i 3 2 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER. 



conteilible proof, were they the only monuments remaining,- 

 that every art necefiary to the conflruclion, ornament, and 

 ufe of this inflrument, was in the higheft perfection, and 

 if- fo, all the others mufl have probably attained to the fame 

 degree. 



We fee in particular the ancients then poffeffed an art 

 relative to architecture, that of hewing the hardefl flones 

 with the greateft eafe, of which we are at this day utterly- 

 ignorant and incapable. We have no inflrument that could 

 do it, no compofition that could make tools of temper fuf- 

 ficient to cut bafs reliefs in granite or porphyry fo readily ; 

 and our ignorance in this is the more completely fhewn, in 

 that we have all the reafons to believe, the cutting inflru- 

 ment with which they did thefe furprifmg feats was com-* 

 pofed of brafs ; a metal of which, after a thoufand expert 

 ments, no tool has ever been made that could ferve the 

 purpofe of a common knife, though we are at the fame 

 time certain, it was of brafs the ancients made their razors. 



These harps, in my opinion, overturn all the accounts 

 hitherto given of the earlieft Hate of mufic and mufical 

 inftruments in the eail ; and are altogether in their form, 

 ornaments, and compafs^ an inconteflible proof, ftronger than 

 a thoufand Greek quotations, that geometry, drawing, me^ 

 chanics, and mulic, were at the greateft perfection when this 

 inflrument was made, and that the period from which we 

 date the invention of thefe arts, was only the beginning of. 

 the asra of their refloration. This was the fentiment of Solo- 

 mon^ writer who lived at the time when this harp waspainted: 

 " Is there (fays Solomon) any thing whereof it may- be faid, 



" See, 



