1 



/ ON MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. 315 



is ope*!a, when the proper key is touched, which causes all the pipes 

 * belon^in^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 

 discord, instead of the grand and sublime effect which this instrument is 

 capable 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 tradition 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,t about 700 years before our era, and 

 two centuries afterwards, either Pythagoras, or Simonides, completed the 

 octave, which consisted of intervals differing very little from the modern 

 scale, the key note being nearly in the middle of the series. { In subse- 

 quent times the number of the strings was much increased ; the modula- 

 tions, 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 many pleasing combinations as our more modern 

 systems. Although it is certain that the ancients had frequent accom- 

 paniments in perfect harmony with the principal part, yet they had no 

 regular art of counterpoint, or of performing different melodies together ; 

 nor does it appear that they ever employed discords. The tibia of the 

 ancients resembled a hautboy or clarinet, for it had a reed mouth piece, 

 about three inches long ; the same performer generally played on two of 

 these instruments at once. There were, however, several varieties of the 

 tibia ; and it is not improbable that some of them may have had the simple 

 mouth piece of the flageolet. 



The first philosophical observer of the phenomena of sound, after Pytha- 

 goras, appears to have been Aristotle ; he notices a great variety of curious 

 facts in harmonics among his mechanical problems ; and he entertained a 



' * Rollin's History of the Arts and Sciences (trans.), 4 vols. 8vo, Lond. 1737. 

 f Ibid. i. 156. J Jamblichus, Vita Pythag. 



See Aristophanes, Nubes. 



