CLASSIC MUSICIANS. 215 



ideas than to any intrinsic excellence in the sounds themselves, 

 which, by means of such borrowed attributes, have often indeed 

 acquired a character and exercised an influence directly oppo- 

 site to their own inherent qualities. It accords not with our 

 plan to say much of insect foreigners, whether musical or 

 mute ; but we may cite, as the earliest and one of the most 

 striking examples of what we mean, the song of the classic 

 Cicada or Tettix the IVee-hopper ; by a misnomer the Grass- 

 hopper of the ancients. This was the Insect Minstrel to whom 

 the Locrians erected a statue ; some say for very love and 

 honour of its harmony ; others as a grateful record of a certain 

 victory obtained in a musical contest, solely by its aid. The 

 story goes, that on one of these occasions two harp-strings of 

 the Locrian candidate being snapt asunder in the ardour of 

 competition, a Cicada, lighting at the moment on the injured 

 instrument, more than atoned for its deficiencies, and achieved, 

 by its well-timed assistance, the triumph of the player. 



Thus highly was this insect's song accounted of, even at a 

 period when " music, heavenly maid," could scarcely be con- 

 sidered "young;" yet as various species of Cicadse have been 

 described by modern travellers, one can hardly suppose that 

 any better quality than shrilly loudness can have belonged to 

 the Tettix of ancient Greece. 



We are told, indeed, by Madame Merian, that an insect of 

 a similar description was called the Lyre-player by the Dutch 

 in Surinam. The notes of a Brazilian species have been likened 



