about the time of the birth of that monarch; he was, however, celebrated as the perfecter of the lyre, to which he added four strings. The mythical history of this instrument, and the power attributed to it, is both curious and interesting. We are told that Hermes, the Prime Minister of Osiris, walking on the banks of the Nile after the inundation, struck his foot against a dead tortoise, dessicated by the sun, and retaining only the sinews and cartilages, which, braced and contracted by the heat, became sonorous, and emitted a musical sound when struck, suggesting to him the idea of forming a musical instrument of the same materials. This legend, somewhat altered, appears in the tale of Homer, the invention being assigned by him to the Greek Mercury; who, having stolen some bulls from Apollo, and hidden them in a cave, and having there found a tortoise and perhaps eaten it, amused himself by stretching across the shell thongs from the hides of the bulls he had stolen, and having thus discovered the musical properties of cords thus stretched over a resonant shell, improved the instrument by adding to it the horns of the bulls, and afterwards presented the lyre thus formed to Apollo, as a peace-offering and indemnification for the theft he had committed. The early lyre certainly consisted of the shell of a tortoise, and the twisted horns of an antelope, with a piece of wood inserted between them, to which the strings were fastened; and so much importance was attached to the use of the tortoise-shell, that when wood was substituted for it, the wood was carved to represent the shell. This use of the shell of the tortoise is significant, for the tortoise is a sacred animal, both in the Eastern and Western hemispheres; and is not only connected with the flood legends of America, but Tezcatlipoca, the Mexican god of music, who ranked next to the Supreme Deity, is said to have brought music from heaven on a bridge of whales and turtles; and although this could scarcely have had any reference to the lyre, which was apparently unknown in Mexico, the myth is peculiarly interesting from the traces which are found, both there and in Peru, of that widely-spread legend concerning the search for the body of Osiris, which in Greece was transferred to Orpheus, and which is thus alluded to by Milton "What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore, When by the rout that made the hideous roar, Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?"1 In Mexico, the search was for the body of Quetzalcoatl; in Peru, for one of the Incas; but the myth is evidently the same in origin, and like the various Deluge legends must have been derived from some common source. Doubtless stringed instruments may have been invented in many different places independently; and in fact there are many known, which would seem to have no connection with the traditional lyre. The most simple of these is one found in South and West Africa, which consists of a bow, tightly strung with a sinew from the back of some wild animal of the goat or deer kind, to one end of which is tied a hollow gourd, which acts as a sounding-board. On the West Coast of Africa the gourd is sometimes replaced by a human skull, doubtless the ghastly record of some slaughtered enemy. This rude instrument would seem to be the precursor of the harp, which, perhaps of all musical instruments, is that which has passed through the greatest variety of form, as may be seen by a reference to the Egyptian and Assyrian sculptures and paintings. In most of these, especially in Egypt, the form of the bent bow is distinctly traceable, and it is a curious fact that in very many of them a human head adorns one of the ends, which ornament was also conspicuous on the old Irish harp, being probably a survival from a time when the harp was simply a strung bow with the skull of a slaughtered enemy as a sounding-board, like that of West Africa. 1 Lycidas. of our organ. The instrument is made to sound by being blown with the mouth through a kind of spout at the side of the bowl, and the tubes have holes to be played upon with the fingers. In Laos and Siam there is also a species of organ constructed on a principle similar to the cheng, though entirely dissimilar in outward appearance." 1 France can boast of the earliest organ, which was sent as a present to King Pepin, A.D. 757, from the Emperor Constantine VI., but in Italy, Germany, and England, the instrument became common in the 10th century, although Bingham asserts that there were no such things as organs in use in the ancient church, and that it was the general opinion of the learned in his days that organs were not introduced into churches till after the time of Thomas Aquinas, A.D. 1215. It is, however, generally supposed that we owe to St. Dunstan the first introduction of the organ into our English churches. It was perhaps whilst forging some portion of an organfor Dunstan was a skilful smith as well as musicianthat the celebrated interview with the devil took place, rendered familiar to us by the engravings and descriptions in old books. One night, says the legend, as Dunstan was hammering away at his forge, the devil, who had been accustomed to annoy the saint in the form of a bear, or a serpent, or a great black dog, came to him as a beautiful woman; but Dunstan, seizing the concealed fiend with his red-hot pincers, compelled the devil to reveal himself with tail, horns, hoofs, and fiery eyes in approved satanic guise; whilst his horrible cries alarmed the whole neighbourhood. The reason for the selection of St. Cecilia as patroness of sacred music, and especially of the organ, is not quite clear; there seems, however, a legend connected with her, which relates that an angel descended to listen to her music, and this legend has called forth two odes in our own language. Dryden sings "At last divine Cecilia came, 1 Engel's Music of the Most Ancient Nations, p. 18. The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store, With nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before; Or both divide the crown; And Pope repeats the story "When the full organ joins the tuneful choir, The best-known picture of St. Cecilia represents her with an instrument something like that portrayed in the ancient bagpipe from Tarsus, figured by Engel, consisting of a chest, in which is inserted a graduated set of Pandean pipes, which was doubtless the artist's representation of the most ancient instrument of the organ type which he had seen figured or described. It is difficult to know what constitutes sacred music; nevertheless in all countries certain strains have been from the very earliest ages regarded as appropriate to the worship of the gods. Perhaps to the scientific musician, a certain set of chords arranged in definite form is known to affect particular nerves, and thus to produce devout emotions, or feelings of religious fervour -emotions differing from those produced by other combinations, in that they calm and elevate even whilst rousing to enthusiasm, whereas in secular music the passions roused are unrestrained by moral and religious feelings. But such scientific niceties were unknown in the remote past, yet everywhere certain instruments and certain tones have been used in religious ceremonies only. Drums, rattles, and bells are everywhere instruments devoted to solemn uses, next to these the trumpet 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 |