Ill 



.KM (IMA. 



-EOLIPYLE. .f.OI.IPII.K. 



Ill 



ad tome writers, erm in modern time*, have expressed the MOM 

 opinion. It U enough to say that, compared with the ' Iliad,' the 

 ' .Eneid ' a wanting in originality and power; it is thu l.iUuirrd jwr- 

 formance of a learned man, possessed of an elegant mi in I. who luui 

 availed hiuiaelf freely of the lal.nt- ..f iho-.- \vliti pnvcdcd him. 

 Virgil U characterised by Xiebuhr as porcicmring " a genius barren re- 

 creating, great u wu his talent for embellishing." The clmracteni of 

 the ' ..Eneid ' are deficient in the individuality and fi r.-hiH-.-.- which 

 mark the description of those who luive mingled in scenes and lieeii 

 fn<;iir with characters such aa they portray. The brave Gyas and 

 the l.i-.ivc Cloauthiu are hardly distinguishable, except by name : 

 Achates, the friend of .Kne;is. is a mere shadow, always attending on 

 his chief : and, indeed, with the exception of Dido, no character in well 

 defined. .Eneas himself, though the hero of the poem, neither i \. in - 

 any strong interest nor leaves any |>owerful impression. In this respect 

 Virgil U immeasurably inferior to Homer. The strength of Virgil lay 

 in the pathetic rather than in the sublime ; and many jiassagea of the 

 ' .F.neid,' which admitted of the farmer i|ii.ility, are exquisitely 

 beautiful. 



The ' .-Eneid ' has been frequently translated into most European 

 language*. In our own, we may notice one peculiarly interesting to 

 the literary antiquity: a translation, by Uawin Douglas, Bishop of 

 Dunkeld, of the whole ' . Eneid ' into the old Scottish dialect, about 

 l.'.l-J: and said by Worton to be the first translation of a classic 

 into the language of Britain. The Earl of Surrey translated the second 

 and fourth books, printed in 1577. There are complete translations by 

 Ogilby, Pitt, Ac., but the energetic version of Dryden has nearly 

 superseded all others. 



.KNI'GMA, a Greek term for what is commonly called a Riddle. It 

 is the description of a thing by certain of its qualities selected and 

 disposed, with the object of hiding what the thing is, and of occasioning 

 its discovery to come as a surprise. 



An tenigma differs from a definition or other direct statement, not in 

 being false, but only in being obscure and misleading. The one is an 

 instance of the application of language to make known our thoughts, 

 ami the other of its application to the purpose of concealing them ; but 

 the words of a good ienigiua, when properly understood, are as true as 

 those of a good definition. It is also an indispensable quality of the 

 latter, as well as of the former, that it shall be intelligible, in its whole 

 import, only in one sense. 



The object of a direct statement is to convey information ; that of an 

 ionigina is to exercise the ingenuity. The former, in its simplest and 

 most legitimate form, has only to be received by the mind ; the latter 

 demands to be solved. An icnigma, therefore, may be regarded as one 

 of the complex or ornamented modes of composition, that is to say, one 

 of those which do not merely appeal to the apprehension, but excite 

 and gratify other intellectual faculties. 



In very ancient times, accordingly, the icnigma was a common anil 

 f.ivi>urite medium for the conveyance even of truths of the highest 

 importance. Formal composition in the earliest state of society, that it 

 might be the better distinguished from ordinary speech, naturally 

 affected an elaborately artificial character ; and the icnigma or riddle 

 presented itself among other devices for that end. It had, besides, the 

 peculiar recommendation of giving on air of mystery to the sentiment 

 which it involved, and so making it seem to be something still more 

 remote than it might really be from common experience and speculation. 

 The term acnigma, indeed, was probably used originally to describe any 

 short composition, such as apologue, or fable, or other portable sample 

 of wisdom or entertainment. .Enigma is something dark and obscure, 

 and the corresponding verb (atrlTriaSat) always means to /// trn!</- 

 Maticallii, according to our meaning of the word, or to speak with a 

 certain degree of mystery and obscurity. 



In the progress of civilisation and literature, it came to be felt that 

 obscurity and difficulty were qualities which, whatever pleasure they 

 might convey to those who tried to master them, were inconsistent 

 with all the higher and more appropriate objects of speaking and 

 writing. Whether the purpose be simply to communicate information, 

 or whether it be to appeal also to the imagination and the passions, a 

 style is good exactly in proportion as it is expressive, that is to say, as 

 it conveys directly and completely the thoughts of the writer or 

 speaker. The (enigma, therefore, the very end and nature of which is 

 the reverse of this, instead of being an ornament, must be regarded as 

 one of the wont faults of style. Whatever approaches towards the 

 enigmatical, U, for the same reason, a fault in writing whatever 

 figure, for example, is introduced in poetry or rhetoric more in order 

 to surprise the reader by its ingenuity than for any other purpose. 

 Amongst those writers who have vitiated their works by what may be 

 called an (enigmatic turn of phraseology, Young is an instance, in his 

 ' Night Thoughts.' 



.rtsO'LIAN HARP, a musical instrument, the sounds of which are 

 drawn from it by a current of air acting on the strings. In the last 

 century, the .Eolian Harp was brought forward in London as a newly 

 invented instrument; and Dr. Anderson, in a note to Thomsons 

 Ode on bolus's Hern,' ascribes the Invention of it to Mr. Oswald. 

 However, it is possible that an instrument of the kind was very 

 anciently known ; for the Talmudists say that the l-innor, or harp 

 of David, sounded of itself when the north wind blew on it. Hut 

 the merit of the invention in tha form it n..w taken, is due to 



Athanasius Kircher, who describes it in his ' Musurgia 1'nivenalu 

 (lib. ix. ar.Jl. 



His tallowing are detailed directions f"i the roiiKtnietion of the . ' 

 harp: Let a box U- made of ;t- thin deal as possible, of a length 

 exactly answering to the width ..f the window in which it i intended 

 to be placed, four or live im he- in depth, and five or six in width. 



..ii it. at the extremities of the top. two pieces of oak. about half 

 an inch high and a quarter of an inch thick, to serve .-LS bridges for tin- 

 strings; and withinsidc. at each end, glue two pieces of beech about an 

 inch square, and of length equal to the width of the )K>X. Int.- 

 these bridges fix as many pegs, such as are used in a pian 

 (though not so large), as there are to be strings ; and into ih. 

 fasten as many small brass pins, to which attach one . -nd of il,,- brings. 

 Then string the instrument with small catgut, or H,-,i fiddle-strings, 

 fixing one end of them, and twisting the other round tin- up|K>site peg. 

 These strings, which should not be drawn tight, must be to-,. 

 unison. To procure a proper passage for tin- wind, a thin Uu-d. 

 supported by four pegs, is placed over the strings, at about three 

 inches distance from the sounding-board. The instrument must be 

 exposed to Uie wind at a window partly oj>en ; and to increase tli 

 of the current of air, either the door of the room, or an o, 

 window, should be opened. When the wind blown, the strings In-gin 

 to sound in unison; but as the force of the cuncnt increases, the 

 sound changes into a pleasing admixture of all the notes of the diatonic 

 scale, ascending and descending, and these often unite in il. 

 delightful harmonic combinations. 



A curious suggestion was made in 1857, for playing the .Eolian harp 

 by the sun's heat instead of a current of air. Provide a leather case, 

 which should be so made as to join the harp in the form of a trough, 

 extending from one end to the other. This case must be air-tight. 

 and must have at its furthest extremity a valve opening inwards. The 

 sun's heat, expanding the air in the case, will (according to this np|*> 

 sitiou) cause it to act upon the strings, and produce the sound ; while 

 the pressure of the external atmosphere will ojn-n the valve, to supply 

 the case with air. 



Dr. Matthew Young entered fully into the principle of the .Eolian 

 harp in his ' Enquiry into the princi|ial I'lucnoinena of Sound.' In 

 what way different sounds can be heard from the same string, without 

 any fingering or pressure, he thus explains : " Let us consider w hat will 

 be the effect of a current of air rushing against a stretched e].i-i 

 The ]>articles which strike against the middle point of the string will 

 move the whole string from its rectilineal position ; ami a.- no blast 

 continues exactly of the same strength for any considerable time, 

 although it be able to remove the string from it* rectilineal p<itioii. 

 yet, unless it be too rapid and violent, it will not be able to keep it 

 bent: the fibre will, theicfoiv. by itx elasticity, return to its form, r 

 position ; and by its increased velocity, pass it on to the other side. and 

 so continue to vibrate and excite pulses in the air, which will produce 

 the tone of the entire string. But if the current of air be too 

 and rapid, when the string is bent from the rectilineal position, it will 

 not be able to recover it, but will continue bunt and bellying like the 

 cordage of a ship in a brisk gale. HOWCMT. though the whole string 

 cannot pcjform its vibrations, the subordinate aliquot nuts may; 

 which will be of different lengths in different cases, according to the 

 rapidity of the blast. Thus when the velocity of the current of air 

 increases, so as to prevent the vibration of the whole striu. 

 tides which strike against the middle ] >int of the halves of the string, 

 agitate those halves as in the case of sympathetic and secondary tones ; 

 and as these halves vibrate in half the time of the whole string, though 

 the blast may be too rapid to admit of the vibration of the w li. 

 it can have no more effect in preventing the motion of the halves, than 

 it would have on the whole string were its tension quadruple; for the 

 times of vibrations in strings of different lengths, and agreeing in 

 other circumstances, are directly as the lengths; and in strings ditl.-i 

 ing in tensions, and agreeing in other circumstances, inversely as the 

 square roots of the tensions, ami, therefore, their vibrations may 

 become strong enough to excite such pulses as will affect the drum of 

 the ear; and the like maybe said of other aliquot divisions of tin- 

 string," 



jEO'LI AN MODE, in ancient music, one of the five principal mode? 

 of the Greeks, which derived its name from ^Eolia. a country of Asia 

 Minor. Authorities differ most essentially as to the character of this 

 mode. Rousseau says it was grave ; the Abbe* Feytou contradicts him ; 

 Sir F. Stiles tells us that this mode was the same as our E flat ; Dr. 

 Burney makes it F minor : and Rousseau gays F, meaning, of course, 

 F major. JMoDE.J 



.K 1 M.l'N A, a very small musical instrument, consisting of a number 

 of sjiort, elastic, metallic Unarm-, or springs, fixed in a frame, and acted 

 on by the breath of the performer. The best of the kind OOD 

 throe octaves of diatonic sounds, and arc also capable of giving the 

 three simple harmonies of the key. This instnimcnt was the first 

 formed on such a principle that appeared in England, and became 

 exceedingly popular for a time ; but was supenedcd by a much more 

 perfect thing of the kind, the accordion, in which the impulse of cir 

 is managed by bellows or a wind-chest instead of by the breath. 

 [ACCORDION; CONCF.RTINA.] 



.ifiOI.IPYLE, ..EOLIPILE, .finli ,,',!. Il: fmll <,/./;.,/... an inMni- 

 inent made use of formerly in i-xpciini<-nti:i--. .-..u-istini; of a hollow 



