ORELLIN. 



OBOAX. 



and along with Dionysus, Put, and the Satyrs in their dances and 

 ravel*. Their live* were very long, but they wore not immortal. 

 (Pu*-, i 31, n-o S.) They were worshipped in many part* of 

 Greece, and were propitiated by offering of milk, oil, anil li-n.-\. 

 and by sacrifice* of Umb* (Theoor, ' Id..' v. 63, 149); and tempi.* 

 were also dedioated to them in Italy. (Cic., ' l)e Nat. Deor., 1 iii., 17.) 

 Another claw of Nymph* were regarded as the personification of. or ta 

 in some way associated with, particular raoea and localities, a* Cyrene, 

 the Oedonidea, Nyaiade*. Ac. The Nymph* occur very frequently 

 in ancient art either alone, a* attendant* on one or other of the 

 superior deitie*, or in Bacchic dance* : they are represented as lovely 

 but aomewtut impa**iTe maiden*, generally clad in light transparent 

 garment*, or partly undraped. We give a cut of a very beautiful 

 tatue of one, an attendant on Artemis, now in the Third Gneoo- 



Roman Saloon of the British Museum; it was found in 1766, in the 

 Villa Verospi, near the Salarian Gate, Rome. 



ORELL1N. A ypllow colouring matter found in the seeds of the 

 Bisa ortliana. It is soluble in water and alcohol, and dyes yellow 

 with an aluminous mordant. 



OKOAN .'OpywoF, Or., 6ryanum, Lst., an instrument), the noblest 

 of musical instruments, whether considered in regard to the grandeur 

 and beauty of its sounds, the variety of its powers, or the sacred pur- 

 poses to which it is usually dedicated. It consists of a vast number of 

 metallic and wooden pipes, divided into different /'.;, the wind being 

 admitted into the pipes from a bellows, and is played on by means of 

 a key-board The machinery of an organ, which is rather complicated 

 afld exceedingly curious, is described in the next article. 



Originally the word organum had a very extensive meaning, and 

 signified nearly every kind of instrument, for whatever purpose 

 employed. By degrees it was confined to instruments of music ; after- 

 wards it was applied only to those of the pneumatic or wind kind ; and 

 finally it was exclusively used to designate that " world of sounds " 

 which we call the organ. It can hardly be doubted that this instru- 

 ment may be traced to Pan'i-pipa, or the lyrinx. It must soon have 

 been discovered that the air may be forced into a closed cavity, and 

 then distributed at will to one or more tubes ; and, pursuing the con- 

 trivance a little further, something like a modern organ was likely to 

 be produced. Indeed, Mersenne, in his ' Harmonie Universelle,' 

 mentions an ancient monument in the Mattel Gardens in Home, on 

 which appear* the representation of a pneumatic organ. It is a small 

 cheat placed on a table. In the front is a female figure playing on a 

 number oi keys, and on the other side is a man blowing into the box 

 with a pair of bellows exactly like those in present use. In Hawkins's 

 ' History of Music ' (i. 403) in an engraving of this, from a copy found 

 among the papers of Haym, the author of a history of ancient medals. 

 .St. Augustine, in his Comments on the 66th Psalm, alludes to instru- 

 ments inflated by bellows. In the same passage he also gives u* to 

 understand that organ was a generic term, including every species. 

 " Organ*," he *ays, " dicuntur otnnia instnimenta musicorum," Ac. 



The descriptions left us by different authors of the musical instru- 

 ment* of the early part of the middle ages, and the representations of 

 them on several monuments, prove that attempt* were made at different 

 periods to improve them. Much thought was expended in discovering 

 the best method of introducing air into the pipes of the organ. For 

 tLi* purpose a fall of water was employed, and also what must be 

 understood to have been steam. William of Malmesbury describe* the 

 manner in which the Utter was used. He says, " The wind, being 

 forced out by the violence of the hot water, fills the whole cavity of 

 the instrument, which, from several apertures, passing through brass 

 pipes, sends forth musical noises." At length bellows were employed 



for the purpose, which were either worked by water or by hand. The 

 application of these two power* led to the distinguishing terms 

 ii yi/riin/ir and pneumatic, or water-organ and wind-organ, though, in 

 I -Miit of fact, the ultimate result wa* the same in both. The invent i-n 

 of the former, which historians call an kyilraulicon, it ascribed to 

 Ctesibius of Alexandria, who lived about B.C. 150-120. [CTB.M 



Div.] Vitruviiu i* the finrt writer who give* any account ..i 

 an organ of that kind. 



The period when the organ was introduced into the churches of 

 Western Europe is very uncertain. Pope Vitolian is supposed to have 

 been the first to admit the instrument, about the year 670 ; but the 

 earliest account to be at all relied on of the introduction of the instru- 

 ment in the West is, that about the year 765 the Greek emperor Copro- 

 nymus sent one as a present to Pepin, king of France. In the time of 

 Charlemagne, however, organs became common in Europe. That 

 prince had one built at Aix-la-Chapulle, in 812, on a Greek model, 

 which the learned Benedictine, Bedos de Celles, in his vast but useful 

 ami excellent work, ' L'Art du Facteur des Orgues' (1766),' consider* 

 to have been the first that was furnished with bellows without the use 

 of water. 



Before the 10th century organs were not only common in England, 

 but exceeded both in size and compass those of the Continent. St. 

 Dunstan gave one to the abbey of Malmabury, in the reign of Edgar, 

 Elf eg, bi.-bop of Winchester, obtained one for his cathedral in 951, 

 which was the largest then known. This is described in eight Latin 

 verses by Wolstan, the learned monk of Winchester, in the luth 

 century, of which Mason, the poet, in his ' Essay on Instrumental 

 Church Music,' gives the following translation : 



" Tweire pair of bellows, rang'd in stated row, 

 Are joined above, and fourteen more below. 

 Thec the full force of seventy men require, 

 Who ceaseless toil, and plenteoui-ly perxpire ; 

 Each aiding each, till ill the wind be pie-t 

 In the close conn es of th' ini-umbent cunt. 

 On hi< h fuur hundred pipes in order rite, 

 To bellow forth that bUm the cheat supplies." 



The translator adds an explanation by no means unnecessary. " We 

 are not," he says, " I think, to imagine that these stout bellows- 

 blowers kept their bellows in action all the time the organist was 

 playing. I rather think that his performance did not commence till 

 they had filled the chest completely with wind, which he was after- 

 wards to expend by due degrees, as he found occasion." 



The organ was at first very rude in its construction, and extremely 

 limited in its means. The keys were four or five inches broad, and 

 must hare been struck by the clenched hand, in the manner of the 

 carillons. The pipes were of brass, harsh in sound, and the compass 

 n the 12th century did not exceed a dozen or fifteen notes, and to 

 accompany the plain chant no more were required. About that time 

 ialf-notes were introduced at Venice, where also the important addition 

 of pedals, or foot-keys, was first made in 1470 by Bernhard. a German, 

 x> whose countrymen we owe many improvements of the instrument, 

 though in excellence of finish they have been surpassed by our English 

 builders. 



Few particulars are recorded concerning the organs of this country 

 From the Reformation to the time of Charles I. (^amden mentions one 

 at Wrexham, and Fuller has been strangely misguided ill describing it 

 to have had pipes of gold. It shared the general fate of organs in 

 1641 ; and the old York organ, replaced some years back by a new 

 instrument, was one of the very few that escaped the oryanoclattt of 

 those times. At the Restoration it appeared that only four organ- 

 builders of eminence survived, a circumstance which led to the intro- 

 duction of foreign artists, of Bernard Schmidt (commonly < 

 /\>//i,i- ,s,i,W/). and his two nephews, with the elder Harris, and li 

 Renatus. An account of the dispute between these two family | 

 is amusingly related in .Burney's ' Hist.,' ii. 437. Each erected an 

 organ in th Temple Church, as a trial of ability : Blow and Purcell 

 displayed Smith's, and Mons. Lully (not the "great composer) that of 

 the Harrises. The Lord Chancellor Jeffries at length decided in t 

 of Smith. The principal organs of the latter are the Temple ; t 

 church and St. Mary's, Oxford ; Trinity College, Cambridp 

 Margaret's, Westminster; St. Clement's Danes; Southwell .Minster; 

 Trinity Church, Hull ; and St. Paul's Cathedral. Harris's organ 

 being rejected by the Templars, was divided ; part was erected in St. 

 Andrews, Holborn, and part in Christ-church, Dublin. This last 

 portion was afterwards removed to Wolverhainpton. His other prin- 

 cipal instruments ;arc those at St. Mary- Axe, St. Bride's, St. Lawrence 

 (Cheapside), and Doncaster. He, however, from some unex)> 

 cause, was commissioned to make twice as many organs as his com- 

 petitor. The ' Spectator,' No. 552, says that he was ambitious of 

 building an organ for the metropolitan cathedral. We have, however, 

 no reason to regret that his wish was not gratified. 



To these celebrated mechanicians succeeded Schreider, Smith's son- 

 in-law, who built the organ in Westminster Abbey, and that at St. 

 Miirtin's-in-the- Field", the latter a present from George I. as church- 



A copious work on the Organ by M. Hamcl, chiefly compiled from that of 

 Celles, hs been published In the Encyclopedic Korct.' It is in three small 

 volumes, together with an Atlns, containing nearly 1000 figures. 



