arrests the attention of a child too young to understand, or of an animal that is supposed not to reason, is a strong proof of its being a special sense of which we shall perhaps know more in another state of existence. Some sort of language, we may conclude, came first, and syllables will have been prolonged for the sake of emphasis. The continuous note having presented itself through some sound in nature, the power of imitation by the voice would be recognised. Rhythm, the innate sense of accent—the spirit of metre, as time is the letter—will also have been awakened by some natural sound, such as the slow dropping of water, or the galloping of an animal. The ideal pendulum once set going within us, words would adapt themselves to it, and poetry, or at least verse, would come into being. The substitution of a musical note for the simple prolongation of the spoken sound would not fail to take place in due time. With the awakening of a purer religious feeling, the continuous note would be found a suitable means of keeping together large numbers in singing chants and hymns, the splendour of many voices in unison would be felt, and ecclesiastical music would assume something of a definite form.
The stages in the rise of music may have been, therefore, as follows: first, nature's instruments—the cleft in the rock, the hole in the cabin, the distant trickling water, or the wind blowing into a reed; then the imitation of these sounds by the voice, followed by the imitation of these and the voice by artificial instruments. Again, the increased accuracy of artificial instruments imitated by the voice; and finally the power of expression of the voice imitated by instruments, vocal and instrumental music aiding each other.
An idea of what remote nations may have done in the way of music can only be gathered from representations of instruments and obscure records of the various periods, and these indications are naturally too vague for any precise estimate to be formed, but there is no reason to imagine that it reached a high point of development with them. A painting on plaster in the British Museum, taken from a tomb at Thebes, and reproduced in Mr. William Chappell's valuable History of Ancient Music, represents a party of comely Egyptian ladies, about the time of Moses, enjoying some concerted music. Three are playing upon instruments of the guitar or lute kind, a fourth upon a double tibia, while a fifth appears to be beating time by clapping her hands. If domestic music was customary so far back, why was the wonderful development of modern times so long in being brought about? Even the Greeks, with all their boundless love for, and appreciation of, the beautiful, and their power of its reproduction, cannot be supposed to have gone far in the cultivation of music. Most of their 'modes' are unsatisfactory to modern ears, aud are not in harmony with cultivated nature. Their use of music seems to have been to form an accompaniment to oratory and to furnish rhythmical tunes for dancing. With their voices they seem to have been inclined at times to indulge in mass of sound rather than music properly so called, if we consider Plutarch's warning to his disciples against indulging in too violent vociferation for fear of such calamitous consequences as ruptures and convulsions.[1] The student then, as at the present day, apparently took upon himself to make all the noise he could against the advice of his instructors. But this is not important to the present purpose. It is enough that we know with tolerable certainty that we are indebted to a long line of pious and learned men for the gradual development of the material with which we have to work. The spread of Christianity required that church music should be purified and put into something like form. This was commenced by St. Ambrose in the latter part of the 4th century, his work being continued and amplified two centuries later by St. Gregory. For the gradual development of music see the articles on Plain-Song and Schools of Composition.
Down to Palestrina's time melody had been held of too little account by theorists. This great reformer knew, beyond all others, how to re-vivify dry contrapuntal forms with music in its great and ultimate capacity as a manifestation of thought and feeling, and thus brought to its gorgeous perfection the Polyphonic school, soon to be thrust aside, never, perhaps, to re-appear in its integrity, but to assert its great master's mighty spirit, later on, in the works of those of his successors who were capable of receiving it.
In early times very great things had been, done in England, and this almost independently of external help, from early in the 15th century. But there is an English part-song, a canon, or round, which has been placed by all the foremost critics early in the 13th century. [See Schools of Composition, Sect. XVI.] Very early mention of English part-singing in the north of England is made by Gerald Barry or Giraldus Cambrensis (see Chappell's 'Music of the Olden Time'). This is borne out by the fact of the fineness of the natural voices in the northern and midland counties at the present time, and the aptitude of the inhabitants for choral singing. Down to the end of the 16th century, singing as an independent art, solo singing, had been held of little account, and had been the vocation almost exclusively of troubadours and other unscientific (though often sympathetic) composers of popular music. Its great impulse was given by the creation of the opera out of an attempt towards the close of the 16th century, on the part of a little knot of disciples of the Renaissance, to revive the musical declamation of the Greek Drama. The result was not what they intended, but of vastly wider scope than they could have anticipated. In connection with this movement was the name of Vincenzo Galilei, the father of the great astronomer. These initiatory efforts and their great and speedy outcome are exhaustively set forth in the very comprehensive article on Opera in this Dictionary. From these small beginnings, a few cantatas accompanied by a single instru-
- ↑ Gordon Holmes, Vocal Physiology and Hygiene, p. 23.
