and fears; and also of our readiness to justify them. But, shall such things, vitiate and set aside the law of Christ's kingdom before recited, rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice?

No: this is as irreversible as any other statute of the eternal realm. It has been given out, not to be neglected, but obeyed. It is the duty of all Christians to rejoice evermore, and the importance of their fulfilling this duty, no tongue can fully tell. Immortal souls, in countless multitudes, have gone to an undone eternity, in consequence of its not having been fulfilled; the salvation of the world still lingers from the same cause; for want of holy joy in the church, all the means of grace in operation are comparatively ineffectual; the millenium is kept back, on this sole account; and the gloominess and sadness of Christians, keep up a sort of rejoicing among the spirits of darkness.

ARTICLE II.

WHAT KIND OF INSTRUMENTS OF MUSIC WERE IN USE AMONG THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS?

By Oliver A. Taylor, Assistant Teacher of Hebrew, in Theol. Sem. Andover.

It is generally admitted that the ancient Jews did, in their manners and habits, arts and sciences, adopt much that was Egyptian. Hence, learned men have long been accustomed to resort, so far as they could, to the antiquities of Egypt, for aid in illustrating them. It is indeed much to be questioned whether these means have not sometimes been too implicitly relied on. It is never after all to be forgotten, that the Jews, also had their own national peculiarities, and that in searching among the Egyptians for what is Jewish, we are always to confine ourselves to certain limits. There is perhaps no one department of sacred literature in which assistance of this kind is more needed, than in the elucidation of the music of the ancient Hebrews; and no one perhaps, in which it may be more safely employed. We may not indeed, even in this way, be enabled to determine the specific form of the Jewish nabhel, nor to fix VOL. IX. No. 26.

35

at once upon the exact construction and character of the kinnor of David. If, however, we can arrive at definite general results, much will be done. At least all light should be welcomed from whatever quarter it comes; and, by ascertaining what kind of musical instruments were in reality anciently common among the Egyptians, especially when taken in connexion with those that are now common in the oriental world, we shall be able to enter into the investigation of the subject of the music of the Jews with much more satisfaction, and with far greater certainty of success than otherwise.

At the time, however, when Pfeiffer's treatise was publisheda treatise to which, as it appeared in the Bib. Repos. Vol. VI. p. 136 seq., this article is supplementary, the very antiquities of Egypt were comparatively unknown to the learned world. Especially was it ignorant of their testimony as gathered from sculptures and paintings, to the forms of ancient musical instruments. Of the travellers who had visited this country, very few had troubled themselves much about the subjects before us. Hints indeed are thrown out; but these, for the most part, are all that we find.

Dr. Shaw, in his Travels or Observations Relating to Several Parts of Barbary and the Levant, the materials of which were collected between the years 1720 and 1733, presents us with some valuable information respecting the state of music as he found it in these countries and particularly in the Barbary States, interwoven with here and there a remark respecting the more ancient music. Of his labors I have already occasionally availed myself in the notes to the treatise above mentioned. When, however, he comes to speak of the ancient ruins of Egypt, he scarcely does any thing more than to inform us, as many had done before, that instruments of music, and especially the sistrum, are found among the hieroglyphics and sculptures of this country.1

Dr. Alexander Russell has also furnished us with some information, correct and valuable so far as it goes, of the present state of music and musical instruments, of at least a part of the

1 See Vol. I. p. 202 seq.. Vol. II. p. 350 seq. ed. 1757. Comp. Bibl. Repos. Vol. VI. p. 153 Note, p. 166 Note, p. 372 Note, p. 373 Note. The first edition of Dr. Shaw's work was published in 1738; the second with considerable enlargement, by way of vindication from attacks, in 1757. A French translation was published in 1743; where the same may be found, Tom. I. p. 346, Tom. II. p. 124 seq.

East, in his Natural History of Aleppo. Of the ancient music of this region, and much less of the music of the ancient Egyptians, it was not his province to speak; and of course he says nothing which has a very direct bearing upon the subject.

In the years 1737 and 1738, Egypt was also visited by Capt. Norden and Dr. R. Pococke, both of them intelligent men, and the latter quite a distinguished traveller. These gentlemen who were in this country at the same time, though unacquainted with each other's persons and designs, agreed in giving such a splendid account of its antiquities as to confirm all that previous writers had said of its former magnificence. To the elucidation of the musical instruments, however, of this country, in ancient times, they do not seem to have greatly contributed. Dr. Pococke makes here and there a passing remark upon the subject. He also brought with him a seal from Egypt, on which there was cut a kind of harp, but which was of no very great authority; and a statue of Isis on which there was sculptured a sistrum.2

To the work of Norden, who travelled at the command of the king of Denmark, and which first made its appearance from the press in French at Copenhagen, in 1752, in two large folio volumes, with plates, and afterwards in various languages, 1 have not access.3 From the Fragments to Calmet, we learn, that he found the guitar in use among the modern Egyptians.

4

1 The first edition of this work, by Alexander Russell, an eminent physician, for many years of the English Factory, or trading establishment, at Aleppo, appeared in 1754. The second, edited and enlarged by Patr. Russell, a brother of the preceding, and his successor at the English Factory, appeared at London in 1794, and is the one before me. In this last edition, Niebuhr is often quoted. For what is there said of eastern music, see Vol. I. pp. 142, 145, 147, 150-156, with pl. IV. and Note XXXIX. p. 386.

2 See Description of the East, Vol. I. p. 214, pl. LXV., for the seal; for the sistrum, see Bib. Repos. Vol. VI. p. 406, Note 8, p. 408 Note 2. Dr. Pococke, on page 186, also describes the Nakous, a kind of castanets; which may be seen in his Plate LVII. fig. W. On p. 192, he speaks also of the dancing women described by Niebuhr. See Bib. Repos. VI. p. 163, Note 1 and references.

3 See Rosenmüller's Handbuch der biblischen Alterthumskunde, ler B. 1er Th. p. 85.

4 Calmet's Dict. Vol. III. p. 338, No. 233. Charlestown 1813.

Further, I know not that he has imparted any new information upon the subject.

In regard to the ancient music of the Hebrews, therefore, the learned at the time in which Pfeiffer wrote, could obtain little or no assistance from the antiquities of Egypt. Beyond the few hints, found in the Bible upon the subject, and an imperfect knowledge of the state of music and the forms and characters of musical instruments in the East at the present day, regarded in the main as illustrative of those of ancient times and as in many cases, probably identically the same, they were still obliged to content themselves with the scattering hints which they could derive from the Romans, Greeks, and Phenicians, a few coins, the Isiac table, and some broken or dilapidated sculptures, such as the arch of Titus,2 many of them of uncertain authority, and all falling far short of being satisfactory.

Dr. Pococke, however, in giving an account of the magnificent tomb of Ismonides or Osymandyas, so particularly described by Diodorus Siculus,3 had remarked, that the walls of its rooms were still adorned with sculpture, and with instruments of music. This last statement, taken in connexion with the great antiquity of this tomb, built probably not far from 2000 years before Christ, had excited in Dr. Burney, as he himself tells us, an ardent desire to know what kind of musical instruments they were. The death of both these travellers, however, had put it out of his power to consult them. In the mean time, from a broken Egyptian pillar, of great antiquity1 in the

1 Discovered at Rome in 1525. It is now lost; but accurate drawings of it are preserved. It is of uncertain origin; by some thought to be really Egyptian; but by others, supposed to have been made only for the Egyptians, at Rome. Among other emblems, it contains a sistrum and a harp. See Rees, Art. Isiac; Burney, Hist. Music, Vol. I. p. 205, 520; Montfauc. Antiquitates in compendium Redactae, p. 174; and Jablonski Opuscula, Tres Dissertationes, Tom. II. pp. 227-273.

2 Some account of it, with plates, may be found in Calinet, Vol. III. p. 259, No. 203, ed. Charlestown, 1813.

3 Lib. I. c. 47, ed. Tauchn.

4 MS. p. 3. This broken pillar or obelisk, with another, was brought to Rome, at the command of Augustus, after he had reduced Egypt to a Roman province. It is supposed to have been erected at Heliopolis, by Sesostris, perhaps in commemoration of the invention of the Egyptian guitar, nearly 400 years before the Trojan war.

It was

Campus Martius at Rome, the doctor had obtained the drawing of an instrument which he has given to us, in his history of music. It is a kind of dichord guitar, corresponding in shape and size as near as can be judged, to number seven of Pfeiffer,1 excepting that the globe or sounding part of it, at the lower end, approximates nearer to a parallelogram with rounded corners. This is the instrument of which I have spoken in Bibl. Repos. Vol. VI, p. 371, note 6.

Soon afterwards, Mr. Bruce having returned from his travels, the doctor applied to him for any new information upon the subject, which he might have obtained. In reply, Mr. Bruce furnished the doctor with quite a minute account of the music of the Abyssinians, and what was of far more consequence, with the drawing and some account of quite a splendid instrument called the Theban harp, which he found in one of the tombs of the Theban kings. Of this instrument I have also taken notice in the above note.2 Respecting the credibility of Mr. Bruce's drawing and description of this instrument, there were for a long time many doubts, which we are told, were by no means removed by a pleasantry of lord North, who said, "It was not a harp, it was a lyre.' 993

Mr. Bruce afterwards, in preparing his travels for the press, found among his papers the drawing of a second harp, copied at the same time with the first; and engravings of both, accompanied with very minute descriptions, were given by him in his work, the first edition of which made its appearance in the years 1790-1794.4 It would seem, however, that even this did not remove all distrust in his statements; and it must be ad

placed in the Campus Martius, at Rome; and it was thrown down there and broken, at the time of the sacking and burning of this city, by the constable, duke of Bourbon, general to the emperor Charles V, in 1727. See Burney, Hist. Music, Vol. I. p. 204, Note, etc.; Pliny, 36. 14. 3 seq.; Elmes's Dict. of the Fine Arts, Art. Architecture; Rollin's Anc. Hist. Vol. I.

1 See the Plate in Bib. Repos. Vol. VI. p. 357.

2

Burney's Hist. Music, Vol. I. p. 204 seq., 212 seq. Compare Bruce's Travels, Vol. II. p. 35 seq. Appendix to Book I. No. III. p. 278, sec. ed. Edinb. 1805.

3 Rees' Cyclop. Art. Harp.

4 See plates to the work, 6 and 7, in connexion with the references in note 2 above.