ON MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. . 403 



arranged, that by means of registers, the air proceeding from the bellows 

 may be admitted to supply each series, or excluded from it, at pleasure, and 

 a valve is opened, when the proper key is touched^ which causes all the pipes 

 belonging to the note, in those series of which the registers are open, to 

 sound at once. These pipes are not only such as are in unison, but fre- 

 quently also one or more octaves above and below the principal note, and 

 sometimes also twelfths and seventeenths, imitating the series of natural 

 harmonics. But these subordinate sounds ought to be comparatively faint, 

 otherwise their irregular interference would often occasion an intolerable dis- 

 cord, instead of the grand and sublime effect which this instrument is capa- 

 ble of producing, when it is judiciously constructed and skilfully employed. 

 (Plate XXVI. Fig. 368.) 



The practice of music appears to be of earlier origin than either its theory, 

 or any attention to the nature and general phenomena of sound. The first 

 lyre, with three strings, is said to have been invented in Egypt by Hermes, 

 under Osiris, between the years 1800 and 1500 before Christ; but a tradi- 

 tion so remote, concerning a personage so enveloped in fable, can scarcely be 

 considered as constituting historical evidence: we cannot, therefore, expect 

 to ascertain with any certainty the proportions of these strings to each other; 

 some suppose that they were successive notes of the natural scale, others that 

 they contained the most perfect concords; perhaps in reality each performer 

 adjusted them in the manner which best suited his own fancy. The trumpet 

 is said to have been employed about the same time; its natural harmonics 

 might easily have furnished notes for the extension of the scale of the lyre, but 

 it does not appear that the ancients ever adopted this method of regulating the 

 scale. The lyre with seven strings is attributed to Terpander, about 700 

 years before our era, and two centuries afterwards, either P) thagoras, or Si- 

 monides, completed the octave, which consisted of intervals differing verv 

 little from the modern scale, the key note being nearly in the middle of the 

 series. In subsequent times the number of the stiings was much increased ; the 

 modulations, and the relations of the intervals, became very intricate, and were 

 greatly diversified in a variety of modes or scales, which must have afforded an 

 inexhaustible supply of original and striking melodies, but which could scarcely 

 admit so man} pleasini;' combinations, as our more modern systems. Although 

 it is certain that the ancients had frequent accompaniments in perfect harmony 



