6. The Greeks certainly received the rudiments of learning and of the arts from Egypt ; but in the fine arts they excelled their masters and all others. Among the Egyptians, painting, statuary, and rnusic became stationary, and were even fixed by the laws. Among the Greeks, on the contrary, the highest encourage ments were continually held out to improvement, and that perfection was obtained which the admired remains of antiquity exhibit. It is not questioned that in architecture and statuary they produced models which the moderns baldly hope to equal. Music among them was always of capital importance in their religious rites, their processions, their games, and their theatrical representations. The same honours and reNvards were held out to excellence in this as in the sister arts. The same contests excited emulation among candidates for fame and wealth. Ilence music may well be supposed to have been carried to the same perfection as the other fine arts • and should we give implicit credit to the assertions of the learned, this was the case. But when We come to particulars, we do not find these expectations justified. On the contrary, every candid and qualified judge will find abundant reason to conclude, that they stopt at a point of perfection far lower than what has been attained by the artists of modern Europe.
7. The diatonic scale, to which we have been accustomed from infancy, appears to us so simple and natural, that we should suppose it to have been one of the earliest discoveries in the science or art. This was, however, by no means the case. The first Grecian lyre, attributed to Mercury, had only four strings, which is believed to have been nearly the notes which the moderns call E, F, G, A, beginning on the third space of the bass. The additions of other strings to this lyre are ascribed to different musicians, Linus, Orpheus, Thamyras, who added strings corresponding to D, C, B, extending the scale downwar6ds- which completed the hep tachord, or scale of seven sound's, a compass, says Dr. Bur ney, which receiN ed no addition till after the time of Pindar, who calls the instrument then in use the seven-tongued lyre. According to Suidas, the Grecian lyre had only four strings from the time of Amphion till that of Terpander, a period of 856 years, who added the three strings which completed the heptachord, consisting of two conjoint tetrachorcls. About 150 years after this period, Pythagoras is said to have added or introduced an eighth string, which completed the octave from B to b; which then consisted of two disjunct tetra chords. It is to be observed that the interval of perfect fourth, which the Greeks call a tetrachord,•was a favourite interval with them, and on the different ways of filling up this interval, depended their different genera which we shall giNe some account of bye and bye. To ;he octachord of Pythagoras was afterwards added a graver strin5 corre sponding to our A, on the first space in the bass. This string was called proslambanomenos, or added-string, and was the grayest sound of the Grecian scale.
Subsequent additions to the acute part of the scale ex tended it to the double octave above proslambanomenos. This was called the great system, the perfect and immuta ble system.
8. This system they considered as composed of five tetra chords, with the note proslambanomenes, or added-note, which was not reckoned as part of the tetrachords. The system is exhibited in the following scale, in modern nota tion.
4th HAI-.
Each tetrachord ascending, proceeds by a semitone and two tones. The first and second tetrachords, as also the third and fourth, are conjoint, that is, the highest note of the former, is the lowest of the latter : the second and third te trachords are disjoint, being separated by a tone. The fifill tetrachord began with the middle sound of the lyre or oc tave to proslambanomenos, so that it comprehended part of the second, and part of the third tetrachords, like the others, ascending by semitone and two tones. This tetrachord seems to have been formed for the sake of a perfect fourth, to the sixth of the scale.
9. Such was the diatonic scale of the Greeks at its gravest pitch, or in their gravest mode. But they used this scale at many different pitches, and these constituted their modes, which word, therefore, is analogous to our keys. Aristoxe nus, the oldest Nvriter on music, whose works have come down to us, and who was contemporary with Aristotle, ad mitted only thirteen modes, though subsequent musicians allowed of fifteen. There seem to have been originally five modes, the Dorian, Ionian, Phrygian, /Eolian, and Lydian, rising above each other by semitones. To each of these
belonged their relative modes, fourth above and fourth be low, expressed by the addition of hyper and' hypo; as Hy perdorian, Hypodorian, &c. The scale above described, is the Hypodorian, which is generally allowed to have had its proslambanomenos of the pitch of our A, on the first space in the bass. The following table, therefore, shows the whole in their relations to each other.
Aristoxenus refused admission to the Hypermolian, and Hyperlydian, as being only octaves of the Hypoionian and Hypophrygian. For the same reason, Ile might have re jected the Hyperphrygian, being the octave of the Hypo dorian. But these seem to have been admitted as com pleting the Phrygian, .Eolian, and Lydian, by ftu-nishing them with the relative modes in the fourth above. The names of these modes point out very clearly the connexion Ar hich the ancients, as the moderns do, felt to subsist between these related keys. Allowing two octaves to each of these modes, the whole compass of the fifteen, was three octaves and one tone, from A on the first space in the bass, to B over the first ledger line. above the staff in the treble. The ancients ascribed Nery different effects to these modes, inso much that it is difficult to conceive these could have ari.sen from a mere transposition of the same intervals to a different pitch. Hence, it has been conjectured that some other cha racter arising out of the rhythm, or the poetry to which the music was set, belonged to each mode. " 1 should sup pose," says Dr. Burney, 46 that in times of musical refine ment among the ancients, when the characteristics of national melody were somewhat effaced, the names of the musical modes had much the same use as our technical terms gra zioso, grave, allegro, con ficria, and that in lyric poetry, there were particular species of feet allotted to each mode. If that was the case, we might easily suppose that a change of mode would be a change of style and measure." This supposition has some countenance by the observation, " that DIorley and all the old writers upon modern music, before the nse of bars, affixed no other meaning to the modes or moods, as they were then called, than that of regulators of time or 2neastire." 10. " It is remarkable," says Dr. Burney, " that all the ancient modes or keys were minor, which must have given a melancholy cast to their melody in general; and however strange this may appear, it is as certain as any point con cerning ancient music can be, that no provision \vas made for a major key in any of the ancient treatises or systems that are come down to us." But the truth is, that no cont parison can well be made between ancient music and the modern modes, whether major or minor. The characteris tic distinctions of these modern modes arise out of the thirds and sixths of the scales major and rninor ; and of true con sonant thirds and sixths, the ancients had no knowledge for many ages, comprehending the most splendid periods of their history. They admitted no other concords but fourths, fifths, and octaves, which being always tuned perfect, their diatonic tetrachord was divided into two major tones and a small interval usually called a semitone, btu which Euclid demonstrated to be much smaller. The thirds were there fore all so false, that it is no wonder they ranked them among the discords. Their melodies consequently were built on principles very different from ours. The diatonic. scale of the ancient Greeks, indeed, is to our ears so 'in tuited, that it is extremely difficult to fancy that any toler able melody could be drawn from it. Harmony, in the modern sense of the word, is alto;!,ether out of the question.* 11. Ditlynms, an eminent musician of Alexandria, who was cotemporary with the Roman emperor Nero, was the first who described the true major third, consisting of a ma jor and a minor tone; the major or diatonic semitone, which results from subtracting this major third from the per fect fourth; and the minor third, consisting of major tone and major semitone; yet his arrangement of the intervals was not that which is found best for the purposes of modern harmony. Ptolemy, the celebrated astronomer and geo meter, who flourished about 150 years after the Christian era, among many other arrangements of the scale, first pro posed what is our modern diatonic, which Ile calls Diato Intensum: so long was it ere our simplest scale of musical notes WaS invented.