FIGURE ILLUSTRATIONS. X. THREE ANCIENT THEBAN BOW-SHAPED HARPS... XI. ANCIENT CITHARA WITH THREE STRINGS....... XIV. Two GRAND EGYPTIAN HARPS... XV. THREE FIGURES SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT JOSEPH'S BRETHREN, ONE OF WHOM IS PLAYING UPON AN 93 FIGURE PAGE XXII. Two ANCIENT FORMS OF THE ORGAN.. ..... XXVI. FOUR OTHER FORMS OF EGYPTIAN SISTRA....... XXVII. ANCIENT EGYPTIAN PULSATILE INSTRUMENTS... 100 XXXIII. ANCIENT GUITAR (Nebhel) OF THE HEBREWS...... 158 MUSIC OF THE BIBLE. INTRODUCTION. In ancient times the signification of the term music was far more comprehensive than it is at present. It included dancing, gesture, poetry, and sometimes the aggregate of all the sciences. Hence philosophers were accustomed to speak of music human, divine, terrestrial, celestial, active, contemplative, enunciative, intellectual, and oratorical. Many passages of the early writers upon the subject, would be entirely unintelligible, did we not understand them as including, in the term, these ideas. Some also in modern times have similar conceptions. The Chinese speak of music as the science of the sciences -as the means of acquiring, and as lying at the foundation of every other species of knowledge. The union of Cadmus and Hermione in marriage, would seem to present all the sciences as having received their birth by the combined influence of music and letters. Rosseau asserts that music is the art of combining tunable sounds in a manner agreeable to the ear. Aristides Quintilianus defines it to be the art of finding the beautiful and decorous in musical tones, and in their measure. Pfeiffer, a noted German writer, remarks |