tive men feelings of awe and reverence, and acts of worship were duly prompted. According as man's conceptions of the Deity are gross and material, or refined and spiritual, so will the worship offered Him differ in its most important characteristics. Man's ignorance in past times could not fail to issue in false and degrading notions of the Supreme; from these, and the sequential peculiar devotional acts accompanying them, arose nearly all the customs which have been handed down to us from remote ages.

Perhaps the least baneful, and certainly the most beautiful, of the various forms into which the worship of the earlier civilised races came to be moulded, was that of music. Music was to them a divine art, the gift of Apollo, and "in all nations the first public use of music has been in the celebration of rites and ceremonies." Though it may now be said to have two manifestations, sacred and secular (the distinction between the two being, however, far less well-defined than is commonly supposed-if, indeed, it be not purely arbitrary !), music has remained true to its primal inspiration; for the highest and purest creation, and the most soulmoving and passion-rousing strains, have been either called into Being, or dedicated to, religion. Epiphanius, writing in the fourth century, said, "It is evident that the first design and use of music was for the praise and glory of God, now to be a part of His worship." As the best of all man had was to be devoted to His service, when the sacrifice of animals fell into disuse greater attention was paid to the temple and its ritual; music, together with architecture (and later still, painting), took still higher places in public worship, and as an expression of "the Beautiful" became more closely allied than ever with religion. "In the plastic arts," says Ritter, "the Beautiful is expressed through outward forms; in music the idea of the Beautiful is expressed through tone-forms. Art, in general, is that magic instrumentality by means of which man's mind reveals to man's senses that great mystery, the Beautiful." And is it not "the Beautiful" we wish to offer Him who made all things?

The origin of music, or rather man's discovery of it, has been the subject of much conjecture. Lucretius taught that "birds instructed men, who tried to frame their voice and imitate them;" others that the whistling of the wind in the hollow reeds first imparted the notion of music. Franckinus ascribed it to the various sounds produced by the hammers of Tubal Cain! Zarlino to the sound of dropping water; whilst Mr. Haweis insists there is no music in nature, neither melody nor harmony, but that it is the creation of man. He says, "Nature gives us sound, and the musician compels it to work his will; the painter transfers to the canvas the forms and tints he sees around him, but the musician

does not reproduce any combination of sounds he has ever heard, or could possibly hear, in the natural world. Modern music, which is alone worthy of the name, is but four hundred years old, and is the youngest of the arts."

To a certain extent this is true, for we can hardly conceive of music as an art apart from harmony, and this is but of recent origin. The infancy of every art is lost in obscurity; the lack of means in early times for preserving acquisitions of knowledge to posterity renders it hopeless to mark with any certainty the steps by which men approached perfection in the various studies to which they have given themselves. With respect to music, its history cannot be traced earlier than the history of Egypt; we find upon its ancient monuments representations of musical instruments, and as vocal must have long preceded instrumental music, we have indisputable testimony to the fact of "sweet sounds " having been made many thousands of years ago. Herodotus tells us music was regarded by the Egyptians as the gift of inspiration, and its use chiefly restricted to the services held in honour of their deities; but in the absence of any musical records of this period, it is impossible to say what their music was like. The instruments were very simple, and probably the stringed ones, like the harp and lyre, were suggested by the tone given by a twanging bowstring, and the drum by the resonance of a stretched dried

skin.

In the Jewish narratives of the Old Testament are probably found the only authentic facts connected with Egyptian music, for the Israelites, in all likelihood, acquired their knowledge of the art from their taskmasters. From passages in their early writings we learn that poetry was always accompanied by song, and both by instruments (almost certainly in unison). Laban complained that Jacob had not permitted him to send him away "with mirth and with song, with tabret and with harp." Miriam, after the overthrow of the Egyptians, took a timbrel and sang and danced; indeed, all authorities agree in saying that music and poetry were at first inseparable, and that dancing also had an intimate connection with song. It is probable that music, which at first was, o of course, vocal, was used simply as a vehicle for poetry, either to set it off to greater advantage, or else to aid its committal to memory. But no Hebrew music has come down to us, or at least none that can with certainty be said to be such.

Prior to the fifteenth century, the Jews possessed no written music, the melodies being passed on from precentor to precentor each of whom, doubtless, altered the same to suit his own taste. It has been suggested that the Gregorian Chants came from Jerusalem, but there is no proof of it, and as all ancient music must

have had a sameness of character, it would not be safe to affirm it. Kiesewetter argues it was impossible for the Gregorian Chants to have had such an origin, for the early Christians had a horror of everything connected not only with heathenism but with Jewism; he is mistaken, however, for the rhythm of the early Christian hymns proves them to have been set to the music of the pagan odes.

Josephus tells us 20,000 musicians assisted at the dedication of Solomon's Temple; and one of his annotators adds "the ancient music of the Hebrews must have been very complete; it embraced a great variety of tunes, as is evident from the number of musical instruments, and, by the testimony of Jesus, the son of Sirach, who, in Ecclesiasticus, writes, "The singers sang praises with their voices, with great variety of sounds was there made sweet melody."'" Hebrew, and all Oriental music, was mostly rhythmical, and would, no doubt, strike a modern ear as monotonous in the extreme.

We find constant references to music in Greek literature; it was the second necessary part of a liberal education, and under it was comprised poetry, dancing, and the drama. All the poets were musicians. A writer affirms that though ancient Greece had many musicians who were not poets, it had no poets who were not also musicians, and who did not compose the music to their own pieces, and he deduces this as the reason of the superiority of Greek poetry over Latin, as well as that of modern languages. It is difficult for a cold, prosaic nature to understand either the intense love of the musician for his art, or the power such an one possesses to express his mental emotion in song; and it is no less difficult for us who live in this utilitarian age to realise the necessity which existed for the early poets to be musicians. The connection between the two has been recognised by all true poets. When some one remarked to Wordsworth that Tennyson seemed to have a more perfect sense of music than that of any of the new race of poets, the Laureate replied, "Yes, the perfection of harmony lies in the very essence of the poet's nature, and Tennyson gives magnificent proof that he is endowed with it."

The tragedies of ancient Greece and Rome were not only sung but accompanied, and for long years instrumental music was not thought of apart from words! This is to be regretted, for different studies receive their highest cultivation only when separately pursued, and in the present instance there can be no doubt this presumed indissoluble union between song and instrumentation was greatly to the detriment of the latter, for as the music to these ancient odes was evidently little else than recitative, no scope was afforded for brilliancy of instrumental execution. The

evil of this was felt in later times, for Dr. Gregory complained that counterpoint (that is, harmony) "has well nigh destroyed. the effects of music in the Church; " Wesley also wrote in the same strain! The imperfect musical scale, and the ignorance of the use of chromatics, rendered even the melody of the ancients tedious from its sameness. The style of music then in vogue is well shown in Mendelssohn's eight-part chorus "Edipus in Colonos," which, though a beautiful composition, would still be unbearably monotonous if listened to for an hour; at any rate, no conductor appears willing to make the experiment.

Many of the Greek dramas consisted of 1,500 verses, and it was not unusual for the leader (or coryphæns) to speak either alone or in dialogue with the other players, and thus acquaint the audience with the progress of the events intended to be represented. The chorus sometimes mustered fifty performers, but these were afterwards reduced by law to fifteen. Among the Greeks prizes were offered to the winners in games of physical exercises and intellectual display. History tells of a prize being offered to the best performer on the flate, about 591 B.C.; and in the 96th Olympiad (396 B.C.) another was given to the best player on the trumpet. Pausanius writes that the Pythic games anciently con sisted only of poetical and musical contests, the highest prize being awarded to him who wrote and sang the best hymn in honour of Apollo. It is said that Nero, the inhuman Emperor of Rome. frequently entered the lists, and that such was the slavish adoration paid him (coupled with fear?) he was always declared victor. Rome adopted the style of Grecian music, as she did her style of other arts, when Greece became subject to her arms (146 B.C.)

We have thus seen that till now in the pagan world, as it is called, there was but little music apart from the special words to which it was set by the poets themselves; while among the Jews the chants to which the Psalms and other devotional hymns were sung were really handed down from one generation to the nexta process singularly liable to errors and innovations. Terpander, who flourished 671 B.C., and who was a poet and musician, is said to have invented a notation and musical characters; but they must have been of little use, and, for the large majority of people, as though they were not. Music, as such, received little or no distinctive attention-the words being of the greatest importance.

The Hebrews placed their musical characters both above and below the words to be sung, which mode seems to have been general. The Roman Church adopted the same plan, though it afterwards improved upon it by drawing a straight line above the words, and arranging the notes with a geometrical distance either above or beneath it, according as the voice was to ascend or

descend; when instruments were used, the player accompanied in unison. The stave, as we know it, is of much later invention, and as bars were not used, and frequently no cleffs or other distinguishing marks for determining the key in which the music was written; as neither harmony nor the complete scale were known, it will be easily understood that bat little indeed was known of the real principles of music.

This general survey has brought us down to the time from which music in the Western Church may be said to date, and will the better enable us to follow its subsequent history.

A JOURNEY IN RUSSIAN LAPLAND.-II.

KOLA is the oldest village, or town, in Lapland, that is to say, it is four centuries old. In 1475 the Monastir was founded; in 1505 it had only three fishing huts. But towards the close of the same century it had risen to be a small town, with over three hundred houses and nearly nineteen hundred inhabitants. In 1704 Peter the Great built a square battery, with a tower, there, also a large wooden church. It was not till seventy-six years afterwards that Kola was dignified by the official title of town; and when a century had passed it had again shrunk to a moderate-sized village of perhaps eighty houses and huts, and five hundred inhabitants. It is most inconveniently placed as regards the best fisheries, and equally so for the interior, and the duty on its imports-chiefly salt and sugar-is assessed at Archangel.

It is this peninsula*, of which Kola is the capital, that Mr. Rae has called the "White Sea Peninsula." About nine-sixteenths of its total surface consists of moor and wilderness, six-sixteenths of forest, and the remaining sixteenth of lake, mere, and marsh. The salmon fisheries of the White Sea and the Mûrman coast were once immense, but the clumsy and defective method of fishing and the entire absence of protection or restriction, has sacrificed alike the interests of fish and fishermen. Nevertheless, the salmon are very fine, often weighing more than 40lb. Besides the salmon, char and trout, grayling, perch, and pike abound in all the lakes

The White Sea Peninsula. A Journey in Russian Lapland and Karelia." By Edward Rae, F.R.G.S., author of "The Land of the North Wind" and "The Country of the Moors." John Murray, Albemarlestreet.