MI:SETA a place set apart as a re pository for elisions, valuable. and biter ceting objects connected wills the arts and smenees, especially stud' OS relate to natural history. The term Was origi nally applied to a study or a place set apart for learned men in the royal palace of Alexandria, by Ptolemy Philadelphus who founded a college, and gave salaries to the several members, adding also an extensive library, which was one of the most celebrated in the world.
Al U'S[C, is the science of sounds, con sidered as capable of producing melody, and agreeably affecting the mind by a due disposition, combination, and propor tion. It treats of the number, time, division, succession, and combination of sounds. It is divided into theoretica/ music, which inquires into the properties of concords and discords, and explains their combinations anti proportions fur the production of melody and harmony; and practical music, which is the art of applying the theory of music in the com position of all sorts of tunes and airs. Al usie is also either vocal or instrumental. Vocal music is the melody of a single voice, or the harmony of two or more voices in Concert ; instrumental music is that produced by one or more instru ments. As civilization advances, musie, as a science. gains new advocates ; and the day is evidently fast approaching when few will decry music on the ground that its effects are merely sensual. It is addressed to the ear, indeed ; but all the influences which we receive from without arc conveyed through the medium of tho senses ; and the tones of music often speak a language to the sent richer in meaning than words could express.
Nothing is merely which makes a lasting spiritual impression upon us; and those who deny to music such a power, have not heard its sublimest strains, or have not the capacity to ap preciate them. With regard to the an tiquity of music, it appears to have been almost coeval with man. Moses tells in that Jabal, who lived before the flood, was the inventor of the kinnar and the hugah, i. 0. the harp and the organ. The Jews were fond of music in their re ligious ceremonies, their feasts, their piddle rejoicings, their marriages and their mournings. and great user. among the Jews studied music, and David made a very great proficiency in it. In their time, indeed, music had reached its highest perfection among lie Hebrew nation, an I part Of their religions service consisted in chanting, solemn psalms, with imd rum en tat aceoin pan i en t s.— The invention of the lyre is ascribed to Ilermes Trismegistus, the Mercury of the Egyptians, which is a proof of its anti quity : but a still greater proof of the existence of musical instruments amongst them at a very early period, is drawn from the figure of an instrument said to be represented on an obelisk, erected, as is supposed, by Sesostris at Heliopolis. The Greeks, we know, were exceedingly fond of music. It had a considerable share in their education ; and so great woes its influence over their bodies as well as their minds, that it was thought to be a remedy for many disorders.