408 
or purely melodial, transcended in their 
effects the productions of the moderns ; 
and that, so far as the consideration of 
effect is to be admitted into the discus- 
sion, their music was superior to ours. 
Whatever the precise nature of this 
music might be, it is extremely natural 
to suppose that, together with the other 
arts, it descended to the Romans; yet, 
according to Cicero and Quintilian, their 
country was not originally indebted to 
‘Greece for music, but had a music of 
its own. Flutes and harps cheered the 
festivals of Numa; the carmina of the 
Salii were accompanied by the sounds 
of the sacred shields, on which the time 
of the melody was beaten ; and Servius 
Tullius established a military band, con- 
sisting of horns and trumpets. How- 
ever, no particular or satisfactory his- 
tory of Roman music is to be found; 
and whether the want of such a history 
be much to be regretted, we may fairly 
doubt; for, probably, there would be 
little for its author to relate, either 
respecting its theory or its practice. 
oman music, as an excitation to mirth, 
appears, for a long time, to have been 
limited to private use. Livy, at the 
beginning of his seventh book, speaks of 
the ludi scenici, and also more than 
insinuates, that music was pious/y em- 
ployed, when he tells us, that in the 
time of a plague, the Romans sent to 
Tuscany for better musicians than their 
own, in order to appease the divine 
wrath. The inevitable inference from 
this circumstance is, that whatever ad- 
vance the Romans had then made in 
music, was considerably exceeded by the 
progress of the Tuscans. This position 
is further sanctioned by the discovery, 
in modern times, of some musical instru- 
ments of ancient Etruria; instruments 
apparently superior, in construction and 
in effect, to those of Greece and Rome. 
To look back upon the music of 
ancient Rome, inferior as probably it 
was to that of Greece, is to behold an 
art charming in its essence and charac- 
ter, farther exalted by its rion with the 
sublimity of its sacred. sister, Poetry, 
and the magnificence by which its public 
performance was attended. No spec- 
tacle of modern times is comparable to 
that of the Roman theatre. We have 
nothing that the mind, for a moment, 
can place by the side of that splendid 
combination of music, poetry, and paint- 
ing; dress, dancing, and personation; 
which filled the ear, dazzled the eye, 
and swelled, decorated, and gave en- 
chantment to, the gorgeous scene. Per- 
Perpetual Fire on the Shores of the Caspian Sea. 
[Dec. 1, 
formances in uncovered t!.2atres, capable 
of containing scores of thousands of 
spectators, required the junction of 
almost innumerable instruments; and 
the sounds of these were fortified by 
metallic vases, and the stupendous or- 
ganum hydraulicum, or water organ, 
suited, by its magnitude and power, to 
the vast area required to be filled. The 
dramas represented in thése prodigious 
edifices, were so suitable to the dimen- 
sions of the stage for which they were 
prepared, that all the intended delight 
was excited in the multitudinous spec- 
tators, and created an applause, the 
loudness of which Horace compares to 
the sounds of the forest of Garganus, 
and to the Tuscan sea roaring in a 
storm, 
The Roman music, it is obvious, was 
of a coarser description, and depended 
for its effect, more on the immensity of 
its volume, than the music of the Grecks. 
It operated more powerfully on the 
sense, but had not equal influence upon 
the passions ; it was less refined, with- 
out compensating that disparity, by vary- 
ing and commanding in any superior 
degree, either the stronger, or the finer 
feelings of our nature.—Y ours, &c. 
Oct. 13, 1824. Musicus. 
——_——_ 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
The Perretual Fire on the Suores of 
the Caspian Sra; from the Memo- 
randa of a recent Traveller. 
NHIS surprising phenomenon is 
found on the peninsula of Ap- 
soheron, twenty wersts from Baku, and 
is justly considered as the greatest 
natural curiosity in the south of Russia. 
I visited it. There is the burning de- 
sert of Lybia, with subterraneous flames 
breaking forth in various places of its 
surface, arising from the exhalations of 
the naphtha with which it seems to be 
every where impregnated. There ‘are 
similar fires in other parts of the world, 
as for instance, in the Bashkiri Ural, 
near the Sudp-Oul (village) on the rivu- 
let of Mangishlak (according to Pal- 
las), and another on mount Klashna, 
near the village of Lapatar, on the 
Slanika,in Wallachia; but of these, tra- 
dition has preserved the origin, and we 
are told, that at some late period, the 
lightning having split the superstratum 
of the earth, it produced a vent for the 
subterraneous vapours, which it kindled 
at the same time. Of the origin of the 
fires near Baku, however, we have no 
clue, and although it is not probable 
that they have burned there from the 
beginning 
