depression, and the same air no doubt exerted a similar influence on Sir John, which his impressionable nature rendered from the first more deleterious to him.
I say this advisedly, because I am sure that if some music is good for man and elevates him, other melodies are equally bad and enervating.

An experience far wider than any we yet possess is necessary to enable us to say how far this influence is capable of extension.