to that employment, with a proper provision for their support, would have every desirable opportunity for improvement. 3. The musical instruments of the Hebrews form the next, and a very curious subject of enquiry. The Hebrew musical instruments, as indeed all others, are of three kinds; nechiloth, or wind-instruments, neginoth, or stringed instruments, and the timbrel, tabret, cymbal, &c. which were pulsative, or of the drum kind. Of the former, the principal is the organ which was invented by Jubal, several centuries before the flood. This, in its first state, was probably similar to the syrinx, or pipes of Pan, composed of several reeds of unequal lengths, and, consequently, different sounds. An instrument of this kind has been found in several uncivilized countries; and though it may bear no comparison with modern instruments, it is hard to say to what perfection it might be carried by artists, who could devote five hundred years, or more, to its study and improvement. It was evidently a pastoral instrument, and if we may credit the additional psalm in the Septua gint, David used to make it when a shepherd. Whether the Hebrews ever connected a bag with these pipes is uncertain; but Kircher describes what he calls an ancient organ, consisting of a row of pipes in a chest, blown by a pipe instead of bellows, and probably stopped with the fingers, instead of keys. The other wind-instruments were chiefly horns and trumpets; and these, no doubt, origiF nally, were the horns of animals, and chiefly used as military music. Jubal, the antediluvian, is also celebrated as the inventor of the harp or Hebrew lyre, which was the most ancient of stringed instruments, and a great favourite of the Jewish nation. They call it the pleasant harp', and made it the constant companion of their pleasures as well as devotion. It is supposed that this instrument was improved to a considerable degree of perfection by the Egyptians, at a period, perhaps, considerably anterior to this3; and there seems no good reason to pronounce the Hebrew harp inferior to the Egyptian, except in size. David and the Levites often dancing as they played, shews that it must have been with them a portable instrument. JOSEPHUS ascribes the psaltery to Jubal, as well as the harp; but the scriptures never mention it till the time of David; and it might possibly be one of the instruments he invented. The rabbins describe this instrument in a form not unlike that of a lantern, which may be true of a more modern instrument under the same name. The Hebrew name nebel, which signifies a bottle, jug, or flaggon, seems to determine its shape to that kind of figure, as both Jewish and Christian writers have observed 4. JOSEPHUS says, it had twelve sounds, and was played upon by the fingers; herein being distin 3 1 Psal. lxxxi. 2. 2 Isa. xxiv. 8. See Burney's Hist. of Music, vol. I. p. 220*. Ainsworth, in Psal. xxxiii. 2, and at the end of his annotations. See also Calmet's Dict. guished from the harp, which was played with a plectrum', i. e. a piece of bone, wire, or quill; as it was so late as the time of our great king Alfred. Another and principal difference, however, probably was, that the former, being a weaker instrument, was used to accompany the female voices; and the latter as more powerful, the men, who sung an octave lower2. This instrument was also famous among the heathen, who esteemed it a Phoenician invention; and Ovid describes it as turned about with the hands in playing'. From these circumstances it should seem of the same species with the modern lute or mandoline, having perhaps a short neck, and the back rounded. The modern Jews use the same word for a violin, and our tranflators have in some places rendered it a viol'. David mentions an instrument of ten strings, which the Talmud interprets of a species of harp, and others of the psaltery; but it should seem to have been distinguishable from both, though perhaps only in some trifling circumstances. Among the instruments used to accompany the sacred dances, were the shalishim, rendered 1 Antiq. lib. vii. cap. 12. 2 So is commonly, and I think justly understood, the regulation of the royal psalmist, Chron. xv. 20, 21. Certain leaders were appointed to play with psaltery on alamoth, naby-by, for the virgins, i. e. to accompany their voices; and others with harps, on the sheminoth, for the octave voices, i.e. the men, who sung an octave lower. 3 See Parkhurst's Hebrew Lexicon, in a. simply instruments of music, which probably were steel trianglès, such as are used by our street musicians, with or without the addition of rings, to assist the tinkling. Some critics, however, chuse to render this word, by the same rule of interpretation with the preceding, an instrument of three strings. Of the third class of instruments we have the toph, timbrel, or tabret. This appears to have been exactly the same instrument as the Syrian diff, or modern tambourine, which has lately been introduced among us as a companion to the barrel organ. This also was the usual accompaniment of dancing, whether secular or sacred. Their cymbals appear to have been of two kinds, the tzilzell shamagh and tzilzell temgah, the loud-sounding and the high-sounding cymbal, which were probably distinguished by the size; the former, being the larger, and that used on the grandest occasions, having been also lately introduced into our military bands, as a part of the Turkish music, needs no description; every person who has heard it, must be sensible of its solemn and peculiar effects, as an accompaniment to other instruments. This enumeration of the Hebrew instruments may be sufficient to shew their powers; and when great numbers of them were united, and accompanied with hundreds, or thousands of human voices, which would greatly cover their imperfection, their chorus must 2 Psal. cl. 3. 1 1 Sam. xviii. 6. I 37 have been highly animating, whether in the temple or in the camp. We may, also, in a great measure infer the probable excellency of the Hebrew music from the euphony of their language, and the sublimity of their poetry. On the former, some learned men have pronounced very warm eulogiums', and if we might be allowed to form a judgment from the few words, such as Ainen, Hallelujah, &c. which have been adopted into our own and many other languages, nothing can be better adapted for musical expression. It is, however, very difficult to judge of the pronunciation of a language that must have undergone so many changes; and has been, in a manner, a dead language for so many centuries, As to the Hebrew poetry, Mr. ADDISON, à critic of the first rank in literature, has pronounced the Hebrew hymns and odes to excel those that are delivered down to us by the ancient Greeks and Romans in the poetry, as much as in the subject to which it was consecrated, This may be made obvious, even to an English reader: let the Bible version of the psalms and prophecies, under all the disadvantages of its being literal, and sometimes inaccurate, be compared with the highly finished versions of Virgil and Homer, by Dryden and Pope, and that person must have either very strong prejudices, or a very weak judgment, who does not immediately perceive the superiority of the former. A |