MUSIC. 



679 



uted, if not wholly cured, by the skill of the 

 "cunning player," or the voice "of the well-in- 

 structed in song."' 



The musical taste and talent of David were not 

 unemployed during his whole reign. He composed, 

 and "encouraged others to compose those Psalms, 

 which from the day they were written have been held 

 in the highest esteem, as the most beautiful speci- 

 mens of devotional poetry existing in the literature 

 of any people. The poets of antiquity were al- 

 ways musicians, and there is no reason to doubt 

 that David himself prepared the music as well as 

 the verse of his own sacred songs. Another very 

 probable occupation may have been superintending 

 the musical education of those who were training 

 for the splendid service of the future temple ; for 

 it appears, that in his old age, when he bad re- 

 signed the kingdom to Solomon, the number of the 

 singers set apart for this service was two hundred 

 and eighty-eight, and the number of the Levites 

 taught to play upon instruments made by David 

 himself was four thousand. This is the first con- 

 servatorio of which we have a distinct record; and 

 we cannot hold it in light esteem, when we ob- 

 serve that David himself prepared the poetry, the 

 music, and the instruments, that it was constantly 

 under the eye of the king, and that it was in- 

 tended as an academy for the education of those 

 who were to officiate in the highest and most in- 

 teresting service known to the nation, the service 

 of the temple. What those instruments were that 

 were invented by David, or which were in use in 

 his day, it is now in vain to inquire. Nothing is 

 left, from which even a probable conjecture can be 

 farmed. All we know is, that they were of various 

 sorts, of both wind and stringed instruments, the 

 names of which have been translated, to be sure, 

 into various languages, but, so far as we are con- 

 cerned, might as well have been left in the origi- 

 nal Hebrew.* The lute, the pipe, the timbrel, the 

 trumpet, the horn, are English words certainly, as 

 well as the harp, the cymbal, the drum, and the 

 organ, but they may, and probably do, stand for 

 things very different in character from David's in- 

 struments ; while it would be difficult for a mere 

 English scholar to give a definite idea of what is 

 meant by a psaltery, a shawm, or a sackbut. Here 

 are already twelve instruments, and it seems not 

 improbable that others are intended by the words 

 neginoth, gittith, sheminith, Sfc., which occur in the 

 titles of the Psalms, and which have been a sad 

 stumblingblock to the learned commentators, who 

 would have been satisfied, could they but have 

 fallen upon an Fnglish name, with some degree of 

 plausibility. At all events, we may feel some con- 

 fidence in the assertion, that the accompaniment of 

 instruments to Hebrew music possessed consider- 

 able richness. And, if we believe what is stated 

 in the first book of Chronicles, that the singers 

 " were employed in that work day and night," 

 we can have little doubt of their accomplished 

 skill. 



The reign of Solomon was pre-eminent, in the 

 history of the Jews, for every thing which ele- 

 vated them in the relative rank of nations. Their 

 subsequent intestine divisions, and subjugation to 



* Our English Bible says, " Juhal was the father of all such 

 as handle the harp and the organ." Jubal's organs were pro- 

 bably not like that of York, or of Haarlem. But the French 

 translators thought proper to call Jubal the father of all such 

 as handle the violin and the organ; thus carrying the inven- 

 tion of the fiddle farther back than the painter who put one 

 into the hands of Apollo. 



a foreign yoke, prevented them from retaining the 

 taste for music, which had flourished in the days of 

 their national prosperity ; and we hear no more of 

 their skill in the art, or their fondness for its prac- 

 tice. The only other nation, whose music can be 

 traced back to so high an antiquity as that of the 

 Jews, is the Egyptian ; but, in ascending to so re- 

 mote a date, we are lost in a cloud of uncertainty, 

 which rapidly gathers into the night of total ignor- 

 ance. It is but stating the truth to say, that the 

 amount of our knowledge respecting it is, that the 

 Egyptians had some kind of music, and some kinds 

 of musical instruments, though what they were it 

 is impossible to determine ; that music was much 

 studied and held in honour among them, and that 

 from them was derived much which was afterwards 

 known and practised in Greece. 



It is in the music of Greece and Italy, that we 

 are naturally more interested than in that of any 

 other of the people of antiquity, on several ac- 

 counts. The Greeks were more refined in various 

 ways, than any other nation, and we know more 

 of their character, history, and habits. Their lit- 

 erature is more familiar to us ; and though all that 

 we know of their music amounts to but little, yet 

 even that little is unknown with respect to the 

 music of all other civilized inhabitants of the an- 

 cient world. It is extremely difficult to rescue 

 that which may seem probable, in relation to an- 

 cient music, from the almost unintelligible jargon 

 by which it is covered up, by writers who have in- 

 terpreted ancient authors according to a precon- 

 ceived theory of their own, or who have under- 

 taken to translate musical terms without either 

 knowledge of the art, or respect for its theory, 

 and have overlaid with a mass of perplexing erudi- 

 tion a subject already sufficiently involved in ob- 

 scurity. We shall endeavour carefully to separate 

 what is known and certain, from what is unknown 

 or doubtful, and to distinguish, as clearly as may 

 be practicable, between the probable and the im- 

 probable. 



The first fact, which is undisputed on all hands, 

 is the intimate connection existing between the 

 poetry in all its forms, the eloquence, and the 

 music of the ancients. Their poets sang their own 

 compositions, their orators were attended by musi- 

 cians with instruments to give them the pitch of 

 their voice, and their dramas were sung as well as 

 acted. It has been asserted that they had no music 

 unconnected with the voice, though one can 

 scarcely imagine an assertion more entirely gratui- 

 tous. The mention of instrumental music is, to 

 be sure, rare among the authors to whom we must 

 recur for information on the subject ; but let us sup- 

 pose for a moment an age of barbarism to super- 

 vene on the present state of the world, and all ex- 

 isting literature and art to be blotted out, and then 

 recovered again as those of the Greeks have been. 

 It would not be very difficult, one would think, 

 to frame a theory with respect to modern music, 

 which should exclude instruments, except as an 

 accompaniment to the voice, if no writings of a 

 professed musician should happen to be recovered 

 from the common destruction. In works of 

 general literature, music is rarely described in 

 such a way as to give precise and accurate ideas 

 of its character ; and, though the shapes assumed 

 by literature in modern times are so much 

 more various, though we have tours, letters, dic- 

 tionaries, and a thousand other productions which 

 the Greeks had not, yet we can easily conceive of 



