"Turn'd as it left the lips to song." on that solemn occasion. The mistaken they were not, like Hans Sachs and his com- It may be remarked, in passing, that some panions, the master-singers of Germany, writers, attached to the present style of ideas one moment working at shoemaking, the maintain that the aucient dances of the Henext at a poem. They drew their inspira- brews, which accompanied their canticles, tion from the lovely climate, the delicious and especially the dance of King David, odours, the magnificent foliage and flowers, were not properly speaking, dances, but onof "Araby the blest." An order of bards, ty gestures, attitudes, prostrations, by which living in primeval simplicity, caressed by they occasionally gave more fervour to their princes, admired by the people, all they their thanksgivings for any signal favour saw and feltThey received, as, for example, after their passage over the Red Sea, for the destrucHere is the mighty river that feeds all the tion of Pharioh's army, and for their own deliverance from the persecution of the tributary streams. Or, more aptly, it may be compared to an inexhaustible mine, from Egyptians. By this, also, they attempt to which half the world of poets have borrow- explain away that testimony, which David, ed or stolen for centuries, without any per- by dancing before the ark, gave of his joy ceptible diminution of its treasures. Then, zeal for propriety thus annexes a ludicrous again, even in their proverbs and sayings, what practical wisdom with appropriate fig- remote ages, in divers countries, was considfig-image to an act which, in remote ages, in urative expression! Antiphonial singing, or the mode of chant-ered part of religious worship, and was solemnizee purely on that footing. The triumphal procession of the Roman emperors was performed not merely by walking but by dancing or exultation. Down as late as used to dance round the choir of the church, the last century, at Limoges, the people which is dedicated to their patron saint, and Gloria patri, they sung as follows: "St. at the end of each psalm, instead of the Marcel pray for us, and we will dance in honour of you." In most of the eastern nations, the religious dance was practised; as the ancient Chinese book Tcheou-li mentions a dance called Tchou-vou, invented by Tcheou-kong. The dancers played on instruvoices, and they successively ran through ments which they accompanied with their the different notes of music. They began with an invocation to heaven, next to earth, ing the service, still in use in our cathedrals, where one portion of the choristers responds to the other, is another remnant of the an cient style of vocal music amongst the Arabs. Mr. Buckingham, who notices this in his "Travels among the Arab Tribes," when attending church service at Damascus, mentions "the hymns of the choristers, who were chiefly children of both sexes, and sang in response to each other in the Arabic tongue in a manner resembling the songs sung in response by the boatmen on the Nile." The modern Arabs are not behind even the German peasants in fondness for, and knowledge of, harmony. The same traveller mentions having been at a party "where half a dozen persons sat together in and amused the rest with Arabic a groupe The songs, while the listeners occasionally joined in the chorus. It was the first time of my ever having heard any thing like harmony in the music of the country, for here were two who sang in thirds and fifths, and one who sang an octave to the strain." wedding-feasts of the Arabs are accompanied with music, in a similar manner to that of other eastern nations; and the mutilated remains of their choral dences suffice to show what perfection their musical system had attained in that department. Among the ancients there were no festivals, no solemnities, that were not accompanied with songs and dances. It was not held possible to celebrate any mystery, or to be initiated without the intervention of these two arts. They were looked upon to be so essential in this kind of ceremonies, that, to express the crime of such as were guilty of revealing the sacred mysteries, they employed the word kheista, to be out of the dance."-Sir John Gallini's "Critical Observations on the Art of Dancing." after which, making a mock-fight, they address themselves to their ancestors; then, breaking out into loud cries, they called out to the four quarters of the world." With respect to the musical acquirements of the Persians and Hindoos, much curious information may be found in the same papers to which we have before alluded. An intelligent officer in the native cavalry of Sir J. Gallini's Treatise, p. 78. In Sir R. K. Porter's "Travels in Persia," we find that he inclines to the opinion that the instrumental accompaniment to the Georgian dance is an oracular tes"The like strains, timony of its high antiquity. though often uttered by very differently constructed instruments, with a similar kind of dance, are yet common among the Russian and Cossack peasantry, and are also to be found in Africa, and amongst the Indian nations of Asia, likewise in America, both North and South, wherever the aboriginal people have been suffered to exist."vol. i. p. 137. † Quarterly MuscalMagazine. India has done us the favour to communicate a few peculiarities which he has frequently noticed in the music of that country. He describes the men's voices as being similar to our counter-tenors; this is rendered more apparent when they all sing together, for they throw considerable energy into the opper and more shrill tones of their voices, not exactly in unison but nearly so, the effect being not very agreeable to our ears. They almost all have a strong nasal twang in their voices. The instrument most in use is the guitar, but the Fakeers, or holy men, in their processions, where they sing hymns to their deity, with loud shouts and energetic gesticulations, are accompanied by men beating the cymbals. "The ancient musicians of Hindoostan "The consideration obtained by these men, in time induced several of an avaricious disposition to engage as pupils, and, after acquiring some knowledge of the art, to set up for themselves; but the sordidness of their views was soon discovered. They, however, still continued to maintain their ground till the country was overstocked with professors, who prostituted their abilities for a mere trifle; and lastly, considering themselves as minisswered their avaricious views, even enters of pleasure, and, seeing that it an to a man of any profession. They were gaged in other traffic not at all honorable become like the minstrels of England in the reign of Edward II., when it was found necessary, in 1315, to restrain them by express laws." One would almost imagine that the musical transactions of the present day in England might furnish a parallel to this desecration of the art in Hindoostan. were generally poets and men of erudition, and sung their own compositions; in fact, music and poetry have always gone hand in hand,* but all records of their proceedings have perished. Such was the jealous respect for their talent dis- mut, they say that the various sounds of "In accounting for the origin of the gaplayed by the musicians, that they adopt- which it is composed are derived from ed an austere method of living, concerned the natural sounds or calls of various anithemselves little about the luxuries and mals. The Khuruj, they assert, is in imivanities of the world, and would not be tation of the call of the peacock. The bribed to display their talents in public as Rikhub, of the bird called pupecha; the hired professors. No gifts or grants were Gundhar, of the lowing of a sheep; Muddconsidered by them as worth accepting, kum, from the call of the bird named cooas they cared for nothing. Princes and lung; Punchhum, Koel, Dhyvat, the horse, great men of taste, therefore, found them- and Nikhad, elephant. How far (says selves under the necessity of courting Captain Willard) this opinion can be their friendship, and of accepting the fruit maintained, I leave the reader to deterof their genius as a favor, for which they mine. I was not aware before I got a possessed no other means of repaying sight of native treatises on music, that the them but with honor and kind treatment. lowing of sheep, the neighing of horses, or Their tribe likewise screened them from the call of the elephant, could be construed all sacrilegious violence, and ensured re-into musical sounds." spect. The religious sentiments of the natives, who considered these persons as voluntary exiles, who had renounced the world, and dedicated themselves to the worship of the gods, added some weight to the admiration they commanded; and the ease and independence enjoyed by such men would excite the desire of its acquisition in others. *The attention of M. Felix may be called to the following Arabic MSS. extant in the Library of the Escurial. In the Index to the Bibliotheca Arabica Hispanica, 2 vols. fol. Madrid, 1759, Catalogue in the British Museum, there are three deserving translation. "Musica Instrumenta apud Hispanos Arabas usitata," i. p. 527, c. 2. "Musica eorum nomina plerumque fuere Persica, quae Arabice reddita exhibentur," ibid. et seq. "Musicæ usum severiores Aleorani sectatores proscribunt, i. p. 483, c. 1. There is also "A Treatise on the Manners and Customs of the Arabians," by Laurence D' Arvieux, Paris, 1717. 12 mo., the English translation of which we have in vain endeavored to procure, as it is conjectured to furnish much important information on this subject. We assure the author of this entertaining treatise, that if he wishes for information on the subject of animal music, and the derivation of sounds from nature, the text-book on this subject is Gardiner's "Music of Nature," in which he will find the notes of most animals, birds, &c., and much ingenious and fanciful information, the result of many year's observation, which, like other really useful works, is not as much consulted by professed musicians as it out to be.* In the former part of this paper we have intimated our belief that rythmical measure and meledy connected with it were known and practised in considerable perfection by read with the same assiduity with which they If the composers of the present day would write, how greatly they would add to their attainments in the art! The modest and indefatigable Weber knew well the advantage of this habit. We are indebted to the preserved fragment of a Turkish dance in the Essais Historiques de la the oriental poet-musicians, and are happy | the ideas entertained on an idolatrous nato have the opinion of so enlightened an am- tion; the authority we have been quoting ateur as Captain Willard on our side.' "From the certain knowledge of the rhythm of the ancients, and the similarity observed in the practices of the natives of India, Persia, and other oriental countries, it inclines me to the opinion that the rhythmical measure is the lawful offspring of nature, found in all parts of the world, which existed much prior to the birth of her younger sister, the modern measure."* When we speak of the graces and rifiroimento of modern songs, it is usual to suppose this style of florid singing to spring from Italy, and that it was invented there: how must even a prima donna be surprised to learn that this very sage kind of singing was practiced by the musicians of Hindoostan ages back? shows how near we are to the truth. The songs of the aborigines of Hindoostan will bear comparison with those of any other country for purity and chasteness of diction, elevation and tenderness of sentiment. There is only one point upon which we cannot agree with Captain Willard, when he speaks of the inadequacy of the Arabic language for musical purposes (p. 32.) Of the Persian, Arabic, and Hindoostanee languages, the Arabic is allowed to be the most natural of the three, as there is no doubt whatever it is the most ancient, and was in a high state of perfection as a grammatical tongue, when other languages were in a crude state the natural result of savage manners and ignorant superstitions.— It is in the true pronunciation that language displays its euphonious properties, and until we can make sure of the actual sound of Arabic vowels and terminal letters in the ancient days of that country's palmy state, we must be careful in determining its non-capabilities for musical purposes. If it be true that classical scholars cannot yet agree as to the actual sounds of the open vowels in the Latin tongue in the days of Cicero, surely it is not too much to assert that no standard can now be formed of the musical capabilities of the Arabic. "The peculiar nature of the melody of Hindoostan not only permits but enjoins the singer, if he has the least pretension to excel in it, not to sing a song throughout more than once in its naked form; but on its repetition, which is a natural consequence, occasioned by the general brevity of the pieces, to break off sometimes at the conclusion, at other times at the commencement, middle, or any certain part of a measure, and fall into a rhapsodical embellishment called Alap, and, after going through a variety of ad libitum passages, rejoin the melody with as much grace as Songs which have love for their if it had never been disunited, the musical theme," observes Captain Willard, accompaniment all the while keeping time. the most numerous amongst all nations. These passages are not reckoned essen-In Hindoostan there is one other motive tial to the melody, but are considered only for their being esteemed-as the acts of as grace notes, introduced according to the fancy of the singer, where the only limitation by which the performer is bound, are the notes peculiar to that particular melody, and a strict regard to time." We have always imagined that, when the songs of the ancient people of India. came to be examined by competent judges, they would prove to belong to a different class of poetry to what is conjectured from are the god Crishnu, they are considered as pious hymns. The old sing them as acts of devotion, the young derive pleasure from their contents." This deity is quite a Jupiter in his way. "He is represented as the unrivalled "It is now generally agreed by those who study oriental literature, that the Arabs do not possess any authentic literary relics anterior to Musique, for the germ of the finely imaginative the sixth century of our era, and that the poems music in " Oberon." The first notes for the horn called Moallakat all belong to that, or the beginin the overture, and the chorus, "Hark what ning of the next century. It cannot, however, be notes are swelling," are parts of this ancient dance. disputed that at the time when they were comAs it evidently appears that rhyme was em-posed, the language and poetry of the Arabs had ployed with melody in all celebrations, public and private, may not time and research bring to light the Asiatic origin of the ancient Lyric Planctus, or Chants farcies, which in their turn gave origin to, and immediately preceded, those dramatic mysteries which the monks used to perform? This kind of lyric recitative, in which the people joined, is said to have been first introduced about the middle of the eleventh century. (See paper, "Paris Morning," &c. in Blackwood's Magazine for March, 1836.) already attained a high degree of cultivation; the language appears in them with perfect grammatical regularity, and subject to all the rules of a fixed system of prosody." And what is quite as extraordinary, and a collateral proof of the euphonious ease of its pronunciation," The Arabic alone has outlived all its sister-tongues, and has spread not only as the vernacular tongue all over Syria, Egypt, and Northern Africa, but as also the language of religion throughout Persia, the Turkish Empire," &c. Damon, Paris, and Adonis of Hindoostan, beloved by all the fair without exception. He is emphatically styled 'Mohun,' or the enchanter. His person was so graceful that every woman who once beheld him became instantly enamoured of it. His pipe possessed such irresistibly attractive charms, that none who ever heard it could attend to anything else, however serious, incumbent, or necessary. It diffused a sort of phrenzy along with its tone, the influence of which could not be withstood by any woman of Vruj. Neither the usual cares of the household, the desire of arraying, so natural to the female sex, nor the threats of the enraged husband; no, not even the attention due to a hungry and crying infant, could for a moment detain her from following the impluse occasioned by the sound of Crishnu's flute."* There is one other peculiarity respecting he music of this people which must be noticed. Their authentic melodies are limited to a certain number, and it is considered almost criminal, as it is nearly impossible, to add one single melody of equal merit. Whatever intrinsic worth any modern composition might possess, should it have no resemblance to the established melody of the country, it would be looked upon as spurious, so tenacious are the natives of Hindoostan of their ancient practices. The poetry of these authentic melodies (Rags or Raginées, as they are termed) embrace) every variety of subject, mythological, domestic, sentimental, warlike, &c. We may notice one or two as they serve to corroborate our idea respecting the origin of poetical melody in the East. "Malcous. "An athletic young man, of rosy complexion, and intoxicated with wine. His vestments are blue, and he holds a staff in his hand. A string of pearls is round his neck. He is surrounded by women, whom he addresses with gallant familiarity. "Toree. "This delicate minstrel is clothed in a white sarce. Her fair skin is tinged and perfumed with touches of camphor and saffron. She stands in a wild romantic spot, playing on the veen. The skill with which she strikes that instrument has so fascinated the deer in the neighboring groves, that they have forgot their pasture, and stand listening to the notes which she produces. "Gooncuree. of this female, the tears which flow fast "The grief which is depicted in the air from her eyes, the scattered wildness of her hair, which wantons with the breeze, the sighs which she breathes, and the dejected posture in which she is sitting under the cudum-tree, with her head leaning forwards, prove the anguish of her heart for the absence of her beloved. "Kidara. "The subject of this Raginée is of a masculine character. The young man in white garments wields a sword in his right hand, and in his left grasps the tusk of an elephant, which he has rooted out. A bard standing beside him recites the praises of his valor." the In the first of these (Malcous) we have counterpart to Bacchus. The second (Toree) points to the possession of similar power over the brute creation ascribed to Orpheus, Amphion and other musical enchanters, whose exploits in this way are now considered only half fabulous. Kidara reminds us of Ossian's heroes, whose movements were always accompanied by the bard.* The science of music in Sanscrit is termed Sungeet. The invention of it is attributed to demigods, and, amongst others, to Narud, Sumeshwar, Hunooman, and Coolnath. Several treaties were written and are in existence, but they are so obscure, that little benefit is to be expected from them to the science. The poets and musicians of pressions in Ossian are decidedly oriental, and Hindoostan divide their year into six seasons, and one of these is allotted to each Rag, with his Raginées, Pootrás and Bhar. jyas. Their system includes the chromatic scale, consisting of the seven notes of the gamut, subdivided into twenty-two parts. Their diatonic scale is termed Moorchhuna, and extends to three octaves. "This ancient song may furnish us with many inferences which naturally arise from its style. We find that the class of wandering minstrels, who were the authors of this kind of song, wandered with their herds from the banks of the Don (or Tanais of the ancients) to those of the Danube (or Ister,) for the youth here mentioned is represented as collect those two rivers. We next find that they possessed numerous herds of horses; and the assertion that they had golden bits is not here a poetical license, as it is probable that they were accustomed to make excursions into some rich country, to procure quantities of that precious metal; and this, however unlikely it may at first appear, is not impossible, for, if the riches of Colchis could attract the Argonauts from Greece, through all the dangers of the Euxine, when navigation was still so imperfect, in order to obtain the gold of the Phasis; assuredly a warlike people, who were, comparatively speaking, in its neighborhood, might be equally tempted to dip a fleece in that famous stream, and to gather the gold dust, like those ancient Greek navigators, if they did not even take it ready gathered, which appears. very likely. We must now turn to the north, to exa-ing his horses in some place between mine the state of Music in Russia, as corroborative of our idea of its eastern origin.The form of the instruments is one means of proving the similarity of between the eastern and northern musical systems. In a scarce work," Dissertations sur les Antiquitiés de la Russie, par M. Guthrie," printed at Petersburg 1795, a copy of which, with MS. notes by the author, is in our possession, there is a set of plates of their instruments, and among them is the gourdok or (guitar violin,) the gously, a five strained dulcimer, and the figure of a boy playing on the double flute, which corresponds exactly with the tibicen, plate vi. Burney's Hist. vol. 4, which was taken from a bas-relief in the Farnese col lection: all these, together with the cymbals, drum, and one nearly resembling our modern grand caisse, called the crotalum, are rudely sculptured on a portion of the ruins of an ancient church or temple, supposed to be Arabic, discovered by a modern traveller in Spain. * The original imagery in the Russian songs is the next striking analogy. There are several in Guthrie's Dissertation, a few of which we give with his translation, it is called Chanson Khorovodnia. "Between the Don and the gentle Danube, a youth, collecting his horses all bridled with gold, met a young maiden, whom he entreated to guess what it was that he wished for? I could very soon guess, said the maiden, if I were not afraid of my father: still I will guess once, as you are the only son of your house, the handsome Ivanuschka, (or little John.)" Mr. Guthrie remarks— "An examination of these plains between the Don and the Danube seems to afford collateral proof of the correctness of this song, respecting the gold found in those countries. A number of mounds, or conical tombs of earth, called by the natives kourgans, are scattered here and there, much resembling the tumuli in the field of Troy, described by the Abbé Chevalier, in the third volume of the Edinburgh Philosophical Transactions. These kourgans contain rings and pieces of gold, with the sword and skeleton of a chief. The wealth of the people in horses seems clearly proved by the quantity of bones remaining of that animal, found buried Herodotus menbeneath the mounds. tions that these plains abound with wild horses. "There is another of these songs rather singular and somewhat ridiculous in its character, which I subjoin, No. 21. The Pike of Novogorod.' 'A pike set off from Novogorod whilst his tail was still in the Bielo Ozero (that is, the White Lake.) His body was covered with silver scales, and his head beautifully variegated with different colors.' This allegory I include among the mystic symbols of the ancient hydromancy of this country; there is something similar in that of the Indians, from whom I have no doubt the Russians, Greeks, Gauls, and Britons, derived the worship which they paid to the liquid element. The mention of the Gauls reminds me of a ceremony obtaining amongst that See Sharon Turner's paper on the Asiatic ori-people, which has some distant affinity to gin of the Anglo-Saxons, Trans. Roy. Soc. of Li- that which forms the conclusion of the terature, vol. ii. part 2. Let not the serious reader be uneasy at this volatile skipping about to all points of the compass; there are more things yet to come which may startle his mind from its propriety. Any one anxious for an oriental pedigree may be furnished without the trouble of applying at the Heralds' Office. This makes out Turner's strange assertion, VOL. XX. 9 modern Russian semic. In dry seasons, |