MUSIC, HISTORY OF. The origin of music is involved in an obscurity which no ingenuity, no labour, has hitherto been able to dispel ; analogy and conjecture, therefore, have supplied the want of facts, in the absence of any assistance except what doubtful histories and the fables of mythologists have afforded, which at best have held out but a dim light, and more often misled than aided the inquirer in his researches.
It has been supposed by some writers whose names stamp a value on all that has proceeded from them, that song and speech are coeval, an opinion which will hardly be disputed, if by song are meant sounds which, though vocal and sustained, are devoid of rhythm, governed by no scale, and consequently productive of no melody, in the modern acceptation of the word ; .but if the term is intended to signify a regular system of tunable measured notes, then we shall not hesitate to say that such advance towards art could only havo been made by people proceeding fast In civilisation, and communing through the medium of a language adequate to all the ordinary purposes of man in a social state.
We arc told by Lucretius, in a passage often quoted from the fifth book of his poem' De lterum Natura; that the birds taught man to sing, and that the invention of musical instruments of the inflatile kind was suggested to him by the sounds produced from reeds when the western wind blew over them "the birds Instructed man, And taught bim songs before his art began. And while soft evening gales blew o'er the plains, And shook the sounding reeds, they taught the swains; And thus the pipe was fram'd, and tuneful reed." This has certainly the merit of being very poetical, whatever reliance the historian may place on it. The same notion concerning wind instru ments is found in Ovid's beautiful account of the transformation of the nymph Syrinx into reeds. But Thonias Aquinas, the "Angelic doctor," cited by Padre Giambattista Martini, in his Storia della Musica; dis dains to follow the example of the heathen author of the Metamor phoses; or the disciple of Epicurus, and leave the origin of music to chance ; on the contrary, the noble Italian saint informs us that the first man was endowed by the Creator with every kind of knowledge, and that he excelled in music, as well as in all other arts and sciences.
But quitting the ingenious guesses and fictions of poets and the reveries of enthusiasts, we find Jubal, the seventh in descent from Adam, mentioned in Scripture as "the father of such as handle the harp and organ." These terms, however, must not be understood
quite literally ; they are generic, and signify all instruments of the stringed and tube kind. The different versions vary in the translation of the original : the French render the word harp by riolon. Though the earliest authentic record of music extant is that in Genesis, yet it is nearly certain that the Jews acquired their knowledge of it from the Egyptians. The whole generation of the Iraelites led forth by Moses from their captivity were born in Egypt, iu which it seems to be agreed music as an art originated ; though Diodorus Siculus even denies that it was ever practised there : but his assertion is not only in opposition to Herodotus, and at utter variance with what Plato says, who travelled into that country to become acquainted with the arts and sciences, but is proved by modern discoveries to be the very reverse of truth. The fresco painting of a harp, found by Bruce in an ancient tomb near the ruins of Thebes, which is undoubtedly of very high antiquity, is an indisputable proof of the progress made by the early Egyptians in music. In form, dimensions, and ornament, this instrument might be mistaken for one of modern date, insomuch that when a drawing of it was first shown in London considerable doubts were entertained of its fidelity. Forty years after, however, M. Deuon bore testimony to the truth of Bruce's description and the accuracy of his sketch, since which Rosellini's Monumenti dell' Egitto ' and Wilkinson's Ancient Egypt' have confirmed all that the two forMer had said on the subject. Other instruments have been found sculp tured or painted on Egyptian monuments, several of which are in the British Museum, and they furnish evidence of the state of music in Egypt in the remotest times. These are' sufficient proofs of early Egyptian knowledge in the musical art. That it continued to be cultivated in Egypt under the Macedonian dynasty there can be no doubt. Athennus, in his account of a Bacchic festival given by Ptolemy Philadelphus,—the munificent patron of all the liberal and useful arts, who made Egypt the mart of the world,—tells us that more than 600 musicians were employed in the chorus, and that among these were 300 performers on the cithara, or lyre.