M. Fétis believed that instruments of the violin kind, played with a bow, originated in Europe; but Engel has pointed out that instruments of this kind are known in China, and in other Asiatic countries, and it would seem probable that people who had long used the plectrum would be the first to discover the use of the bow. There is, however, a very ancient instrument known in Wales, and called the cruth, which is supposed by many to be the original of the violin.

Before passing on to the legend of Orpheus, so intimately associated with the history of the lyre, we must call attention to a very curious Hindoo stringed instrument known as the Vina, Bina, or Veen; supposed to be of great antiquity. It consists of a bar of black wood with seven wire strings and movable frets, with two hollow gourds affixed to it, one at each end. There are several kinds of this instrument in different parts of India, and it is said to be of divine origin; it is played with two plectra made of wire, one in each hand. One of these instruments was brought over for the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, and attracted a good deal of attention from its singularity. The nearest approach to it seems to be the Tzetze, an East African instrument of the Somalis, formed of a carved stick, a gourd and a single string, which has six frets to produce six different tones, being an advance upon the primitive bow. A curious instrument of the harp kind is found also in West Africa; it consists of a piece of wood, to which is attached narrow tongues of wood or iron played by the hand.

To return to the lyre and the legends connected with it. The original lyre invented by Hermes or Mercury, and presented to Apollo the sun-god, seems, as I have before said, to bear both in its form and in its history traces of its Eastern origin; its legendary association with Apollo perhaps recalling a forgotten historical fact, that sun-worshippers from the East brought the instrument to Europe. The number of strings attached to the original lyre has been disputed; but a very early representation of a musical instrument on one of the

and the organ, whilst the flute and the pipe seem to have been instruments of festivity, aided in ancient civilized countries by pulsatile instruments, and by the sistrum, cymbals, crotalas, triangles, and other light instruments of percussion. Trumpets and horns appear to be particularly devoted to war and the chase, whilst the lighter form of drum is an important aid to martial ardour; but no instrument of modern times has so great an effect upon the spirits of our warriors as the bagpipe, and many are the stories related of the almost magical effect of the "pipes" on Highlanders in battle, and the terror with which they struck the enemy.

The effect of particular instruments and particular tunes upon men and the lower animals would require many volumes, for in almost every country some especial tune, sung to the accompaniment of some one musical instrument, is employed for special purposes, and these national tunes cannot be separated from national dances, which form such an interesting ethnological study. Many of these, with their appropriate music, are well known to most people: the Italian tarantella, the Spanish bolero, the Polish mazurka, the Scottish and Danish reel, the Irish jig, the sailor's hornpipe, are some of these; but we know little or nothing of the equally distinctive dances and tunes of Asia, Africa, Aboriginal America, and Polynesia.

To a certain extent we can judge of the dances of the ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, Etruscans, Greeks, and Romans, by extant sculptures and paintings, and in almost all these dances, both ancient and modern, the pipe in some form, sometimes alone, and sometimes in conjunction with other instruments, is used as an accompaniment. The pipe or flute is everywhere referred to as the instrument of love and pleasure. Pan piped to the fauns, satyrs, and wood nymphs. Krisna charmed with his flute the maidens of India; yet when Apollo had invented the lyre, Marsyas in vain tried to charm mankind, even with Minerva's own pipes; for then not only were the feet free to join in the dance, but the mouth was also set free to add voice to the

charms of instrumental music; and though some, like Midas, remained true to the older form of instrument, the very reeds conspired together to announce to the world, "Midas hath ass's ears," and when Orpheus arose, the very rocks and woods, beasts of the field, and birds of the air, were powerless to resist his song accompanied by the perfected lyre; nevertheless, the pipe has not even yet quite lost its power, for to the present dayx the dreaded cobra is called from his hole and made to dance to the music of the Indian pipe; and children, even as in the days of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, will swarm at the heels of the travelling performer on the bagpipe; though the rats have grown wiser, warned perhaps by the tradition handed down by their graybeards, of the fate of their brethren; and like the deaf adder, they refuse to hear "the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely."

Of the myth of Orpheus I purpose to treat in another chapter, for it is inseparable from the lyre, which ushers in the third great step in the musical history of the ancient world. Suffice it here to say, that there still remain Arcadias, where dusky beauties dance to the sound of the primitive syrinx of Pan, or to that singular variety, the nose flute, and where Orpheus and his lyre are all unknown, for the lyre would seem to have been confined to the Eastern hemisphere, and not to have penetrated to America and the Oceanic Isles until introduced by Europeans; and stringed instruments are still wanting in many groups of the Pacific Islands. It seems strange that the civilized Mexicans and Peruvians should not have possessed stringed instruments, especially as they had so many other things in common with China and Japan; and we cannot help thinking it probable that some sort of lute or harp will be found to have been in use among them, although they seem to have given the preference to instruments of percussion, and to those of the inflatile type. Catlin mentions lutes as in use among the North American Indians; but Mr. Rowbotham refuses to believe in the existence of that which would rather militate against

his theory of the succession of musical instruments, and which affirms that should one of the three kinds be rejected, it is always the drum or the flute, and never the lyre. It is, however, certain, that hitherto stringed instruments have not been found among the ancient relics of America, although Engel tells us that the Peruvians had a lyre of five or seven strings.

NOTE. In the Journal of the Anthropological Institute for November 1890 is an interesting article upon the old British "Pibcorn," or "Hornpipe," compared with hornpipes and bagpipes from the Grecian Archipelago, Arab reed-pipes, Deckhan pipes and Hindoo hornpipes, giving illustrations of these instruments, and quotations from Chaucer, Spenser, and other early poets, showing the ancient use of the pibcorn, cornpipe, or hornpipe, in Great Britain.

CHAPTER XVIII.

PRIMITIVE INSTRUMENTS OF MUSIC.

III. THE LYRE.

Traditional Origin of the Lyre-The Tortoise in Asia and America -The Search for Osiris-Transferred to Orpheus-Same Myth in Mexico and Peru-The Lyre in South and West Africa-The Bent Bow the Precursor of the Harp-Egyptian and Assyrian Harps-Old Irish Harp-Semitic Lyre-The Lyre of Apollo-The Shell of the Tortoise imitated in Gourds

The Plectrum in the East-The Vina, or Bina-Strings of the Lyre vary in Number-Pythagorean Lyre-The Three Measures-The Story of Orpheus-Introduced into Britain by the Romans-Tesselated Pavements-Diodorus Siculus and Stonehenge-Sun Dances-Merlin and Amphion—Aldhelm and his Harp-Nero-Troubadours.

"Now strike the golden lyre again,

A louder yet, and yet a louder strain;
Break his bands of sleep asunder,

And rouse him like a rattling peal of thunder."

IN these lines Dryden commemorates the effect of the music of Timotheus upon Alexander the Great, as recounted by Dion Chrysostom, Plutarch, and others; for that monarch seems to have been peculiarly susceptible to the charms of music; and Rollin relates that "Antigenides the flutenist, at a banquet, fired that prince in such a manner, that, rising from the table like one out of his senses, he catched up his arms, and clashing them to the sound of the flute, was almost ready to charge the guests." But Timotheus, the great poet and musician of the court of Philip of Macedon, could hardly have influenced Alexander, since he died