t would carry us too far a-field to attempt to give a sketch of the early music of the principal nations of antiquity, such as might be deduced from the monuments of Egypt and Nineveh and Greece. We may, however, briefly glance at the most ancient minstrelsy of the Israelites; partly for the sake of the peculiar interest of the subject itself, partly because the early history of music is nearly the same in all nations, and this earliest history will illustrate and receive illustration from a comparison with the history of music in mediæval England.
Musical instruments, we are told by the highest of all authorities, were invented in the eighth generation of the world—that is in the third generation before the flood—by Tubal, “the Father of all such as handle the harp and organ, both stringed and wind instruments.” The ancient Israelites used musical instruments on the same occasions as the mediæval Europeans—in battle; in their feasts and dances; in processions, whether of religious or civil ceremony; and in the solemnising of divine worship. The trumpet and the horn were then, as always, the instruments of warlike music—“If ye go to war then shall ye blow an alarm with the silver trumpets.”[319] The trumpet regulated the march of the hosts of Israel through the wilderness. When Joshua compassed Jericho, the seven priests blew trumpets of rams’ horns. Gideon and his three hundred discomfited the host of the Midianites with the sound of their trumpets.
The Tabret was the common accompaniment of the troops of female dancers, whether the occasion were religious or festive. Miriam the prophetess took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances, singing a solemn chorus to the triumphant song of Moses and of the Children of Israel over the destruction of Pharaoh in the Red Sea,—
“Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously;
The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.”[320]
Jephthah’s daughter went to meet her victorious father with timbrels and dances:—
“The daughter of the warrior Gileadite,
From Mizpeh’s tower’d gate with welcome light,
With timbrel and with song.”
And so, when King Saul returned from the slaughter of the Philistines, after the shepherd David had killed their giant champion in the valley of Elah, the women came out of all the cities to meet the returning warriors “singing and dancing to meet King Saul, with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of music;” and the women answered one another in dramatic chorus—
“Saul hath slain his thousands,
And David his ten thousands.”[321]
Laban says that he would have sent away Jacob and his wives and children, “with mirth and with songs, with tabret and with harp.” And Jeremiah prophesying that times of ease and prosperity shall come again for Israel, says: “O Virgin of Israel, thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry.”[322]
In their feasts these and many other instruments were used. Isaiah tells us[323] that they had “the harp, and the viol, the tabret, and pipe, and wine in their feasts;” and Amos tells us of the luxurious people who lie upon beds of ivory, and “chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of music like David,” and drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the costliest perfumes.