We deem it unnecessary to follow our author through his three frondose genera. To the arrangement we think it but just to give the praise of considerable inge. nuity ; but it certainly appears to us to be utterly unfit for the purposes of discrimination, and to give little or no information respecting the natural affinities of species ; and hence to have no chance of being followed. NVe observe that there is nu allusion to Dr. Hooker's mono. graph in the paper. We hope that it has subsequently fallen into the author's hands, and doubt not that it will assist him much in the study of this genus.
Jungermannia vve take to be, like Erica, Solanum, and several others, an extensive vegetable type, un susceptible, at least in the present state of our know ledge, of subdivision into genera ; but of which the species, when arranged under well devised sections, like those of Mr. Dryander for Erica, or of Dr. Hooker for Jungermannix, are perhaps as easily mastered, as if each of these established genera were subdivided into twenty new ones, with unexceptionable generic characters, or characters that are exceptionable only on account of the minuteness of the parts from which they were taken, their being discoverable perhaps only upon very minute dissection, and the consequent difficulty of investigation. It would of course be quite useless to compare such an array of sections with generic characters of an inferior. description.
We would earnestly recommend to all who attempt to make 'arrangements in systematic botany, that they continence with a minute investigation of all the parts, certainly at least of all the parts most important, wtth regard to classification, of all the species to be included in the arrangement, or at least of as many of the spe cies as may be accessible to them. By no other means do we conceive it possible, that a new arrangement of plants that have been long known, which could serve any practical purpose, could be forined.
Consult Dillenii Historia Muscorum, 4io. Oxon. 1741, or the Edinburgh reprint. Mit heli, ..A.rova Genera Plan tarum, tol. Flor. 1723. Hi.dwig, Fundumentum Histo rix ..Vaturalis Muscorum Frondosorunz, 4to. Lips. 1782. Ejusd. Theoria Generationis et Fructificationis Planta rum Cryptogarnicarum Linnei. 2c1 ed. 4:o. Lips. 1798. Ejusd. Species Muscorum, 4to. Lips. 1801. Bridel, Muscologia Recentiorum, 4 vols. 4.o. 1797-1819. Sir J. E Smith, in English Botany, 36 vols. 8vo. various years; in Flora Britannica, 3 vols. 8vo. 1800-1802; in R,es' Encyclopcedia, uoder different titles. Sprenge,'s Introduction to the Study of Cryptoganzous Plants, 8vo. Dt Candolle in Flore Franyaise, 2,1 edit. 6 vuls. 8vo. Hooker and Taylor's Muscologia Britannica. 8vo. 1818. Hooker's Abaci Exotici. 2 vols. 41o. do. Monograph of the British Jungermasodx, 1 vol. 4to. do. In Flora Lon dinensis, 2:! series, fol. do. On Tayloria splachnoides in Brandt', Journal, vol. 2d. Various papers in the Linmean Transactions, and in various French and other foreign journals.
MU I. Music is one of the fine arts, whose object is to give pleasure by the proper succession and combination of sounds. The word is derived front the Greek MOYEA, Musa, I n modern times music consists of two principal brancher—illelody, or the proper succession of single sounds ; and Harmony, or the proper combination of si multaneous sounds. These two united form Music: The former, indeed, may perhaps subsist independently of the latter; but harmony cannot well exist without the melodious arrangement of each of the several parts of which it is composed.
2. Music is probably nearly coeval with our race, or, at least, with the first attempts to preserve the memory of transactions. Bcfore the invention of writing, the
history of remarkable events was committed to niemory, and handed clown by oral tradition. The knowledge of laws, and of useful arts, WaS preserved in the same way. Rhythm and song were probably soon found important helps to the memory; and thus the muses became the early instructors of mankind. Nor was it long, we may conjecture, before dancing and song united, contributed to festivity, or to the solemnities of religion.
3. The first instruments of music were probably of the pulsatile kind, and rhythm, it is likely, preceded the ob servation of those intervals of sound which are so pleas ing to the ear. The first mention of stringed instru ments, however, precedes the deluge. Tubal, the sixth descendant from Cain, was " the father of all such as handle the harp and the organ." About 550 years after the deluge, or 1800 before Christ, according to (lie Bible chronology,both vocal and instrumental music are spoken of as things in common use: " And Laban said, what has thou done that thou hast stolen away nnawares to me, and carried away my daughters as captives taken with the sword? Wherefore didst thou flee away secretly, and steal away from me, and didst not tell me, that I might have sent thee away with mirth, and with songs, vith tabret, and with harp ?" 4. Egypt has been called the cradle of the arts and sciences, and there can be no doubt of the very early civilization of that country. To the Egyptian Mercury, or Thoth, who is called Trismegistos, or thrice illustri ous, is ascribed the invention of the Lyre, which had at first only three strings. It would be idle Io mention the various conjectures how these strings were tuned, or to try to settle the chronology of this invention. The single flute, which they called Photinx, is also ascribed to the Egyptians. Its shape was that of. a horn, of which no doubt it was originally madc. Before the invention of these instruments, as Dr. Burney justly observes, " Music could have been little more than metrical, as no other instruments except tnose of percussion were known. \Vim) the art was first discovered of refining and sus taining tones, the power of music over mankind was pro bably irresistible, from the agreeable surptise which soft and lengthened sounds must have occasioned." The same learned miter has given a drawing, made under his own eye, of an Egyptian musical instrument, repre sented on a very ancient obelisk at Rome, brought Irom Egypt by Augustus. This obelisk is supposed to have been erected at Heliopolis, by Sesostris, near four hun dred years before the Trojan war. The most remarkable thing in this instrument is, that it is furnished with a neck, so that its two strings were capable of furnishing a great number of sounds. This is a contrivance which the Greeks, with all their ingenuity, never hit upon. " I have never been able," says the doctor, " to discover in any remains of Greek sculpture, an instrument fur nished with a neck ; and Father AIontfaucon says, that in examining the representations of near five hundred ancient lyres, harps, and cytharas, he never met with one in which there was any contrivance for shortening thc strings, during the titne of performance, as by a neck and finger-board." 5. From the long residence of the Hebrews in Egypt, it is no improbable conjecture that their music was de rived from that source. However that may be, music, vocal and instrumental, made one important part of their religious service. If the excellence of the tnusic was conformable to the sublimity of the poetry which it ac companied, there would be no injustice in supposing it unspeakably superior to that of every othcr people.