I.YON KING-AT-ARMS. pliataz.n.] LYRA (the 'Harp), one of the old constellation., representing the lyre of Mercury (Aratus), or of Orpheus (Hvginua). it la surrounded by Cygnus, Aquila, Hercules, and the hoed of Draco. Its brightest star, a Lytle, also called N'ega, Is n conspicuous object. If n line he drawn through tho middle of Cassiopeia, the pole-star, and the middle of Ursa Major, this "tar rimy be seen nearly in the perpendicular to that line drawn through the pole-star. When Aquila is known, a line drawn through Its four neighbouring stars, 6, /4, a, and 7, will pees through s Lyra*. Its principal stars are as follows :— - LYRE (A6pa), a musical instniment of the stringed kind, known, ?rider various names, from the earliest historical period. The Greeks ascribe its invention, some to Hermes, some to Apollo; but it is possible that they may have had it from the Egyptians, and the Egyptians from Asia. Indeed Holy Writ leads ua to conclude that it was of antediluvian origin. Jubei, the seventh only in descent from Adam, was " father of all such as handle the harp and organ ;" and as by the word harp wo are to understand either the lyre itself, or seine instrument analogous to it, we must, on such authority, grant to the son of Lamed' the merit of being its inventor. In our version of the Scripture, kisser is rendered by the word harp, while the Septuagint and Vulgate give the Hebrew term a Greek forin—edalpa, sit era, a word generally, though we believe erroneously, supposed to be synonymous with atpa, or lyre. Erroneously, we say, because it is our opinion that lyre and cithara (or guitar) were generie terms ; the first being the parent of all instruments of the harp kind, having no neck or finger-board ; the last, of all those furnished with a neck, and which finger-board probably MO divided by frets. IGUITArt; HART.] It is true that in all the remains of Grecian art, no Instrument with a neck is to be found. Artiste perhaps preferred the more compact
and elegant form of what is now called the Grecian lyre. The same taste descended to the moderns witness the statue of Handel formerly in Vauxhall Oardens, as Dr. Burney well remarks. tells us that he had examined the sculptured representations of six hundred ancient lyres and citharas, and found not one with a neck. But had the learned father—who was a most excellent and indefatigable anti quary—lived in the present day, he would have met with abundant evidence in Egypt to prove that instrunionts with necks—Instruments of the guitar kind, such as were subsequently called lutes—existed at least three thousand years ago. The three-stringed guitar, says Sir J. G. Wilkinson (' Manners and Customs of the Ancient was in no, at tho earliest period of the Egyptian history; "those at the Pyramids are apparently of • date long previous to Osrtasen, or the arrival of Joseph." And in Rosellini's splendid work 1 Monumenti dell' Egitto e della Nubia' are many engravings, some coloured, ex hibiting instruments of great antiquity, resembling in essential points the modern guitar, or lute, with a neck, but this much elongated.
The most ancient Grecian lyre—said to have been formed by Hermes from the shell of a tortoise, and of which the annexed is a representa tion, as given by Mersenne, had but three strings (fag. 1). That of Terpander (from Blanchinus) had seven, and took the form given in fig. 2.
Timotheus increased the number to eleven ; and others were gradu ally added, till they reached sixteen, fifteen of which rendered the principal sounds in the Greek scale, and the sixteenth was the Proslambanomenos, that is, the added or supernumerary sound.