2 4 o POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



in the Jews' Trump takes upon him to be dealer in musick." In the 

 following century Thomas Eandolph wrote: 



0, let me hear some silent song 

 Tun'd by the Jews' trump of they tongue. 

 (The Conceited Peddler.) 



About fifty years later Thomas Otway in his ' Friendship in 

 Fashion ' represents one of the actors, c Malagene,' pulling out a Jews' 

 trump and playing a tune. (1685.) Some wiseacre, seeking the 

 derivation of Jews' trump, makes the suggestion that it is a corruption 

 of jeu-de-trompe, but the guess loses much force owing to the simple 

 fact that this expression does not occur in French. 



In ' Hakluyt's Voyages ' * the instrument is called simply ' Jewes- 

 harpe.' The early explorers found these toys very advantageous as 

 articles for trading with the aborigines ; the barter of ' hatchets, knives 

 and jews-harps' is mentioned by E. Duddeley, in 1595, and one year 

 later Sir Walter Baleigh wrote of the same people : ' Wee should send 

 them Jewes-Harpes, for they would give for every one two Hennes.' 



These baubles were also acceptable to the natives of Guiana in South 

 America ; E. Harcourt names them in connection with beads and knives. 

 This trade with the aborigines of the western continent has continued 

 until modern times; Mr. Joseph D. McGuire refers to it in connection 

 with his description of a pipe of catlinite carved in form of a jewsharp. 2 



In Bailey's Dictionary, which dates from the eighteenth century, 

 the term is jewstrump, and in Teesdale's ' Glossary ' still another syn- 

 onym is used, { gew-gaw ' ; this last name is also used for a kind of 

 flute in Scotland. 



This humble instrument of music, treasured chiefly by semi-civilized 

 races and by children of intellectual nations, is but rarely mentioned 

 in print, as its mediocre qualities give it no prominence in musical 

 circles, and toys are seldom subjects of discussion. Sir Thomas Brown 

 states that a brass jewsharp richly gilded was found in an ancient 

 Norwegian urn; this suggests great antiquity, a point which will be 

 discussed later. 



v In the report of those horrible witch trials conducted in the reign 

 of James VI. of Scotland, in 1591, the ' grave and matron-like ' Agnes 

 Sampson and the poor servant Gellie Duncan play conspicuous and 

 melancholy parts. After horrible tortures, Agnes confessed that Gellie, 

 Dr. Fian and herself, with upwards of two hundred witches, used to 

 assemble at midnight in a kirk, where they were joined by the devil 

 himself, who incited them to murder the king. On these occasions the 

 devil always liked to have a little music, and Gellie Duncan used to 

 play a reel on a trump, or jewsharp, while all the witches danced. And 

 at another time when a large number of witches marched in procession 



1 ' Hakluyt's Voyages,' III., 576. 



2 Report 'National Museum. 1897, p. 488. 



