80 ON MUSIC , & c .
men and women of fashion , whom they may see by daylight any day in the week .
Yet hence the poor are clothed , the mean are fed ; and the philosophy of the ball - room com- pels us to acknowledge , that of the persons thus occupied , very few are capable of employing themselves to better purpose .
ON MUSIC .
THE first traces of music are to be found in Egypt , where musical instruments , capable of much variety and expression , existed , at a time when other nations were in an uncivilized state . The invention of the lyre is ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus , the Mercury of the Egyptians , which is a proof of its antiquity ; but a still greater proof of the existence of musical instruments amongst them at a very early period , is drawn from the figure of an instrument said to be re- presented on an obelisk , erected , as is supposed , by Sesostris , at Heliopolis . This instrument , by means of its neck , was capable with only two strings , if tuned fourths , of furnishing that series of sounds , called by the ancients a heptachord ; and if tuned fifths , of producing an octave .
As Moses was skilled in all the learning of the Egyptians , it is probable that the Israelites , who interwove music in all their religious ceremo- nies , borrowed much from that people . That the Greeks took their first ideas of music from the Egyptians is clear from this , that they as- cribed the invention of the lyre to Mercury , al- though they made Apollo to be the god of music , and gave him that instrument to play upon . In no country was music so much cultivated as in Greece . The muses , as well as Apollo , Bacchus , and other gods and demi - gods , practised or pro- moted it in some way or other . Their poets are supposed to have been like the Celtic and Ger- man bards , and the Scalds of Iceland and Scan- dinavia , who went about singing their poems in the streets and the palaces of princes .
In this manner did . Orpheus , Homer , Hesiod , Sappho and others , recite their verses ; and , in after times , on the institution of the games , Si- monides , Pindar , and other poets , celebrated in public the exploits of the victors . The instru- ments known in the time of Homer , were the lyre , flute , syrinx , and trumpet . The invention of notation and musical characters is ascribed to Terpander , a poet and musician , who flourished 671 years before Christ . We afterwards find philosophers , as well as poets , among the number of those who admired and cultivated music , theo- retically as well as practically , as Pythogoras , Plato , Aristotle , Aristozenus , Euclid and many others . Pythagoras is celebrated for his discove- ries in this science , namely , for that of musical ratios , and the addition of an eighth string to the lyre . The former of these he is supposed to have derived from the Egyptians . He also ex- plained the theory of sounds , and reduced it to a science . Aristozenus is the most ancient writer on music , of whose works there are any remains . Euclid followed up the idea of Pythagoras ' ratios ,
which he reduced to a mathematical demonstra- tion . To this list of Greek writers , may be added Nichomachus , Gerasenus , Alypius , Gaudentius , Bacchius , senior , Ptolemy the astronomer , and Aristides Quintillian , whose works are still ex- tant . These wrote under the Roman Emperors , many of whom cultivated music , and followed the theory of the Greeks . Among the Roman wri- ters may be reckoned Vitruvius , who in his ar- chitecture touches lightly on this subject ; also Martianus Capella , and Boethius , who wrote in the decline of the empire . After them , some centuries elapsed before the science of music met with any particular attention . Its introduc- tion into the church service prevented it from falling , like other arts , into total neglect . Instru- mental music was introduced into the public ser- vice of the church under Constantine the Great . The practice of chanting the psalms was begun in the western churches , by St. Ambrose , about 350 years after Christ : 300 years after the method of chanting was improved by St. Gregory the Great . It was probably introduced into England by St. Augustine , and greatly improved by St. Dunstan . The use of the organ probably com- menced in the Greek church , where it was call- ed hydraulicon , or the water organ . The first organ known in Europe , was sent as a present to King Pepin , from the Emperor Constantine Compronymus . It came into general use in France , Germany , and England , in the tentli century . Soon after this , music began to be cul- tivated as a science , particularly in Italy , where Guido , a monk of Arezzo , first conceived the idea of counter - point , or the division of music into parts , by points set opposite to each other , and formed the scale afterwards known by the name of the gamut . This was followed by the invention of the time table , and afterwards by regular compositions of music . But the exercise of the art was for a long time confined to sacred music , during which period secular music was followed by itinerant poets and musicians , after the manner of the ancients . Of this description were the troubadours in France , the Welsh bards or harpers in England , and the Scotch minstrels .
INCIPIENT disorders of the teeth are too gene- rally neglected . Every parent should , as an imperative duty , submit his child's mouth to the inspection of a judicious dentist at least twice a year . The amount of trouble and agony suffered from this species of negligence would , doubtless , startle and appal any one who could behold it in the aggregate . Yet what shameful cowards most men are in this respect . Day after day , month after month slips away , after they discover the inroads of decay , before they can muster resolu- tion to set themselves in the dentist's chair ; and too many procrastinate , till driven by intense anguish to the crisis ; and then , instead of the slight operation that would have been originally necessary , are edified with the extraction of two or three , which earlier attention might have preserved .
