HARMONY. The sense which the Greeks gave to this word, in their music, is not easy to be determined. In the ancient treatises that are extant harmony appears to be that department whose object is the agreeable succession of sounds, merely considered as high or low; in opposition to the two others called rhythmica and metrica, which have their principle in time and measure. This leaves our ideas concerning that aptitude of sound vague and undetermined; nor can we fix them without studying for that purpose all the rules of the art; and, even after we have done so, it will be very difficult to distinguish harmony from melody, unless we add to the last the ideas of rhythmus and measure; without which, in reality, no melody can have a distinguishing character: whereas harmony is characterised by its own nature, independent of all other quantities except the chords or intervals which compose it. It appears by a passage of Nicomachus, and by others, that they likewise gave the name of harmony to the chord of an octave, and to concerts of voices and instruments, which performed in the distance of an octave one from the other, and which is more commonly called antiphone. Harmony, according to the moderns, is a succession of chords agreeable to the laws of modulation. For a long time this harmony had no other principle but such rules as were almost arbitrary, or solely founded on the approbation of a practised ear, which decided concerning the agreeable or disagreeable succession of chords, and whose determinations were at last reduced to calculation. But F. Mersenne and M. Saveur having found that every sound, however simple in appearance, was always accompanied with other sounds less sensible, with this experiment M. Rameau set out, and which constitute with itselfa perfect chord-major; upon it formed the basis of his harmonic system, which he extended to many volumes. Signior Tartini, taking his route from an experiment which is more delicate, yet not less certain, reached conclusions similar to those of Rameau, by pursuing a path whose direction seems quite opposite. According to M. Rameau, the treble is generated by the bass; Signior Tartini makes the bass result from the treble. One deduces harmony from melody, and the other supposes the contrary. To determine from which of the two schools the best performances are likely to proceed, no more is necessary than to investigate the end of the composer, and discover whether the air is made for the accompaniments, or the accompaniments for the air. At the word system, in Rousseau's Musical Dictionary, is given a delineation of that published by Signior Tartini. Here he continues to speak of M. Rameau, whom he has followed through this whole work, as the artist of greatest authority in the country where he writes. In reality, when this author took it in his head to dignify with the title of demonstration the reasonings upon which he established his theory, every one turned the arrogant pretence into ridicule. The Academy of Sciences loudly disapproved a title so ill founded, and so gratuitously assumed; and M. Estive, of the Royal Society at Montpelier, has shown him, 'that, even to begin with this proposi that we are only reconciled to octaves themselves, by being inured to hear them from our infancy. Strange, that nature should have fixed this invariable proportion between male and female voices, whilst at the same time she inspired the hearers with such violent prepossessions against it, as were invincible but by long and confirmed habit. See MUSIC, &c. HARMONY, DIRECT, is that in which the bass is fundamental, and in which the upper parts preserve among themselves, and with that fundamental bass, the natural and original order which ought to subsist in each of the chords that compose this harmony. HARMONY, INVERTED, is that in which the fundamental or generating sound is placed in some of the upper parts, and when some other sound of the chord is transferred to the bass beneath the others. HARMONY, a village of the United States, in the county of Gibson Indiana; famous as a recent property of the eccentric but benevolent Mr. Owen. It is seated on the Wabash, and is so called from being settled by a sect called the Harmonists, who held their property in common, and sold it to Mr. Owen. They had a very extensive establishment here for the manufacture of wool, and their Merino cloth was said not to be surpassed by any in the United States. They also cultivated the vine. HARMOSTA, or HARMOSTES, Greek 'Apμosns from apμow, to adapt. In antiquity, a magistrate among the Spartans, whereof there were several, whose business was to look to the building of citadels, and repairing the forts and fortifications. tion, that according to the law of nature sounds are represented by their octaves, and that the octaves may be substituted for them, there was not any one thing demonstrated or even firmly established, in his pretended demonstration.' But without quoting his arguments, which are too long for insertion, we readily grant, that the system of harmony by M. Rameau is neither demonstrated, nor capable of demonstration. But it will not follow, that any man of invention can so easily and so quickly subvert those aptitudes and analogies on which the system is founded. Every hypothesis is admitted to possess a degree of probability proportioned to the number of phenomena for which it offers a satisfactory solution. The first experiment of M. Rameau is, that every sonorous body, together with its principal sound and its octave, gives likewise its twelfth and seventeenth major above; which being approximated as much as possible, even to the chords immediately represented by them, return to the third, fifth, and octave, or, in other words, produce perfect harmony. This is what nature, when solicited, spontaneously gives; this is what the human ear, unprepared and uncultivated, imbibes with ineffable avidity and pleasure. We do not contend for the truth of M. Rameau's second experiment. Nor is it necessary we should. The first, expanded and carried into all its consequences, resolves the phenomena of harmony in a manner sufficient to establish its authenticity and influence. The difficulties for which it affords no solution are too few and trivial either to merit the regard of an artist, or a philosopher, as M. D'Alembert, in his Elements, has clearly shown. Rousseau and his opponent are agreed in this, that the harmonics conspire to form one predominant sound; and are not to be detected but by the nicest organs, applied with the deepest attention. It is equally obvious, that, in an artificial harmony, by a proper management of this wise institution of nature, dissonances themselves may be either entirely concealed or considerably softened. So that, since by nature sonorous bodies in actual vibra- HARNESS, n. s. & v. a. Fr. harnois; suption are predisposed to exhibit perfect harmony, posed from Runick iern or hiern; Welsh and and since the human ear is fabricated in such a Erse hiairn, iron. Mr. Thomson says, from manner as to perceive it, the harmonical chaos Goth. her, an army. Armour; defensive furof M. Rousseau has in fact no existence. Nor niture of war; somewhat antiquated. The traces does it avail him to pretend, that, before the har- of draught-horses, particularly of carriages of monics can be extinguished, sonorous bodies pleasure: to dress in armour; or to fix horses in must be impelled with a force which alters the their traces. chords, and destroys the purity of the harmony; for this position is equally false both in theory and practice: in theory, because an impulse, however forcible, must proportionally operate on all the parts of any sonorous body, so far as it extends; in practice, because the human ear actually perceives the harmony to be pure. What effects his various manœuvres upon the organ may have, we leave to such as have leisure and curiosity enough to try the experiments; but it is apprehended, that, when tried, their results will leave the system of Rameau, particularly as remodelled by D'Alembert, in its full force. Of all the whims and paradoxes maintained by this philosopher, none is more extravagant than his assertion, that every chord, except the simple unison, is displeasing to the human ear; nay, HARMOSYNIANS, ȧopoovvot, in antiquity, magistrates among the Spartans, who, after the death of Lycurgus, were appointed to enforce the observance of that law which required married women to wear veils in the streets; whereby. they were distinguished from single females, who were allowed to go abroad with their faces uncovered. Harness the horses, and get up the horsemen, and stand forth with your helmets. Jer. xlvi. 4. These folke taken litel regard of the riding of Goddes son of heven, and of his harneis, whan he rode upon the asse, and had non other harness but the poure clothes of his disciples, ne we rede not that ever he rode on any other beste. Chaucer. The Persones Tale. Spenser. Of no right, nor colour like to right, Shakspeare. He doth fill fields with harness. Id. When I plow my ground, my horse is harnessed and chained to my plough. Hale's Origin of Mankind. Their steeds around, Free from their harness, graze the flowery ground. Dryden. Full fifty years harnessed in rugged steel," I have endured the biting winter's blast! Rowe. To the harnessed yoke They lend their shoulder, and begin their toil. Thomson. HARNESS comprehends the whole equipage and accoutrements of a cavalier heavily armed; as casque, cuirass, &c. Some derive the word from the Greek ȧpvağıç, a lamb's skin, because they anciently covered themselves therewith. Du Cange observes, that the word harnesium is used in the corrupt Latin in the same sense, and that it comes from the High Dutch harness or harnisch. Others derive it from the Italian arnese; others from the Celtic harnes, a cuirass. -Under king Richard II. stat. 7, c. 13, it was expressly forbidden to ride in harness with launcegays. In stat. 2 Henry VI., c. 14, harness seems to include all kinds of furniture for offence as well as defence, both of men and horses; as swords, buckles for belts, girdles, &c. HARO, HAROL, or HAROU, or Clamour de Haro, in the Norman customs, was a cry or formula of invoking the assistance of justice against the violence of some offender, who, upon hearing the word haro, was obliged to desist, on pain of being severely punished for his outrage, and to go with the party before the judge. The word is commonly derived from ha and roul, as being supposed an invocation of the sovereign power, to assist the weak against the strong; from Raoul first duke of Normandy, who, about A. D. 912, rendered himself venerable by his strict justice: so that they called on him even after his death when they suffered any oppression. Some derive it from Harold king of Denmark, who in 826 was made grand conservator of justice at Mentz. Others from the Danish aa, rau, q. d. help me; a cry raised by the Normans in flying from a king of Denmark, named Roux, who made himself duke of Normandy. The letters of the French chancery had formerly this clause, Nonobstant clameur de haro, &c. The haro had anciently such vast power, that a poor man of Caen, named Asselin, in virtue of it, arrested the corpse of William the Conqueror, in the middle of the funeral procession, till his son Henry paid the value of the land whereon the chapel was built in which he was interred. HAROLD I. and III. See ENGLAND. HAROMSZEK, a province of Transylvania, at the south-east corner of the country of the Szeklers, adjoining to European Turkey. The Carpathian Mountains are its barrier on this side. It is divided into the upper and lower circles. VOL. XI. containing seven districts, and is intersected by various steep mountains, but has valleys along the banks of the Alt and the Teketengy, beautifully fertile. Its extent is about 800 square miles; and there are 4080 families who pay taxes. The inhabitants cultivate flax, and manufacture linen. HARP, n.s. & v. n. HARP'ER, n. s. HARP SICHORD, n. s. Sax. peapp; Fr. harpe. It is used through both Sthe Teutonic and Ro man dialects, Romanusq; lyrá plaudat tibi, Barbarus harpâ. Ven. Fort. An instrument commonly struck with the finger; a constellation; one who plays on the harp to touch any pas sion; to dwell on a subject. Things without life giving sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped? 1 Cor. I heard the voice of harpers harping with their Revelations. harps. There herde I playing on an harpe Hym Orpheus, full craftely Chaucer. House of Fame. Allured a dolphin him from death to ease. Gracious duke, Harp not on that, nor do not banish reason For inequality; but let your reason serve To make the truth appear. Id. Shakspeare. Measure for Measure. For thy good caution, thanks : Proud and disdainful, harping on what am, Id. Antony and Cleopatra. Next shines the harp, and through the liquid skies And sworded seraphim, Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed, Milton. You harp a little too much upon one string. Collier. I'm the god of the harp stop my fairest :-in Nor the haru, nor the harper, could fetch her again. The HARP is of a triangular figure, and held upright between the legs of the performer. The harp was the favorite musical instrument of the Britons and other northern nations in the middle ages; as is evident from their laws, and various passages in their history. By the laws of Wales, a harp was one of the three things that were necessary to constitute a gentleman, or a freeman: and none could pretend to that character who had not one of these favorite instruments, or could not play upon it. To prevent slaves from pretending to be gentlemen, it was expressly forbidden to teach, or to permit, them to play upon the harp; and none but the king, the king's musicians, and gentlemen, were allowed to have harps in their possession. A gentleman's harp was not liable to be seized for debt; because the want of it would have degraded him from his rank, and reduced him to that of a slave. The harp was in no less estimation and universal use among the Saxons and Danes. Those who played upon this instrument were declared gentlemen by law; their persons were esteemed inviolable, and secured from injuries by very severe penalties; they were readily admitted into the highest company, and treated with distinguished marks of respect wherever they appeared. King David is usually painted with a harp, but we have no testimony in all antiquity that the Hebrew harp, which they called chinnor, was any thing like ours. On a Hebrew medal of Simon Maccabæus we see two sorts of musical instruments; but they are both very different from our harp, and consist of only three or four strings. All authors agree, that our harp is very different from the lyra, cithara, or barbiton, used among the Romans. Fortunatus, lib. vii. carm. 8. Romanusque lyrâ plaudat tibi, Barbarus harpâ, mentions it as an instrument of the barbarians. HARPS, ANCIENT :-Fig. 1. Plate HARPS, is a well authenticated representation of a Greek harp or lyre. Fig. 2. represents a trigonum or triangular harp, taken from an ancient painting in the museum of the king of Naples, in which it is placed on the shoulder of a little dancing Cupid, who supports the instrument with his left hand, and plays upon it with his right. The trigonum is mentioned by Athenæus, lib. iv. and by Julius Pollux, lib. iv. cap. 9. According to Athenæus, Sophocles calls it a Phrygian instrument; and one of his dipnosophists tells us, that a certain musician, named Alexander Alexandrinus, was such an admirable performer upon it, and had given such proofs of his abilities at Rome, that he made the inhabitants μnooμaviv, musically mad.' Fig. 3 is a variety of the same instrument. Fig. 4 is the Theban harp, according to a drawing made from an ancient painting in one of the sepulchral grottos of the first kings of Thebes, and communicated by Mr. Bruce to Dr. Burney. The performer is clad in a habit made like a shirt, such as the women still wear in Abyssinia, and the men in Nubia. It reaches down to his ancles; his feet are without sandals, and bare; his neck and arms are also bare; his loose white sleeves are gathered above his elbows; and his head is closely shaved. His left hand seems employed in the upper part of the instrument, among the notes in alto, as if in an arpeggio; while, stooping forwards, he seems with his right hand to be beginning with the lowest string and promising to ascend with the most rapid execution: this action, so obviously represented by an indifferent artist, shows that it was a common one in his time; or, in other words, that great hands were then frequent, and consequently that music was well understood and diligently followed. HARP, THE BELL, a musical instrument of the string kind, thus called from the players on it swinging about, as a bell on its basis. It is about three feet long; its strings, which are of no determinate number, are of brass or steel wire, fixed at one end, and stretched across the sound-board by screws fixed at the other. It takes in four octaves, according to the number of the strings, which are struck only with the thumbs, the right hand playing the treble, and the left hand the bass: and, in order to draw the sound the clearer, the thumbs are armed with a little wire pin. See Plate HARPS, fig. 5. HARP, THE IRISH, represents the harp of Brian Boiromh, king of Ireland, slain in battle with the Danes, A. D. 1014, at Clontarf. His son Donagh having murdered his brother Teig, A. D. 1023, and being deposed by his nephew, retired to Rome, and carried with him the crown, harp, and other regalia of his father, which he presented to the pope in order to obtain absolution. Adrian IV. alleged this as one of his principal titles to this kingdom, in his bull transferring it to Henry II. These regalia were kept in the Vatican till the pope sent the harp to Henry VIII. with the title of Defender of the Faith; but kept the crown, which was of massive gold. Henry gave the harp to the first earl of Clanricard; in whose family it remained till the beginning of the eighteenth century, when it came by a lady of the De Burgh family into that of M'Mahon of Clenagh in the county of Clare, after whose death it passed into the possession of commissioner M'Namara of Limerick. In 1782 it was presented to the right honorable William Conyngham, who deposited it in Trinity College library. It is thirty-two inches high, and of extraordinary good workmanship; the sounding board is of oak, the arms of red sallow; the extremity of the uppermost arm in part is capped with silver, extremely well wrought and chiseled, It contains a large crystal set in silver, and under it was another stone now lost. The buttons or ornamental knobs at the sides of this arm are of silver. On the front arm are the arms, chased in silver, of the O'Brien family, the bloody hand supported by lions. On the sides of the front arm, within two circles, are two Irish wolf dogs cut in the wood. The holes of the sounding board, where the strings entered, are neatly ornamented with escutcheons of brass carved and gilt; the larger sounding holes have been orna mented, probaly with silver, as they have been the object of theft. This harp has twenty-eight keys, and as many string holes, consequently there were as many strings. The foot-piece or rest is broken off, and the parts round which it was joined are very rotten. The whole bears evidence of an expert artist. HARP, THE WELSH, or the TRIPLE HARP, has ninety-seven strings or chords in three rows, extending from C in the tenor cliff to double G in alt, which make five octaves: the middle row is for the semitones, and the two outside rows are perfect unisons. On the bass side, which is played with the right hand, there are thirty-six strings; on the treble side, twenty-six; and in the middle row, thirty-five strings. There are two rows of pins or screws on the right side, serving to keep the strings tight in their holes, which are fastened at the other end to three rows of pins on the upper side. The harp, within the last sixty years, has been in some degree improved by the addition of eight strings to the unison, viz. from E to double F in alt. This instrument is struck with the finger and thumb of both hands. Its music is much like that of the spinet, all its strings going from semitone to semitone; whence some call it an inverted spinet. It is capable of a much greater degree of perfection than the lute. HARPAGINES, Aprayɛç, in antiquity, were books of iron, hanging on the top of a pole, which, being secured with chains to the masts of ships, and then let down with great velocity into the enemy's vessels, caught them up into the air. By way of defence against these machines, they covered their ships with hides, which broke and blunted the force of the iron. The harpagines were invented by Anacharsis the Scythian philosopher. HARPAGIUS, the preserver of Cyrus, according to Herodotus, and afterwards one of his generals, who subdued Asia Minor. See PERSIA. HARPALUS, a Greek astronomer, who flourished about A. A. C. 480, corrected the cycle of eight years invented by Cleostratus; and proposed a new one of nine years, in which he imagined the sun and moon returned to the same point. But Harpalus's cycle was afterwards altered by Meton, who added ten full years to it. See CHRONOLOGY. HARPALYCE, in fabulous history, the daughter of Lycurgus king of Thrace, and queen of the Amazons, who by her valor set her father at liberty, after he had been taken prisoner by the Getes. HARPASA, a town of Caria, on the Harpasus, famous for an immense rocking stone, which was moveable by the finger, but could not be displaced by any force. HARPATH, a river of the United States, in Tennessee, which runs into the Cumberland, fourteen miles south-east of Clarksville. HARPE (Jean François de la) was born at Paris on the 20th of November, 1739. He lost his father, who was captain of artillery, when he was very young, and was left in a state of extreme roverty. By some accident he was introduced to M. Asselin, principal of the college of Har court, who, hearing him recite some French verses with an elegance and taste superior to his years, received him amongst his pupils, and shortly after obtained a pension for him. The patronage of his benevolent friend was happily bestowed, and no care was omitted in the completion of his studies. La Harpe commenced his public career in letters by poems called Heroides, which were then much in vogue. The Epistle of Barnevelt to Traman his friend, by Dorat; and that of a monk of La Trappe to the Abbé de Rance, by La Harpe, were very popular. These trifles were but the prelude to nobler success. To a young man who had destined himself to a literary life, two paths were open,-the honors of the academy and those of the theatre. A prize obtained at the French academy, or a successful drama, would remove the first difficulties, admit him into the higher circles, and procure him elevated protectors. La Harpe almost in the same moment attempted both, and his first efforts in each were successful. In the Eulogy on Fenelon the writer seems to be clothed with the mantle of that illustrious prelate, to speak worthily of his talents and virtues. To the intrinsic merit of this eulogy, one of the finest composed by La Harpe, was joined the extraneous and accidental interest of being proscribed by the minister, and the work was from that but the more eagerly sought for. The true chef d'œuvre of M. de la Harpe, however, in these compositions, is the Eulogy on Racine, a subject entirely his own choice. There is nothing to censure in it but an excess of severity in speaking of the great Corneille. The year 1775 was celebrated in our author's life, he having obtained in it both the prize of eloquence and that of poetry. The subject of the oration was an Eulogy on Catinat. It was difficult that an orator, absolutely a stranger to the military art, should succeed in depicting the exploits of one of the greatest generals. M. de la Harpe had also, as a competitor, a man of merit, protected at court, not unsuccessful in letters, and who had made tactics a particular study. The orator was not moved by any of these obstacles. The academy sometimes proposed particular questions, and in 1767 the prize for the following was gained by La Harpe Of the Miseries of War, and the Advantages of Peace.' This discourse was marked by the purity and elegance of its diction. So many triumphs opened at length the doors of the academy to our author, and he succeeded to Colardeau. Not to interrupt the history of our author's academic success, we have forborne till now to speak of his tragedies. Long before he had obtained so many honors, he had made himself known by a tragedy entitled Warwick, which was represented before he was twenty-four years of age, and gave proofs of distinguished talents. His other pieces, though written with much art, and finely conceived, are far from having that original and bold color belonging to the former. Coriolanus is a character consonant to our author's feelings; and Philoctetes offered to him another of the same kind. The other tragedies of M. de la Harpe are inferior to those we have noticed; yet they are read with pleasure, being written in |