Music And The Masonic Ritual.

foous , and whatever could be desired for exciting cheerfulness and mirth . Though it is impossible for us now to form any notion of the style of Egyptian music , yet we can make some near approach to its character , and we may be allowed to conjecture that it ' was studied on scientific principles ; for , from the great

attention paid to it by Pythagoras , many of whose years were spent in learning " the wisdom of the Egyptians , " there is every reason to believe that music was looked upon as an important science , and diligently studied by the priesthood . According to Diodorus , it was not customary to make music part of their education , being deemed useless and even injurious , as tending to render the minds of men effeminate : but this

remark can only -apply to the custom of studying it as an amusement , which might lead to luxurious aud dissolute habits ; and Plato , who was well acquainted with the usages of the Egyptians , distinctly says that they considered music of the greatest consequence , from its beneficial effects upon the mind of youth . This is confirmed b y Strabo who asserts

that the children of the Egyptians were taught letters , the songs appointed b y law , and a certain kind of music , established by government to the exclusion of every other : ancl Diodorus himself , not only allows the invention of music to have been ascribed by the Egyptians to divine origin , but shows that the poets and musicians of Greece visited E t

gyp for the purpose of improvement . The authority of Plato , who had spent thirteen years in the country and had paid particular attention to the institutions of the Egyptians , is of the greatest wei ght on this question ; and the whole passage connected with it is of so much interest that Sir Gardner Wilkinson quotes it as follows : *—

" Allien . Guest . The plan we have been laying down for the education of youth was known long ago to the Egyptians ; that nothing but beautiful forms ancl fine music should be permitted to enter into the assemblies of young people . Having settled what those forms ancl what the music should be , they exhibited them in their temples ; nor was it allowable for painters , or other imitative artists , to innovate , or invent any forms different from what established lawful

were ; nor , either in painting , statuary , or any branches of music , to make any alteration . Upon examination , therefore , you will find that the pictures and statues made ten thousand years ago arc in no particular better or worse than what they now make . " Clin . What yon say is wonderful . ' " Athen . Yes ; it is in the true spirit of legislation and policy . Other that

things , practised among people , may , perhaps , be of " a trifling nature ; but what they ordained about music is ri « -lit , and it deserves consideration , that they were able to make ° laws of this kind , firmly establishing such ' melody as ivas fitted to rectifv the peryersencss of nature . This must have been the work of the Deity , or of some divine man ; as , in fact , they say in Egypt , that the music which has been so long preserved was composed bIsisand the

y , poetry likewise ; so that , as I said , if any one is able to apprehend the rectitude of them , he ought to have the courage to reduce them to law and order . Por the search of pleasure and pam , which is always directed to the use of new music , perhaps possesses no great power of corrupting the consecrated choir by an accusation of its antiquity . It appears , therefore , that the choir of the Egyptians was by no means callable of being corrupted , but that the contrary ivas entirely the case . "

That they paid very great attention to the stud y of music , and had arrived at a very accurate knowledge of the art , is evident , when we consider the nature of the instruments they used , and the perfect acquaintance they must have had with tbe principles of harmony for Atheuseusf expressly tells us that both the Greeks and barbarians were taught by refugees

from E gypt , and that the Alexandrians were the most scientific ancl skilful players on pipes and other instruments . In the infancy of music , as Dr . Burney has justly remarked , " no other instruments were known than those of

percussion , and it was , therefore , little more than metrical . " Then followed the pipe , made of reeds , which grew in the * Plato , "Second Book of Laws . " t' - ' Annals of Alexandria , " iv ., 25 .

rivers ancl lakes , and as improvement followed improvement , by the time the Egyptians were a great nation , music became a noble aud valued science . They also appear to have perfectly understood how to produce a scale from a smaller number of strings , by shortening them on a neck , in a similar manner to onr modern violin . Eroni this we argue that they must have attentively studied the nature of musical sounds

, and extended to this the same minute and serious investigation as to the other sciences . Though Diodorus thinks that the Egyptians did not consider music a necessary part of an accomplished education , yet he attributes * the invention of it to the same deity who gave them laws ancl letters , who regulated the affairs' of reli g ion , and who taught them

astronomy , and all useful and ornamental arts . This fabulous account of its origin evidently shows music to have been sanctioned and even cultivated by the priests themselves , who invariably pretended to have derived from the gods the knowledge of the sciences they encouraged , of whicli thenbody was the sole repository ancl source j ancl serves to prove the great respect paid to music by the Egyptian priests , who thought it not unworthy of a deity to be its jiatron ancl inventor .

In noticing the harps of a tomb at Thebes , t Bruce : j : makes the following remark : — " They overturn all the accounts hitherto given of the earliest state of music and musical instruments in the east ; and arc , altogether , in their form , ornaments , and compass , an incontestable proof , stronger than a thousand Greek Quotations , that geometrydrawingmechanics and music were at the greatest

, , perfection when this instrument ivas made , ancl that the period from which we date the invention of these arts , was only the beginning of the era of their restoration . " We may mention that the instruments chiefly in use among the Egyptians were the single and double pipe , harps , from three to fourteen stringsguitarstambourinesand

vari-, , , ous instruments of percussion . These were also frequently used to accompanjf bands of singers , and these bands frequently consisted of more than twenty persons , who wero often all blind , two of whom responded at the end of the verses by clapping the hands in the rhythm of the

preceding-. If it was not customary for the higher classes of Egyptians to learn music for the purpose of playing in society , unci if few amateur performers could be found among persons of rank , still some general knowledge of the art must have been acquired by a people so alive to its charms ; aud the attention paid to it by the priests regulated the tasteand

pre-, vented tho introduction of a vitiated style , so that music was studied by the priesthood with other views than that of affording pleasure and entertainment , the same science being borrowed by Pythagoras from Egypt . The E gyptians may not have had the means of handing down their compositions with the same fidelity as modern

nations , yet this objection does not apply to the study of the science itself j their object being rather to touch the feeling than deli ght the ear . 'It is impossible for us to determine whether the Egyptian priests , in later times , devised auy method of preserving their melodies , or trusted entirely to oral tradition , as this secret would have been concealed b y

them with the same jealous care as the mysteries themselves . Without entering upon the quceslio vexala where P ythagoras obtained his doctrine of the theory of sounds , the fact of his having studied all the learning of the Egyptians , and his being the sole teacher of that system among the Greeks , goes far to prove that it did not ori ginate in Greece , ancl that his opinions were founded on Egyptian data . For what that philosopher asserted respecting sound emitted by a long and short string of the same quality and thickness , "that

* Diodorus , lib . i ., 10 . ¦ | - Of the time of Eameses III ., B . C , 1235 ; consequently far from being the oldest harps represented in Egyptian sculpture , * " Travels in Abyssinnia , " i ., c . 6 ,