30-3 
M U 
Vo each other. Moft of the double flute-players repre¬ 
fen ted in fculpture appear tografp the inftruments, with¬ 
out any motion of the fingers; nor indeed in many of 
than are there any holes in fight to employ them ; which 
makes it probable that they were modulated by the mouth, 
like trumpets and horns. 
Another difficulty occurs about thefe flutes being al- 
ivays double, as in fig. i, 2, 3. that is, two tingle tubes 
held in different hands, or uniting in one mouth-piece. 
3 aut, as we never fee more than one performer at a time 
reprefented in painting or fculpture, accompanying the 
adlors on the ftage, or the prieff at the altar, where thefe 
double or Phrygian flutes were chiefly ufed, they may 
perhaps have been preferred for their fuperior loudnefs ; 
for force muff not only be neceflary to the voice in a large 
temple or theatre, but alfo to the inftruments that ac¬ 
companied it, in order to the being heard by fuch a nu¬ 
merous audience as was ufually l afl'embled there; juft as 
the adtor’s voice was augmented by a mafk, and his height 
increafed by ftilts. The muzzles and bloated cheeks in 
reprefentations, correfponding with verbal deferiptions, 
prove that quantity of found was the principal objedt of 
the ancients. Hence the neceflity of the capijirum, or 
head-flail, as it appears in the prefent figure. 
The defedts peculiar to wind-inftruments feem to have 
been as well known to the ancients as the moderns; and 
Ariftoxenus complains of them in fuch ftrong terms as 
would be very applicable to the flutes of modern times : 
“ Flutes are continually fnifting their pitch, and never 
remain in the fame ftate.” Among many expedients to 
which he fays performers had recourfe, in order to pal¬ 
liate thefe defedts in the intervals, the ufe of wax, occa- 
fionally, in the holes of their inftruments feems to have 
been one; at lead Meibomius, in his note on the paflage, 
underftands wax to be meant as one method; for Arif¬ 
toxenus, fpeaking of wind-inftruments, talks of adding 
and taking away. This expedient mult, however, have 
been ufed in order to fupply the want of (kill in boring 
flutes; and the wax, in warm climates, would be too 
fubjedt to fufion for a performer to depend much upon 
its affiftance in the heat of adtion. 
That the ancients ufed natural reeds and canes in the 
conftrudtion of their flutes, we are certain ; but whether 
they had any fuch artificial reeds as we ufe for our haut- 
bois, balfoons, &c. is doubtful. We find, indeed, in Plu¬ 
tarch’s Dialogue, mention of a fyrinx , or fmall pipe, that 
was fometimes affixed to flutes; which M. Burette tranf- 
lates hanche, a word equivalent to our reed. But the im¬ 
propriety of the tranilation is fully proved by a paflage in 
another treatife of Plutarch, where he gives it as a mufical 
problem, “ Why the flute, when the fyrinx is drawn up, 
becomes fliarpened in all its founds; that is, has its whole 
pitch railed ; and when it is let down, or rather laid down, 
rMvopew;, as if it was fixed to the inftrument by a kind of 
hinge, is again flattened.” The purpofe, therefore, of 
this pipe or fyrinx, was totally different from that of our 
reeds, and was merely to alter the pitch of the flute. Nor 
was it at all neceflary to the inftrument, as our reeds are ; 
for Plutarch relates, in the part of his Dialogue above- 
mentioned, that Telephanes “ had fuch an averfion to 
thefe pipes, he w'ould never fuft’er the flute-makers to ap¬ 
ply them to his inftruments;” which was the principal 
reafon w'hy he never entered the lifts at the public games, 
where thefe additional pipes feem to have been much in 
vogue ; and, indeed, if their effedl rendered the intervals 
asfalfe as thofe of our flutes are by drawing out the mid¬ 
dle pieces, it was a proof of his judgment, and delicacy of 
ear. If any part of the ancient flutes anfwered to our 
reeds, it mull have been what they called “ the tongue,” 
ykwTTK, lingula. This appears to have been ellential to 
the ufe of the inftryment, as. our reeds are. The flutes 
could fcarcely be made to Jpeah without it; hence the 
faying of Demades, the Athenian orator, who compared 
bis countrymen to flutes, “ they were good for nothing 
without their tongues.” (Stob. Ser. 2.) Thefe lingula 
Vox,. XVI. No. n 18. 
S I c. 
were alfo movable, and carried about by the performers 
in little boxes, which were called yXoTxox.op.ua., or tongue- 
cafes,” as our reeds are at prefent. “ The refemblance 
of thefe tongues and reeds in conftruftion, as well as 
in ufe, may perhaps appear the more probable to the 
reader from an engraving, (fays Dr. Burney,) of a medal 
in the Numifmata Pembrochiana, which was pointed out 
to me by the Hon. Daines Barrington. On one fide is 
Cleopatra; and on the other, a winged mufician p!ayino¬ 
on an inftrument which feems to be furniflied with an 
artificial reed ; of which I fnall only obferve, that it is 
the ft rouge ft proof I have met with, in coins or in fculp¬ 
ture, of the ufe of fuch an expedient among the an¬ 
cients,_ and .that there cannot be a more linking like- 
nets of a modern liautbois.” 
Fig. 2. is a double flute of an uncommon kind, on a 
bas-relief in the Farnefe collection at Rome. Thefe 
tubes, of different lengths, with keys or floppies, are 
blown at once by a female Bacchanal. Vofiius, De Poe- 
mat. Cant. p. no. fays, from Proclus, that every hole of 
the ancient flute furniflied at ieaft three different founds ; 
and, if the 'wapa.r^v'my.a.Ta,, or iide-holes, were opened, 
ftiil more than three. Arcadius Grammaticus lays, that 
the inventors of the holes of the flute contrived a method 
of flopping and opening them at pleafure, by certain 
horns, or pegs, which, by turning them in and out, and 
moving them up and down, multiplied founds, according 
to Vofiius, like different firings upon a lyre. But tha*t 
could not be the cafe in this inftrument, at Ieaft during 
performance, as moft of the plugs or floppies were out of 
the reach of the mufician’s hand ; befides, the hands were 
employed in fupporting the inftrument; and though, in 
our balloon, and even liautbois and German flute, we are 
able, by means of keys, to open and dole holes which 
the fingers cannot reach ; yet, as no fuch expedients ap¬ 
pear in the reprefentations of ancient wind-inftruments, 
it is difficult to affign any other ufe to thefe plugs or flop¬ 
pies than that already mentioned, of adjufting the fcale 
to fome particular mode or genus, before performance, as 
our trumpets or horns are tuned to keys of different pitch 
by means of crooks, and our flutes by middle-pieces of 
different lengths. It feems as if the longeft of the two 
tubes in this figure, had a horn joined to the end of it, 
which gives it the form of a lituus. Bartholinus, De Tib. 
Vet. makes this curvature at the end the charaCteriftic 
of the Phrygian flute : he gives two flutes of this kind, 
with plugs, one ftraight and the other curved ; and tells 
us, from Ariftotle’s Accullics, that loudnefs and clear- 
nefs were acquired by the addition of the horn. 
Fig. 3. reprelents a Cupid, playing on two flutes with 
floppies, or plugs, like the preceding, but without the 
horn at the end. From an ancient painting in the Mufeo 
at Portici. 
An inftrument of the baffoon kind, called the courtaut, 
with two rows of projecting apertures, refembling thofe 
in fig. 2 and 3, is deferibed by Merfennus, De Inftrum. 
Harmon, lib. ii. who tells us that th defines, (or nipples,) 
as he calls the projections, were not movable, but fixed ; 
and that, when thofe on one fide were ufed, thofe on the 
other were flopped with wax. 
Fig. 4. reprelents the ancient lituus, or octave trumpet, 
in the pofleffion of fir Jdfeph Banks, of which a full de- 
feription has been given at the word Lituus, vol. xii. 
p. 830. _ , 
Fig. 5. An ancient inftrument, of a very peculiar kind 
lately dug out of Pompeia, a city that was delfroyed by an 
eruption of Mount Vefuvius, at the fame time as Hercu¬ 
laneum. It is a trumpet or large tube of bronze, fur- 
rounded by feven fmall pipes of bone or ivory, inferted in 
as many of metal : thefe feem all to terminate in one 
point, and to have been blown through one mouth-piece. 
The fmall pipes are all of the fame length and diameter 
and were probably unifons to each other, and octaves to 
the great tube. There is a ring to fallen a chain to, by 
which it was flung over the fhoulder of the performer, 
5 A The 
