THE JEW SHARP 239 



THE JEWSHAEP 



By the late Dr. H. CARRINGTON BOLTON 



THE common English name of this primitive musical instrument 

 is misleading, for it is not a harp nor has it any associations with 

 Hebrews, as its appellation seems to imply. That it has nothing to 

 do with Jews as respects either its origin or its employment is easier 

 to demonstrate than it is to determine the real significance of its 

 name, or the occasion of its invention. Antiquarians and lexicogra- 

 phers have attempted to trace the history and etymology of this term, 

 but their suggestions are for the most part mere guesses. 



Samuel Pegge, an antiquary of the eighteenth century, derives 

 jewsharp from ' jaw's harp/ which is regarded by later authorities as 

 absurd ; and Skeat in his useful ' Etymological Dictionary ' takes the 

 singular view that this name was ' given in derision, probably with 

 reference to the harp of David/ Dr. Littleton, adopting the vulgar 

 error that the instrument is Jewish, inserted in his Latin Dictionary 

 (1679), the phrase ' Sistrum Judaicum/ a mere translation, notwith- 

 standing the fact that the term Crembalum had been used sixty years 

 before by Praetorius in his ' Organographia.' After all, the simple 

 proposition of another writer is not so improbable as it might seem ; he 

 suggests that, after a long interval of disuse and of forgotten name, the 

 instrument was peddled through England and Scotland by a Jew, and 

 the name jewsharp became naturally the popular one. 



Another distinctive name current prior to the nineteenth century 



was ' trump/ or ' jews' trump/ prevalent especially in Scotland. The 



earliest mention of this musical instrument known to the writer has 



the latter form ; in Sir Eichard Holland's ' Duke of Howlat/ a Scottish 



poem satirizing King James, occurs a long list of musical instruments, 



from which we take a single line : 



The trump, and the talburn, the tympane but tray. 



(Line 760.) 



This poem dates from the middle of the fifteenth century. The word 

 trump is almost identical with the French 'trompe' applied to the 

 jewsharp, as well as to several other musical instruments, the trumpet, 

 the horn and even the rattle. Another common name in French is 

 ' guimbarde ' ; in German the term is i Maultrommel/ and ' Brum- 

 meisen ' ; in Italian it is known by the poetical expression, ' Scaccia 

 pensieri/ banisher of thought. The word trump prevailed in Scotland, 

 as was natural, considering the intimacy with France, and the phrase 

 jews' trump was used by English dramatists until the end of the seven- 

 teenth century. Henrie Chettle, in the poem ' Kind Hearts' Dream/ 

 dated 1592, wrote: "There is another juggler that being well skilled 



