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An Ariandles, Jewel, or Prize oftioner; the subject of contest at a Congress of the Bards, which was won by the chief Bard of the Harp and afterwards worn on his breast as a badge of merit and superior dignity. The above delineation is the exact size of the original in the possession of Holland of Manchester; and, as the Coronet which adorns it resembles that of a Prince of Wales, is supposed to have belonged formerly to a Koyal bard or a supreme Bard of Wales, a native of the neighbourhood of Gmedicin Caernarvonshire. This. Medallion is made of silver, and gilt. It is conjectural to be three or four hundred years old; and the translation of the motto upon it, Liberty, Firmmels, and Friendlhip.

A Print of the Ariandlws, filver Jewel, which is in the possession of Sir Roger Mostyn in Flintshire; and has been from time immemorial in the gift of his Ancestors, to bestow on the chief of the Faculty, this emblem of Pame, which is crowned with Oak, is about six inches and a half tong, and furnished with strings equal to the number of the Muses. It was gained at a public contest of the Bards, in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, by Sion ab Rhys, Pencerdd, principal Musician of the Harp, or Livetor of Music. See more in pages 32.33,46,47,49,58, and 85, of this work.

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The musical instruments, anciently used in Wales, are as different from thofe of other nations as their mufic and poetry '.-These inftruments are five in number, the Telyn, or Harp; the Crwth; the Pibgorn, or Horn-pipe; the Tabwrdd, Tabret, or Drum; and the Corn-buelin, Cornet, or Bugle-horn. Of these an accurate representation is attempted in the oppofite trophy.

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The Harp, the principal of those I have enumerated, which appears to be the most ancient, and indeed the queen of all mufical inftruments, derives its origin from the remoteft period. The Seventy 3, as well as Jofephus, have rendered Kinnor to be the fame as the Harp: and we find, in facred history', that Jubal, the seventh from Adam, is styled, The Father of all fuch as handle the Kinnor, (or Harp,) and the Hugab, (or ancient Organ,) which were before the flood; and the origin of any invention cannot well be carried higher. Job, who lived among the Idumeans, about 1 520 years before Chrift, does not only fpeak of mufic and linging, but also gives us the names of the mufical inftruments then in ufe". Ezekiel and Ifaiah represent Tyre as a city wholly given up to mufic. The antiquity of mufic appears alfo from the hiftory of Jacob; who, having ftole away from his uncle Laban without acquainting him of his defign, was purfued and overtaken by him on the mount of Gilead, where he upbraided him for what he had done, in this manner, Wherefore didst thou flee away fo fecretly, and fleal away from me? and did not tell me, that I might have fent thee away with mirth and with fongs, with Tabret and with Harp9?

It will be neceffary to obferve, that the musical inftruments of the Greeks and Latins came to them from the Hebrews. The Greeks, a vain-glorious boafting-people, pretended that the greatest part of their musical inftruments were the invention of their gods or their ancient poets. They feldom reprefented Mercury, Apollo, Orpheus, Arion, or Pan, without fome mufical inftrument in their hands: but this falfe pretenfion of theirs is fufficiently contradicted by the Holy Scriptures themselves. Religion, the gods, mufic, or poetry, owe not their origin to Greece, but are the growth of a far more diftant foil 10. The Latins are more fincere and ingenuous; they acknowledge they received their musical instruments from the Eaft. Juvenal says,

Jam pridem Syrus in Tyberim defluxit Orontes,

Et linguam, et mores, et cum tibicine chordas
Obliquas, nec non gentilia tympana fecum
Vexit ".

It is very extraordinary, that all authors who have treated on this fubject, have not difcerned that the Harp and the Grecian Lyra were two diftinct inftruments; and it is evident, that neither the Greeks nor the Romans ever had our Harp, nor is it to be found on their coins and fculptures. Another proof may be educed from Venantius Fortunatus, (the bishop of Poitiers, about A. D. 609,) who fays, that both the Harp and the Crwth were inftruments of the Barbarians, or Britons.

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12 In Horace's Hymn to Mercury, book I. ode the icth. The origin of the lyre is faid to be as follows:

Venantius Fortunatus, Lib. 7, Carm. 8.

"Thou God of Wit (from Ailas fprung)
"Who by perfuafive power of tongue,
"And graceful exercife, refin'd
"The favage race of human kind;
"Hail, winged meflenger of Jove,
"And all th immortal powers above,
"Sweet parent of the bending lyre,

"Thy praise fhall all its founds infpire, &c.

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"O Mercury, (fince the ingenious Amphion moved rocks by his "voice, you being his tutor,) and thou, my Teftudo, expert to refound with feven ftrings, formerly neither vocal nor pleafing, "but now agreeable to the tables of the wealthy, and the temples of the Gods," &c -Horace, book III. ode 11.-

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Mercury is called the parent of the lyre, because, having found the hell of a tortoife, and fitted ftrings to it, he first formed an idea of that kind of mufic. Hence teftudo fignified a lyre, by reason that it was originally made of the black or hollow fhell of the teftudo aquatica, or fea-tortoife, which Mercury found on the banks of the Nile.

The antiquity of poetry is another argument for that of mufic; as they are both fuppofed to be coeval with man. Nature furnishes art with all her materials, and lays the foundations of all her improvements. As poetry and mufic were infeparable among the ancients', who knew no poet that was not at the fame time a musician, and who called making verse finging, and verfes fungs. What has been faid of poetry may likewise be applied to mufic. There is a natural mufic which preceded and gave birth to the artificial: both tend to the fame end, namely, to exprefs the fentiments of the poet in fuch founds and terms as have a correfpondence to what he feels within himself and would infpire others with.

David, the fecond King of Ifrael, was the greatest master of the Harp of his time, as well as a poet; he composed a great number of the psalms, or hymns, both for voices and inftruments; which he instituted in the tabernacle of the Lord, to inspire mens hearts, and to fweeten their affections towards God. (This accomplished prince, may truly be called a prieft, prophet, and bard.) The prophet Elisha, likewife, thought mufic neceffary to excite him to a fit difpofition for receiving the impreffion of the spirit of God; and said, “but now bring me a Minfirel; and it came to pass, when the Minstrel played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him 3.

We have every reason to believe that mufic was in a degree of perfection among the Hebrews towards the latter part of David's reign, and in the time of King Solomon, &c; and, we are informed that Afaph, Heman, and Feduthun, were the princes, or prefidents, of all the temple-mufic, in those reigns. Afaph had four fons, Jeduthun fix, and Heman fourteen. These four and twenty Levites, fons to the three grand prefidents of the mufic, were fet over four and twenty bands, or companies of muficians. Each of them had under him eleven officers of an inferior rank, who prefided over the other fingers, and instructed them in their art. These feveral companies feem to have been distinguished from one another by the inftruments. on which they played, and by their places in the temple. Thofe of the family of Kohath ftood in the middle; thofe of Mirari, on the left; and thofe of Gerfon, on the right hands. The fons of Jeduthun played on the Kinnor, or Harp; the fons of Afaph, on the Nebel, or Pfaltery; and the fons of Heman on the Metfilothaim, a kind of tinkling bells, or Cymbals. “The number of them, with their brethren that were

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In ode 32, Horace invokes his lyre, and calls it Barbiton. "We "are now called upon. If, in idle amusement in the fhade with you, we have played any thing that may live for this year and many; come on, affift me with a lyric ode in Latin, my dear "Barbiton,-first tuned in Greek by the Lesbian citizen Al"cæus," &c.

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*Alcaus was the contemporary, countryman, and friend, of Sappho. Horace fays, in book II. Ode 13, that Alcaus played with a golden plectrum, (an inftrument with which they struck the ftrings of the lyre.) Likewife, probably the inftrument called pectis, or pecten, is so termed, from its being played with a ftick, or a quill.

Virgil defcribes Dido's feast to Eneas, Lib. I. v. 744, &c. In which, the fame inftrument is termed Cithara. "The longhaired Jopas founded on the gilded Cithara what great Atlas "had taught; he fang of the changing moon, and the courfe of "the fun; the origin of mankind and other animals; the nature of "the elements, the heavenly conftellations, and the caufes which operate the change of feafons."-Homer calls the inftrument, on which Achilles played, the Phorminx, which implies the fame as Tettude. Iliad, book IX.

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The Greeks call the Lýra; Kithara; Barbitos; Phorminx; and Chelys +. The Romans have made ufe of the fame terms, to which they have added Teftudo; all of which imply a tortoife, a fhell, or an inftrument made of that form. (The back of the lute and the guitar are frequently carved in that fhape.) The lyra of Mercury had at first but three ftrings; Orpheus is faid to have added a fourth; and Pindar mentions his lyre as having feven. It is evident, from Maccabees, that the kinnor, or harp, and the cithara, or guitar, are not the fame, fince they are mentioned in the fame place as two different inftruments. I. Maccabees IV. v. 54; and XIII. v. 51.-Notwithstanding all the accounts, given by the Greeks and Romans, it is not improbable but the cithara, or guitar, is derived from the Cithern of the Hebrews; (which, according to Merfennus, is a kind of fiddle with fix ftrings). See alfo Maccabees, as before quoted.-Galilie ufes the term lyre for the lute, and other inftruments of that clafs: but the true distinction between the viol and the violin fpecies arifes from the difference of fize, and the number of their strings, re

+ Pliny mentions a fish called Citharus or a folio. And another called pborcus.-Pliny, XXXII. and 11.

fpectively, the viol, meaning that for concerts, of what fize foever it be, having fix ftrings; and the violin, whether it be the treble, the tenor, the violoncello, or the bafs, having uniformly four. In fhort, all the inftruments of that genus are characterized by the appella. tion of the Cithara, whether a lute, a viol, a fiddle, or a kit.

The English make ufe of a fimilar loofe and vulgar term, when they want to exprefs any mufical inftrument which they do not well know the name, by the term bordy gourdy; which in fact is an old English inftrument that confifts of a bladder upon a stick, with a string or two ftretched acrois the bladder, which are fastened to each end of the flick, and played upon with a bow.

The rebeck is a three-ftringed fiddle. The cithern has fix ftrings: alto, a mandolin, or a fmall guitar played with a quill, is

fometimes called a cittern. The lute is esteemed to be a very ancient inftrument, as being mentioned in Pfalm lxxxi. &c. it origi nally had fix ftrings, but now has a much greater number. The theorba, or arch-lute, is fometimes called cithara bijuga, from its having two necks, with a great number of ftrings: the Spanish lute, and the guitar, are called cithara Hifpanica. The lute is always ftrung with gut, and played upon with the fingers. The orpharian, bandore, or guitar, are generally ftrung with wire, and moftly played with a quill. (Salinas afferts, that the inftruments of the above clafs take the name of lute, from their halieutic, or boat-like, form.) The crwth; fiddle; viol d'amour; viol de gamba; the bariton; &c. are all played with a bow.

13 Cæfar, in his Commentaries, book IV. chap. 22, &c. calls the Britons, barbarians; and Tacitus the fame. The appellation of barbarians was given by the Greeks to all the world but themselves: the Romans gave it to all the world but the Greeks. T.". A note from Mr. Beloe's tranflation of Herodotus.

• Timagenes fays, that mufic was the most ancient of all studies; Lord Herbert, of Cherbury, on the Religion of the Gentiles, page 204. Flutarch, Libello de Muficâ.-Quintil. Lib I. or 10, 1. 2 I. of Chronicles, chap. XXV. v. 6 and 7.-II. Chronicles, chap. XXIX. chap. V. v. 12.-Of the dreffes of the Levites, &c. fee Exodus, chap. XXVIII. chap. XXXIX. and Isaiah, chap. III. I. Chronicles, chap. XXIII. v. 5. chap. XIII. v. 8. 3 II. Book of Kings, chap. III. v. 15.

4 I. Chronicles, XXV. 1, 3, 5, 6. II, Chron. chap. V. v. 12. s I. Chronicles VI. 33, 34, 39.

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