j 3 2 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER; 



conteftible proof, were they the only monuments remaining; 

 that every art neceflary to the conftruetion, ornament, and 

 life of this instrument, was in the higheft perfection, and. 

 if fo, all the others mull have probably attained to the fame, 

 degree. 



We fee in particular the ancients then poiTe fled an art 

 relative to architecture, that of hewing the hardeft Hones 

 with the greater! eafe, of which we are. at. this day utterly 

 ignorantand incapable.. We have no inftrument that could 

 do it, no compofition that could make tools of temper fufr 

 iicient 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 inftru- 

 ment with which they did thefe furprriing feats was com- 

 pofed of brafs ;. a. metal of which, after a thoufand experi-, 

 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 account* 

 hitherto given of the earlieft Hate of mufic and muficat 

 inftruments in the eaft ; and are altogether in their form,- 

 ornaments, and compafs, an inconteftihle proof, ftronger than 

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

 chanics, and mulic, were at the greatefl perfection when this- 

 inftrument was made, and that the period from which we 

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

 die sera of their reftoration. This was the fentiment of Solo- 

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

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



" See, 



