A HISTORY OF VOCAL MUSIC. 577 



scales, and consequently their ideas of tuning so different from 

 ours, that their melodies would sound intolerable to us. 



Although neglected by the Eomans, it was in Eome that 

 the spark of vocal music w-as rekindled. 



In the first century of the Christian era many Hebrew 

 Christians fled to Eome, but were immediately driven for 

 further refuge to the catacombs, or underground burying- 

 places of the city. Here, we are told, they joined together in 

 prayer and praise, and in the singing of hymns. "When we 

 read of these wonderful - catacombs, and of the enormous 

 multitudes once taking refuge in them, the scene for hundreds 

 of years of the birth, life, and death of tens of thousands of 

 human beings, we can but feel that at no time in the history of 

 music has the art of singing been a greater blessing to man- 

 kind. Probably the one bright ray of light that entered those 

 solemn dens of solitude, though by no means of despair, was 

 during their daily service, in which, according to an historian 

 of the day, they were able to sing to " none but the Supreme 

 Being and His only Son ; " the melodies used by them being 

 no doubt the very same which their ancestors had sung in the 

 Temple of Jerusalem. 



Freedom came at last, and that in the time of Constantine, 

 320 years after the birth of Christ, when all Christians were 

 allowed to worship as they would, and consequently their 

 voices were continually heard in their religious services in 

 various parts of the city. 



Attention was thus directed to the musical strains used by 

 them ; and by St. Sylvester — of whom I shall speak further on 

 — an eudeavour was made to collect and write down these 

 tunes for the benefit of his successors ; for music had hitherto 

 been committed to memory, and orally transmitted from 

 generation to generation. Hence arises much of the difficulty 

 with which inquirers are met when tracing its ancient history. 



From the fourth century the history of music may be re- 

 garded as more or less authentic ; and I shall now be able to 

 discuss the actual works and writings of individuals, although, 

 as to the true progress of the art, something must yet be left to 

 conjecture until the tenth century. 



The people, the greater mass of the inhabitants of Europe, 

 were unable to reader write, they lacked refinement altogether, 

 and music was very little, if at all, cultivated by them, though 

 we read that they were attentive and enthusiastic listeners to 

 the folk-songs and ballads of the time, the rendering of which 

 was in the hands of wandering minstrels, who, as a rule, com- 

 mitted them to memory, though their performance was some- 

 times extempore. 



But, fortunately, there were some highly-educated men in 

 the world. These were the clergy of the Church of Eome, 

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