Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 January 1891 — Ancient Music. [ARTICLE]

Ancient Music.

The works of the Greek poets and philosophers are full of allusions to the beauty and power of music. The Scriptures also laud the divine art. Nevertheless, it is more than probable that music was crude and barbaric even in ancient Jerusalem. One rather convincing proof of this is found in the constant desire of the andieuts to bring vast bodies of musicians together. “Play skillfully and with aloud noise,” says Ihe Psalmist, and Josephus speaks of choruses of 250,000 voices and as many instrumentalists. It is quite probable that the old historian was exaggerating, yet the very statement shows that, the ancients desired power above all things in their tonal feasts. In Greece the same desire for fortissimo obtained, for we read of a young flute-player bursting a blood-vessel and dying through a herculean effort to obtain a very loud note, and the voice of a gentleman who took several prizes for his musical attainments in the public games was said to be powerful enough to stun the entire audience. Of course the ancient music was strongly rhythmic; of this we have ab ■ solute proof in the Scriptural allusions to the clapping of hands, and in the description of the regular stamping of the director of the chorus in the ancient Greek theaters. The surest proof of the crudity of ancient music is, however, found in the Greek system of notation, which is utterly inadequate to represent music of any intricacy. Yet it is not quite certain that we have deciphered this notation correctly, for the works on the subject are by no means explicit, and many of them have' been destroyed. The excavations in progress at Pompeii may still afford a clew to the musio of the ancient world. It must be remember that two-thirds of the city is still under ground, and it is quite possible that the remains of a musical library may yet be discovered there. At present the musical works of Boethius and of Vitruvius only serve to make the darkness of the ancient musical system more cimmerian. But this much can be stated with surety, that i$ was barbaric in comparison with th* system of our own times. —BostOii Musical Times.

A French agricultural experiment station reports that out of 575 plants the goat eats 449 and refuses 126; the sheep out of 518 plants eats 387 and refuses 141; the cow out of 494 plants eats 276 and refuses. 218; the horse out of 474 plants eats 262 and refases 212; while the pig out of 243 plants eats 72 *and refuses 171. A working bricklayer in London has received a-legacy of £200,000 left by a brother. He has handed £30,000 to each of his five children, one of whom waa working as a carman at Chelmsford.