Greece they were reckoned highly commendable."

Nor was it regarded with any other feeling by the Israelites; and they not only considered it becoming to delight in music and the dance, but persons of rank deemed them a necessary part of their education. Like the Egyptians, with whom they had so long resided, and many of whose customs they adopted, the Jews carefully distinguished sacred from profane music. They introduced it at public and private rejoicings, at funerals, and in religious services: but the character of the airs, like the words of their songs, varied according to the occasion; and they had canticles of mirth, of praise, of thanksgiving, and of lamentation. Some were epithalamia, or songs composed to celebrate marriages; others to commemorate a victory, or the accession of a prince; to return thanks to the Deity, or to celebrate his praises; to lament a general calamity, or a private affliction; and others, again, were peculiar to their festive meetings. On these occasions they introduced the harp, lute, tabret *, and various instruments, together with songs and dancing, and the guests were entertained nearly in the same manner as at an Egyptian feast. In the temple, and in the religious ceremonies, the Jews had female as well as male performers, who were gene

* Conf. Luke, xv. 25. "He heard music and dancing;" and Gen. xxxi. 27., where Laban complains that Jacob did not allow him to ce lebrate his departure with a festive meeting," with mirth and with songs, with tabret and with harp." This last, however, in the Hebrew, is kinoor, 1, which is rather a lyre. It was known in the days of

Seth, Gen. iv. 21., and of Job, xxi. 12.

rally daughters of the Levites, as the Pallaces* of Thebes were either of the royal family, or the daughters of priests; and these musicians were attached exclusively to the service of religion, as I believe them also to have been in Egypt, whether men or women. David was not only remarkable for his taste and skill in music, but took a delight in introducing it on every occasion. "And seeing that the Levites were numerous, and no longer employed as formerly in carrying the boards, veils, and vessels of the tabernacle, its abode being fixed at Jerusalem, he appointed a great part of them to sing and play on instruments, at the religious festivals." Solomon, again, at the dedication of the temple, employed "120 priests, to sound with trumpets ;" and Josephus pretends that no less. than 200,000 musicians were present at that ceremony, besides the same number of singers, who were Levites.‡

It has always been doubted whether the Jews studied music with the same systematic views as the Egyptians and Greeks; and as all airs, previous to the invention of notation, must have been traditional, and in some degree dependent on the taste and memory of the performers, many have questioned the possibility of their being either numerous or faithfully preserved.

* Vide suprà, Vol. I. p. 258., on the orders of the Egyptian priesthood.

+2 Chron. v. 12.

Joseph. Antiq. lib. viii. 3. " Solomon made 200,000 trumpets, according to the command of Moses, and 200,000 garments of fine linen for the singers, who were Levites and instruments for singing

hymns, nable and cinyr, made of the finest brass, 40,000."

The early Greeks and Egyptians may not have had the means of handing down their compositions with the same fidelity as modern nations, yet this objection does not apply to the study of the science itself; their object being rather to touch the feeling than to delight the ear. It is impossible for us to determine whether the Egyptian priests, in later times, devised any method of preserving their melodies, or trusted entirely to oral tradition, as this secret would have been concealed by them with the same jealous care as the mysteries themselves; judging, however, from that adopted in Greece *, which was by disposing the letters of the alphabet in dif ferent ways, we may conclude that if the Egyptians really had any, it was equally cumbrous and imperfect.

Respecting the origin of this invention among the Greeks there is a diversity of opinion; it is generally attributed to Terpander, a celebrated poet and musician †, who flourished about 670 years before our era; but the complication of sixteen hundred and twenty different notes must at all times have presented a considerable difficulty in reading and recollecting them.

To inquire into the notions of Pythagoras, Plato, and other Greek sages, who spent much

*In one of the paintings from Herculaneum, a woman is seen playing on a lyre of eleven strings, and another sings from a paper which she holds in her hand, and which has either the notes, or the words of the song, written upon it.

Plutarch, de Musicâ.

Plato and Eudoxus were thirteen years in Egypt, according to Strabo (lib. xvii.). In one of the tombs of the kings at Thebes is an inscription, written by a daduchus or torchbearer of the Eleusynian

time in Egypt, must be highly interesting, as it is almost the only means of obtaining any information respecting the character of Egyptian music, and their notions on the subject; and we have the authority of Plutarch and other authors for believing that Plato* and Pythagoras paid the greatest attention to this science. The latter considered one of the noblest purposes to which it could be applied was to soothe and calm the mind†, and deemed it the duty of a philosopher to look upon it as an intellectual study, rather than an amusement; for the gravity of Pythagoras censured the custom of judging music by the senses, and required that it should be submitted to the acumen of the mind, and examined by the rules of harmonic proportion. It was the idea of this philosopher "that air was the vehicle of sound, and that the agitation of that element, occasioned by a similar action in the parts of the sounding body, was its cause. The vibrations of a string, or other sonorous body, being communicated to the air, affected the auditory nerves with the sensation of sound; and this sound," he argued, "was acute or grave in proportion as the vibrations were quick or slow." Others were of a different opinion; and "Aristoxenus held the ear to be the sole standard of musical proportions. He esteemed that

mysteries, who says he examined those monuments many years" after the divine Plato."

*Plut. de Musicâ.

+ Plut. de Virtute morali. Strabo, lib. i. p. 11., ed. Cas. Jamblich. de Vita Pythag. &c.

Plut. de Musicâ.

sense sufficiently accurate for musical, though not for mathematical, purposes; and it was, in his opinion, absurd to aim at an artificial accuracy in gratifying the ear, beyond its own power of distinction. He, therefore, rejected the velocities, vibrations, and proportions of Pythagoras, as foreign to the subject, in so far as they substituted abstract causes in the room of experience, and made music the object of intellect, rather than of sense." Modern investigations, however, have confirmed the statements of Pythagoras, and absolute demonstration has placed them beyond the possibility of doubt.

An interesting question now suggests itself: Whence did Pythagoras derive his notions respecting the theory of sound? Did he arrive at these conclusions from his own experience? Or is it not more probable that he was indebted to those under whom he studied for this insight into a subject they had so long been examining? But the fact of Pythagoras being the sole teacher of this doctrine, goes far to prove that it did not originate in Greece, and that his opinions were founded on Egyptian data. For what that philosopher asserted respecting sound, emitted by a long and short string of the same quality and thickness, "that the shorter made the quicker vibrations and uttered the acuter sound," had been already shown by the Egyptians; and we may fairly conclude that he derived his knowledge of this

* Vide Encyclop. Brit. art. Music.