MUSI C. 
gifts place this expedition in the century immediately 
preceding the Trojan war. 
Plutarch, who was himfelf a prieft of Apollo, imprefled 
with the higheft refpedft and veneration for him and for 
mufic, in his Dialogue upon that art, makes one of his 
interlocutors fay, that an invention fo ufeful and charm¬ 
ing could never have been the work of man, but mult 
have originated with fome god ; fuch as Apollo, the in¬ 
ventor of the flute and lyre, improperly attributed to 
Hyagnis, Marfyas, Olympus, and others; and the proofs 
he urges in fupport of this aflertion, flrow, if not its truth, 
at leaft that it was the common and received opinion. 
All dances and facrifices, fays he, ufed in honour of 
Apollo, are performed to the found of flutes ; the ftatue 
of this god at Delos, erefted in the time of Hercules, 
had in its right hand a bow, and on the left flood the 
three Graces, who were furniflied with three kinds of in- 
ftruments ; the lyre, flute, and fyrinx. The youth alfo, 
who carries the laurel of Tempe to Delphos, is accompa¬ 
nied by one playing on the flute; and the facred prefents 
formerly fent to Delos by the Hyperboreans, were con¬ 
duced thither to the found of lyres, flutes, and fliep- 
herds’ pipes. He fupports thefe faCs by the teftimonies 
of the poets Alcaeus, Aleman; and the poetefs Corinna. 
The ancients had numberlefs ingenious and fanciful 
ideas concerning the Mufes; and iome very whimfical 
and diverting : Fulgentius informs us that Apollo was 
painted with a cithara of ten firings, as a fymbol of the 
union of the god with the nine mufes, and to (how that 
the human voice is compofed of ten parts; of which the 
four firft are the front teeth, placed one againft the other, 
fo ufeful for the appulfe of the tongue, in forming founds, 
that, without any one of them, a whiftle would be pro¬ 
duced inftead of a voice ; the fifth and fixth are the two 
lips, like cymbals, which, by being ftruck againft each 
other, greatly facilitate fpeech ; the feventh is the tongue, 
which l'erves as a ple&rum to articulate founds ; the 
eighth is the palate, the concave of which forms a belly 
to the inftrument; the ninth is the throat, which per¬ 
forms the part of a flute ; and the tenth the lungs, which 
fupply the place of bellows. 
Next after the Mufes, the names of Linus and Orpheus 
will naturally prefent themfelves to the reader, as in¬ 
ventors or improvers of inftruments. But fo many fa¬ 
bles have been deviled concerning the firft poets and 
muficians, that a doubt has been thrown even upon their 
exiftence. Chiron, Amphion, Orpheus, Linus, and Mu- 
feus, are fpoken of by the poets and mythologifts fo hy- 
perbolically, that the time when, and place where, they 
fiourilhed, will appear to man}'- as little, worth a ferious 
enquiry as the genealogy of Tom Thumb, or the chrono¬ 
logy of a fairy tale. However, though ready to part 
with the miraculous powers of their mufic, we are un¬ 
willing that perfons,.whofe talents have been fo long cele¬ 
brated, Ihould be annihilated, and their actions cancelled 
from the records of paft times. 
Though the Egyptian Thebes is of much higher anti¬ 
quity than the Grecian, yet this laft is fo ancient, and its 
liiftory is fo much involved in darknefs and poetic fiction, 
that nothing can be depended upon concerning it, but 
that it is recorded to have been built by Cadmus, long- 
before the Trojan war, or even the Argonautic expedi¬ 
tion. Paulanias, indeed, gives a lift of lixteen kings, 
who reigned at Thebes in Bceotia, but they are rather the 
heroes of tragedy than of real hiftory. Among thefe is 
Amphion, of whom we have already fpoken at p. 348. 
and, becaufe it was thought neceflary to Ihow the analogy 
between the Graeco-Theban and the Egypto-Theban lyre, 
the lyre of Amphion has been engraved on the lame 
plate with the Egyptian inftruments. See Plate XIV. 
Chiron the Centaur (lee Chiron, vol. iv.) is faid to 
have been the inftru&or of the Grecian Bacchus, who 
learned of this mafter the revels,'orgies, Bacchanalia, and 
other ceremonies of his worlhip. According to Plutarch, 
it was likewife at the fchool of Chiron that Hercules 
Vol. XVI. No. in 7. 
853 
ftudied mufic, medicine, and juftice; though Diodorus 
Siculus tells us that Linus was the mulic-mafter of this 
hero. Thefe are points which it is now not ealy to fet¬ 
tle ; nor are they of any other confequence to our en¬ 
quiries, than ferving as proofs, that ancient authors all 
agreed in thinking it natural and neceflary for heroes to 
have been inftructed in mufic. Necfides didicit, nee na¬ 
ture, was, in antiquity, a reproach to every man above 
the rank of a plebeian. But among all the heroes who 
have been dilciples of this Centaur, no one reflected fo 
much honour upon him as Achilles, whofe reno wn he in 
fome meafure fliared, and to whofe education he in a par¬ 
ticular manner attended, being his grandfather by the 
mother’s fide. Apollodorus tells us that the ftudy of 
mufic employed a confiderable part of the time which he 
bellowed upon his young pupil, as an encitement to vir¬ 
tuous aftions, and a bridle to the impetuolity of his tem¬ 
per. One of the bell remains of antique painting now 
fubfifting, is a pidlure upon this fubjedl, dug out of Her¬ 
culaneum, in which Chiron is teaching the young Achilles 
to play on the lyre. See Plate XV. 
Every thing interefting concerning Linus, the mafter 
or the fcholar of Orpheus, has been given under that 
word, vol. xiv. p. 767. 
Orpheus is one of the moll ancient and venerable 
names among the poets and muficians of Greece. His 
reputation was ellablilhed as early as the time of the Ar¬ 
gonautic expedition, in which he was himfelf an adven¬ 
turer; and is laid by Apollodius Rhodius, not only to 
have incited the Argonauts to row by the found of his 
lyre, but to have vanquilhed and put to filence the Sirens, 
by the fuperiority of his ilrains. The majority of refpeft- 
able ancient authors agree, that Orpheus was the fon of 
Oeager, by birth a Thracian, the father or chief founder 
of the mythological and allegorical theology among!! the 
Greeks, and of all their moll facred religious rites and 
myfteries: he is commonly luppoled to have lived be¬ 
fore the Trojan war, that is, in the time of the Ifraelitilh 
judges, or at leaft to have been fenior both to Hefiod and 
Homer, and to have died a violent death, moll affirming 
that he was torn in pieces by women. The family of 
Orpheus is traced by fir Ilaac Newton for feveral genera¬ 
tions : “ Sefac, palling over the Hellefpont, conquers 
Thrace, kills Lycurgus king of that country, and gives 
his kingdom, and one of his linging-women, to Oea°rus 
the fon of Tharops, and father of Orpheus; hence Or¬ 
pheus is faid to have bad the mufe Calliope for his mo¬ 
ther.” He is allowed by moll ancient authors to have 
excelled in poetry and mufic, particularly the latter; and 
to have early cultivated the lyre, in preference to every 
other inftrument; fo that all thole who came after him 
were contented to be his imitators ; whereas “ he adopted 
no model,” fays Plutarch ; “ for before his time no other 
mufic was known, except a few airs for the flute.” 
Profane authors look upon Orpheus as the inventor of 
that fpecies of magic called evocation of the manes, or 
railing ghofts ; and indeed the hymns which are attri¬ 
buted to him are moftly pieces of incantation, and real 
conjuration. Upon the death of his wife Eurydice, he 
retired to a place in Thefprotia, called Aornos, where an 
ancient oracle gave anfwers to fuch as evoked the dead. 
Fie there fancied he faw his dear Eurydice, and at his de¬ 
parture flattered himfelf that lhe followed him ; but upon 
looking behind him, and not feeing her, he was fo afflicted 
that he foon died of grief. (Paufanias, lib. ix.) 
There were perfons among the ancients who made pub¬ 
lic profeflion of conjuring up ghofts, and there were tem¬ 
ples where the ceremony of conjuration was to be per¬ 
formed. Paufanias lpeaks of that which was in Thef¬ 
protia, where Orpheus went to call up the ghoft of his 
wife Eurydice. It is this very journey, and the motive 
which put him upon it, that made it believed he went 
down into hell. The poets have embellilhed this ftory, 
and given to the lyre of Orpheus, not only the power of 
filencing Cerberus, and of fufpending the torments of 
h ^ Tartarus, 
