gible. Terpander is said to have first invented notation in Greece, 671 years B.C., before which time, much must have depended on the memory and taste of the performers. The system of notation, when complete, was very intricate-being based upon the letters of the alphabet, mutilated, variously altered and modified by accents and arbitrary marks, thus increasing the musical signs to upwards of sixteen hundred, the mere acquisition of which involved the labour of years. Several undoubted fragments of Greek music are preserved in ancient MSS., but every attempt hitherto made to render them is unsatisfactory in the extreme. The scale consisted of two octaves, the notes being arranged in tetrachords or groups of four notes each. Their music, too, was of three kinds

-the diatonic, or natural scale; the chromatic, introducing semitones; and the enharmonic, dividing the scale into quarter tones or lesser intervals. The various effects of the different modes1 were probably introduced in a way similar to our modern changes of key and rhythm.

We read of musical instruments costing enormous sums, rivalling those frequently paid by our Cremona fanciers; and also of favourite flute-players, or lyrists, receiving rewards equal to the salaries demanded by first-class opera singers of the present day. Whenever

1 "There were four principal Nomoi, or modes; the Phrygian, which was religious; the Doric, martial; the Lydian, plaintive; and the Ionic, gay and flowery. Some add a fifth, the Æolic, which was simple. The mode used to excite soldiers to battle, was called Orthios. In later times the term Nomoi was applied to the hymns which were sung in those modes."-"Potter's Grecian Antiquities," p. 666.

Amabæus the harper sang in public, he received an attic talent for his performance.1

Dryden, in his "Ode to St. Cecilia," has described the thrilling effect of Timotheus' lyre on the mind of Alexander. Historians have recorded the marvellous power of music on the battle-field, to rouse, calm, or inflame to deeds of desperate valour; hence its habitual use. Such accounts do not exceed authentic instances in modern days, such as the effect of the trumpet on Abyssinian soldiers as described by Bruce-the frantic enthusiasm roused in the Arabs by the peculiar shrill cry or Tahleel of the women, of which Layard writes-or the song of the Marseillaise, and other airs, on masses of the French people. Frequently has the Ranz des Vaches to the Swiss, or the Pibroch to the Highlander, conjured up pictures of home, filling the heart with a sad longing; but as often has it raised the drooping spirit of the soldier, cheering him on to death or victory!

As to the actual character of Greek music, the national airs of all countries, when analyzed, are found to conform to certain scales, in accordance with the mental and physical constitution of man; from existing national music, therefore, in various countries, we may reasonably infer somewhat concerning that of primitive times. Dr. Burney is of opinion, that both the ancient melodies of Greece and China were similar in character to those of Scotland-a conclusion which many collateral facts render extremely probable. For, exhibiting great versatility, the dance music of Scotland, unrivalled in spirit and force, is absolutely electric; its serious melodies are often highly polished and graceful; while those of a plaintive

1 Nearly £200 sterling.

character are as exquisitely pathetic as can well be conceived.

It is deeply to be regretted that the musical chef d'œuvres of the Greeks-a people with whom the love of art was a passion, and whose native atmosphere of thought was the Beautiful-should have been, it is to be feared, irrecoverably lost; and that the magic strains of Orpheus, Amphion, Terpander, Tyrtæus, and "burning Sappho," together with the recitative and chorus of the Athenian stage itself, alas! can only be heard in imagination. Joyfully, contentedly, and beautifully, however, does John Keats-in the "Ode on a Grecian Urn," with "its flowery tale" or "leaf-fringed legend," "In Tempè or the dales of Arcady,"-with the true creative faculty, exclaim

"Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on!" 1

The music of the Romans was, in early times, rude and coarse. From the Etruscans they derived their religious music, and from the Greeks their military music and that of the drama. Fast becoming degenerate and

1 "A few specimens of Greek melody, expressed in the ancient notation, have come down to us. An account of them may be found in Burney (vol. i., p. 83), where they are given with modern notes in a conjectural rhythm. One of the best of them may also be seen in Bockh (iii. 12), with a different rhythm. It is composed to the words of the first Pythian, and is supposed by Boeckh to be certainly genuine, and to belong to a time earlier than the fifteen modes." (See "Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities," 2d Ed., article "Music," p. 778 especially.) We have not met with this air, but, since the above was in type, have, in answer to enquiries, received from a friend the following interesting communication regarding it:-"The music consists only of a couple of lines. I cannot at the moment lay my hands on it; but I know a Greek lady of great beauty and talent

corrupt as a people, that art, which in Greece was employed to teach morality and virtue, was perverted into an object of mere luxury. Soon afterwards it began to decline, rapidly falling into disuse, till in a short time the music of Greece, which they had adopted, was entirely forgotten; and, for what little we now know of it, we are chiefly indebted to the few ancient treatises on the subject which have survived the dark ages, and to incidental allusions throughout the classics.

In

The early Christians were in the habit of singing, or chanting hymns, the character of the music being solemn and slow, a grave sweet melody, capable of being accompanied on the psaltery, which it probably was when harp players were found among the converts. Ephesians v. 19-"Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord," psallontes (roaλλOVTEG) -the word which in our version is rendered "making melody," is literally playing on the psaltery, psallo being

who sings it, and every time I go I request to hear it. It sounds like a church chaunt deep, sonorous, and solemn-grand as the ideas of Pindar, and such as we can only conceive of in great cathedral choirs. It is a solemn and deep music, such as we can readily believe was sung on the steps of the temple of Solomon, when the songs of degrees were sung; and we can readily believe it, coming from the East, to be repeated in the temples of Greece, to make in time the Ambrosian and Gregorian chaunts, and the sacred music of Beethoven and the moderns, but more especially if church music, which has had the best chance of being preserved. The solemn church music is undoubtedly ancient. It must either have begun or passed through Greece. We can then connect the most glorious ideas with Greek music; and when we hear this beautiful piece of Pindar's Pythian, we can feel that the Greeks had solemn thoughts as well as we who have seen cathedrals."-R. A. S.

the verb from which psalm is derived. Calvin, notwithstanding his own violent opposition to instrumental music, in his notes on Colossians iii. 16, defines "a psalm" to be "that species of song, in the singing of which some musical instrument is employed beside the voice." Such praise, commanded on earth, we read of in the Apocalypse of St. John, as being the employment of the redeemed, and of the holy angels in heaven.

The primitive church probably adopted the same strains which had been sung under the former dispensation, nor is it unlikely that the pagan music of various countries also furnished airs, which, thus, in time would become consecrated to higher uses. A few Culdee melodies are extant, which would seem to have been handed down from this early period. Copies of several of these we received from the late Dr. Mainzer; simple and plaintive, there is a strangeness in their beauty which association renders extremely interesting.

About the close of the fourth century, St. Ambrose digested the music then in use among the Christians into a system, retaining the Greek method of notation. He was the first to introduce the antiphonal singing of the psalms-i.e., the singing of verses alternately by the choir-from Antioch, to Milan whence it was generally received and adopted throughout Christendom under the name of the Ambrosian Chant. The effect of this music appears to have been great. St. Augustine, speaking of his sensations on entering the church while the choir was singing, says, "As the voices flowed into my ears, truth was instilled into my heart, and the affections of piety overflowed in tears of joy."

Two centuries later, under Gregory the Great, further