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MUSIC, HISTORY OP. 



MUSK. 



850 



his time music was quite traditional, and depended on the memory, 

 and sometimes the caprice, of the performer. Plutarch says of him, on 

 the authority of Alexander, an historian, that he took Homer for his 

 model in versification, and Orpheus ^for the style of his melodies. 

 The musical compositions of Orpheus, the same writer adds, were 

 wholly original. 



Many very celebrated players on the flute are mentioned in musical 

 history. Damon taught Pericles and Socrates the use of this instru- 

 ment. Antigenides and Dorion were also renowned for their talents. 

 But the performer who excited most admiration was of the gentler 

 sex. Lamia was no less distinguished by wit and ability than by 

 personal charms. After captivating many by her skill as a flute- 

 player, and by her beauty, Demetrius Poliorcetes became violently 

 enamoured of her, and, through her influence, conferred such extra- 

 ordinary benefits on the Athenians, that they dedicated a temple to 

 her. Whatever may have been the style of flute-playing, Qr of the 

 music, it is certain that in Greece the performers were in great favour. 

 Xenophon says, that if an indifferent player wished to pass for one of 

 superior talent, he must furnish his house richly, and appear abroad 

 with a large retinue of servants, as the great performers do. It is said 

 that a flute used by a celebrated Theban musician, Isinenias, cost 

 nearly six hundred pounds sterling. 



Pythagoras, of whom an idle story was long current, about a black- 

 smith's shop, hammers, and anvils, contributed much to the improve- 

 ment of music by his calculations and philosophical experiments. To 

 him also is attributed the addition of an eighth string to the lyre. 

 His notion concerning the music of the spheres music produced by the 

 motions of the heavenly bodies was one of those whims in which 

 great geniuses are apt, now and then, to indulge. He was of the sect 

 of severe musicians, of those who reduced music to mathematical 

 precision, and regulated all sounds by calculations, allowing no licence 

 to the ear. Of an opposing school was Aristoxeuus, born at Tarentum 

 in Italy, about 350 years B.C., who thought the ear entitled to share 

 with mathematical principles in determining the effect of modulated 

 sounds. He was a most voluminous writer on many learned subjects. 

 Of these his ' Elements of Harmonics ' are all that have reached us, 

 and stand first in the collection published by Meibomius. Next in 

 that excellent work is an ' Introduction to Harmonics,' by Euclid, the 

 geometrician ; and this is followed by his ' Section of the Canon,' con- 

 taining short and clear explanations of the constituent parts of Greek 

 music. Ptolemy, an Egyptian, and not the astronomer, wrote a treatise 

 in three books on ' Harmonics," which Dr. Wallis printed, with a Latin 

 version, a preface, and appendix, in 1682. He enters at large arid 

 deeply into the subject, and his principles have a tendency to reconcile 

 the hostile sects of Pythagoreans and Aristoxenians. This object was 

 pursued with success, by Sir F. H. Styles, in his paper published in 

 the 51st volume of the ' Philosophical Transactions." In Plutarch's 

 'Dialogue on Music' much information concerning ancient Greek 

 music is to be found, but not of the most valuable kind. Aristides 

 Quintilianus wrote a treatise on music, printed in the collection of 

 Meibomius, which has proved a useful work to all subsequent writers 

 on the subject. He was enthusiastic and fanciful, but hi matters of 

 fact and calculation is worthy of confidence. 



The Romans acquired all their knowledge of the arts and sciences 

 from the Greeks ; their music therefore in no way differs from that of 

 the latter; though they must have had some kind of song before any 

 direct intercourse had taken place between them and the polished 

 nations of Greece. It is certain that the art was never advanced by 

 that warlike people, notwithstanding the share it had in all their 

 religious ceremonies and public games, and the use made of it to 

 animate their troops and add effect to their triumphs, and though it 

 formed an essential part of their theatrical exhibitions of every kind, 

 and was even adopted, or affected to be adopted, as a profession by one 

 of their emperors. 



The importance of music in the estimation of the early Romans is 

 shown by a regulation attributed to Servius Tullius, who, in dividing 

 the people into classes, directed that two whole centuries should con- 

 sist of trumpeters, blowers of the horn, &c., and such as, without any 

 other instrument, founded the charr/e. It is further proved by a law of 

 the Twelve Tables, which limited the number of players on the flute 

 at funerals to ten. And another of those laws enacted, that at the 

 praises of honoured men in the assemblies of the people, there should 

 be mournful songs accompanied by a flute. 



That the Roman drama Tvas in some way musical, is proved by the 

 title, or didascalia, prefixed to each of Terence's plays. A further 

 proof of this is found in the Institutes of Quintilian, where, after 

 showing the necessity of instructing children in music, he adds, " that 

 he does not desire that they should learn such music as prevails on 

 the stage, the modulations of which are so intermixed with impudence 

 and wantonness, that they may justly be charged with having extin- 

 guished the poor remains of manly courage which had been left." 

 That the theatrical music of the Romans was similar to that of the 

 Greeks there seems to be little doubt ; that it was distorted by the 

 performers in Quintilian's time is very likely. 



It in remarked by Dr. Burney, that even during the Augustan age 

 the Romans had no sculptor, painter, or musician, and but one archi- 

 tect, Vitruvius ; those, he says, " who have been celebrated in the arts 

 at Rome having been Asiatics or European Greeks, who came to 



A8TB AND SCI. PIV. VOl. V, 



exercise such arts among the Latins as the Latins had not among 

 themselves. This custom was continued under the successors of 

 Augustus; and those Romans who were prevented from going into 

 Greece contrived in a manner to bring Greece to Rome, by receiving 

 into their service the most able professors of Greece and Asia in all 

 the arts." 



The Roman writers on music are few, and almost worthless. Vitru- 

 vius, in his work on architecture, treats of the sound of the voice, of 

 reverberating vases, and of a water-organ ; but no one has yet been 

 able to discover what he means by this instrument. He also endea- 

 vours to make plain the harmonical system of Aristoxenus, though he 

 acknowledges the difficulty of the task. St. Augustine wrote on rhythm 

 and metre ; Boethius devotes five books to music, merely to explain 

 the principles of harmonics ; and Aurelius Cassiodorus treats of music, 

 among other things, but his work, or sketch, is said to consist of little 

 more than some general definitions and divisions. 



There is every reason to conclude that music remained stationary 

 till the 10th or llth century. The Romans, having borrowed the art 

 from Greece, seem to have been convinced of its perfection in the state 

 in which they received it, for there is no evidence of their having 

 attempted to enlarge its narrow boundaries, or in any way to improve 

 it ; though a people of more ingenuity and taste would have advanced 

 it at least a few steps towards that point which, however slowly, it has 

 now attained. 



In the primitive Christian church the service consisted partly of 

 music, which is supposed to have been chiefly that of the Greeks, with 

 an admixture of Hebrew melody. Menestrier conjectures that the 

 early ecclesiastical manner of singing was like that of the ancient 

 theatre, and Dr. Burney concurs in this opinion ; though we cannot 

 but think it more likely that the " songs of Zion," as performed in the 

 Jewish temple, and the chanting of the hymns at the Pagan altars, 

 were chosen as vocal models for devotional purposes, rather than the 

 airs, or recitatives, in which the comedies of Plautus and Terence were 

 delivered. Towards the end of the 4th century, St. Ambrose digested 

 a musical service for the church of Milan, which is called the Am- 

 brosian chant, and was founded on four of the Greek modes. About 

 the year 600 Gregory the Great enlarged and much improved the 

 chant of the church, by the admission of four other modes, and gave it 

 that form which it still retains in the Roman Catholic service, and in 

 which it is known by his name. According to Bishop Stillingfleet, 

 music was introduced into the English church by St. Augustine, in 

 the latter part of the 6th century, and was subsequently much 

 improved by St. Dunstau, an excellent musician, who, it is said, 

 furnished some few churches with an organ. 



The organ the most majestic and comprehensive of all musical 

 instruments in its present almost perfect state is supposed to have 

 been an improvement of the hydraulicon, or water-organ, of the Greeks. 

 The first mentioned in musical history was sent, in 757, as a present 

 to King Pepin, from the Byzantine Emperor Constantino Copronymus. 

 In the 10th century the organ was in use in several parts of Europe ; 

 but it is reasonable to conclude that it was then exceedingly simple, 

 possessing little power, and rude in mechanism : nevertheless, it may 

 fairly be assumed that the invention of the organ hastened the dis- 

 covery or practice of harmony. [ORGAN.] 



To Guido, of Arezzo, we are indebted for many of those improve- 

 ments in music which led to our present system ; though the origin of 

 counterpoint has been erroneously ascribed to that active and ingenious 

 ecclesiastic. [GuiDO, in BIOG. Div.] Magister Franco, a member of 

 the cathedral of Cologne in the llth century, is considered as the 

 inventor of what in the middle ages was called Cantos Afcnsurabilis, 

 which meant, notes showing, by their forms, their time or duration. 

 Most of those, however, have fallen into disuse, for the shortest in his 

 table is the seinibreve. Nevertheless his system, carried out further 

 by De Muris, and by degrees extended, is that of the present day, and 

 is so sound in principle that it probably will never be abandoned. 



From the llth to the 15th century, scarcely anything is known of 

 the progress of music. For its history from the latter period, we refer 

 to the biographical sketches of its most eminent professors which 

 appear in the Biographical Division of our work; to the articles 

 ACADEMY, CONCERT, OPERA, ORATORIO, &c. ; to the names of musical 

 instruments ; and to all the terms under which musical compositions 

 of every kind are described. From these sources may be gathered 

 much of the information, if not all, that will be required by the 

 general reader. 



MUSK, Medical Properties of. Musk, taken in the dose of a few 

 grains, rouses the energy of the digestive organs ; and it soon after- 

 wards produces sympathetic phenomena, the powers of the whole 

 animal system appearing suddenly increased. By repeating the dose 

 till half a drachm or a drachm is consumed, the active principles 

 penetrate the whole frame, influencing all the tissues, and exciting 

 effects demonstrative of its stimulating property ; the blood circulates 

 with more force, accompanied sometimes with bleeding from the nose : 

 the perspiration and other secretions are perceptibly increased. Other 

 effects prove that it also acts on the brain, spinal chord, and ganglionic 

 nerves, such as tendency to sleep, convulsive movements, and parti- 

 cularly spasms of the chest and abdomen. Owing to idiosyncracies, 

 musk produces in some persons very extraordinary effects, at times so 

 violent that they cannot bear the faintest odour of it. 



