M U 
flier wind orftringed ; 2d, flringed inftruments played on 
by the bow; 3d, wind-inftruments without keys; 4th, 
inftruments of percufiion. But this divifion is confeffedly 
imperfect, becaufe the harp, guitar, See. are {fringed inftru- 
ihents which do not anfwer either of the above deferip- 
tions, as they neither have keys nor arc played by the 
bow. But, as they are feldom ufed in concerts, except in 
fcio concertos, it did not come within the objeft of Dr. 
Crotch’s work to give a particular account of them. 
But, in any arrangement that we can make, the firft place 
will of courfe be occupied by that moll noble and com- 
prehenfive inftrument, 
The Organ. —This largeft and mod harmonious of all 
inftruments, is called the organ, o^yavov, or “ the inftru¬ 
ment,” by way of excellence. 
That organs are the invention of remote antiquity has 
been argued, and feems now to be generally allovved; but 
the particular time and country in which the difeovery 
was made, appears to be loft amidft the ruins of time. In 
ancient authors, there is a variety of paftages where men¬ 
tion is made of the organ; but it is at leaft pojfible that 
an inftrument is meant very different from that which 
now goes by the fame name. From St. Auguftin’s com¬ 
mentary on the 4th verfe of the 150th Pfalm, we learn, 
that the Greeks had another name for thofe inftruments 
in which bellows were employed; that the name organ 
was appropriated to this particular inftrument merely 
from the ufage of the Latin tongue ; and that it was in¬ 
differently given to all inftruments ufed to accompany 
the voice in concert. We mention this, not becaufe we 
doubt of the antiquity of the organ, but merely to (how 
that the time of its invention cannot be determined by 
the era of the authors where its name occurs. 
The moft ancient proof of an inftrument refembling a 
modern organ blown by bellows, and played by keys, very 
different from the hydraulicort, or water-organ, (which is 
of much higher antiquity,) is a Greek epigram in the 
Anthologia, attributed to the emperor Julian the Apoftate, 
who flourilhed about A. D. 360. 
AAAoivji' o^oa Sovccy-uv tyvaw >)5ra cm a.Wr\<; 
yLaXit&Yii; TO-ya. y.aAXov avBGXtx.rycrai/ a-pegy;. 
Apy ioi, uvepoicnii v(p’ y^flepoi; Sovsovlu i, 
AAA vi to TCt-v^tr/i; 7rgo(loga v cmyXvyyo; ar^Yif 
Ne£0ev evt^'J ]av y.aXay.av vrro Pi^ctv o$'ev&. 
Kan Ti; avr,Q aye^ci^o;, iyuv Soct oaxleAce j/apo;, 
Irctla.1 ay(pa.(pouv kccvovcc; avp.(f>pci(iy.avcc<; avXan 
Oi y cma.'hov cryi^luvlet; awoH XiGaciv crot$'r,v. 
Reeds ftrike my wond’ring eyes, unknown before, 
Sprung from fome brazen foil, fome foreign ftiore ; 
Fruitlefs our efforts, for in vain we blow 
Till, from a cave of leather, winds below 
To hollow pipes harmonious powers impart: 
Then, if fome mafter, in th’ Orphean art 
Experienc’d, touch the well-according keys, 
- Inftant they warble, and rdfponfive pleafe. 
Merfennus has inferted a Latin tranftation of this epigram, 
in his lib. iii. De Organis ; and Zarlino, who wrote in 
1571, is of opinion, that the organ here mentioned was 
effentially the fame with the organ of his time. But, 
though we have already given a poetical tranftation, we 
think it right to give a literal one alfo, fince the meaning 
of a particular word is often of importance in an enquiry 
wherein a point of great antiquity is concerned. “ I fee 
reeds of a new fpecies, the growth of another and a 
brazen foil; iuch.a-s are not agitated by our winds, but by 
a blaft that rufhes from a leathern cavern beneath'their 
roots ; while a tall fturdy fellow, [alluding to the force 
neceffary for beating down the clurnfy keys of this rude 
inftrument of new invention,] running with fwift fingers 
over the rulers of the pipes; [i. e. the keys,] makes them, 
as they fmoothly dance, utter concordant founds.” 
However, certain mufical inftruments whofe melody is 
produced by wind, had been known at Rome long before. 
Witnefs that agreeable poem of Capa, which, for its ele- 
S I C. 307 
gance, has been aferibed to Virgil; where we find that the 
mufician introduces the wind into her pipes by means of 
a pair of bellows, which file holds under her arms and 
blows. In the hydraulic organ, the water moves the air, 
inftead of bellows. Cornelius Severus, in his “ ZEtna,” 
has given an exaft defeription of it. And, though there 
were two kinds of hydraulic and pneumatic inftruments, 
the firft of which played by the infpiration and adtion of 
bellows, and the other by the aftion of water; it is cer¬ 
tain, nevertheiefs, that both of them were pneumatic, 
being infpired by the wind ; and Heron of Alexandria, 
in his Pneumatics, has treated of hydraulics as belonging 
to pneumatics. This I-Ieron lived in the time of Ptolemy 
Evergetes, king of Egypt. When Suetonius lays that, 
Nero organa hydraulica novi et ignoti generis circumduxit, 
he did not mean that they were unknown at Rome before 
Nero, but that thofe of Nero were of anew conftru&ion. 
Thofe were the hydraulics of a new fabric, which he ex¬ 
hibited to the people at the public games, as Suetonius re¬ 
lates a little after. Heliogabalus, one of the worthy fuc- 
cefl’ors of Nero, like him was fond of thefe hydraulics; 
and Alexander Severus, his couiin and fucceflbr, had the 
fame inclination. Claudian, who lived fome time after, 
has left us this elegant defeription of them: 
Et qui magna levi detrudens murmurs taftu 
Innumeras voces fegetis moderatur aenae; 
Intonet erranti digito, penitufque trabali 
Veffe laborantes in carmina concitat undas. 
This very conftrudlion, which is obferved in the pipes of 
an organ, gradually decreafing in magnitude, has been 
reprel'ented in an epigram of Optatianus Porphyrius, who 
lived in the time of Conftantine. This epigram, which 
is quoted in Pithon’s collection of ancient epigrams, is 
compofed of verfes of an unequal length, fucceffively in- 
crealing. This correfponds with thofe words of the old 
fcholiaft on Juvenal, Sat. viii. ver. 270. Tunica Galli utun- 
tur in facris in modum organi utrinque decrej'centibus virgulis 
purpureis. 
At the time of Cafiiodorus, who flouriftied under king 
Vitigas the Goth, in 514, the liydraulicon, or water- 
organ, blown by hand-bellows, became common; of 
which he gives the following defeription : “ The organ, 
fays he, is an inftrument compofed of divers pipes, formed 
into a kind of tower, which, by means of bellows, is made 
to produce a loud found ; and, in order to exprefs agree¬ 
able melodies, there are, in the infide, movements made 
of wood, that are prefled down by the fingers of the 
player, which produce the moft pleafing and brilliant 
tones.” 
On the whole, then, the antiquity of organs, or of in¬ 
ftruments of a very fimilar nature, can fcarcely be dis¬ 
puted ; but nothing very particular refpe&ing the time 
place, or manner, of the invention, can poflibly be de¬ 
termined from thofe incidental oblervations which occur 
in the writings of the ancients. It appears, indeed, to 
have been borrowed by the Latins from the Greeks, but 
ndt to have been in general ufe till the eighth century■; 
and it has been affirmed, that, in France, it was not 
known till the time of Louis le Debonair, i. e. A. D. 815, 
when an Italian prieft taught the ufe and conftruCtion of 
it, which he himfelf had learned at Conftantinople. By 
fome, however, it has been carried as farback as Charle¬ 
magne, and by others as far as Pepin. Vitruvius defcribes 
an organ in his tenth book ; and St. Jerome mentions one 
with twelve pair of bellows, which might be heard a thou- 
land paces, or a mile ; and another at Jerufalem, which 
might be heard to the Mount of Olives. 
It has been a fubjeft of debate, when the ufe of organs 
was introduced into the church. Bellarmine fays, that 
they began to be ufed in the fervice of the church, in the 
time of pope Vitalian, about the year 660, as Piatina re¬ 
lates out of the Pontifical; or, as Aimonius thinks, after 
the year 820, in the time of Louis the Pious. Venerable 
Bede, who died in 735, fays nothing of the ufe of organs, 
4 or 
