[27.] Æneid. Lib. 6.
[28.] It may not be amiss here to give the reader some idea of the structure of the Ancient lyre, whose music is said to have produced such wonderful effects. This instrument was composed of an hollow frame, over which several strings were thrown, probably in some such manner as we see them in an harp, or a dulcimer. They did not so much resemble the viol, as the neck of that instrument gives it peculiar advantages, of which the Ancients seem to have been wholly ignorant. The Musician stood with a short bow in his right hand, and a couple of small thimbles upon the fingers of his left: with these he held one end of the string, from which an acute sound was to be drawn, and then struck it immediately with the bow. In the other parts he swept over every string alternately, and allowed each of them to have its full sound. This practice became unnecessary afterwards, when the instrument was improved by the addition of new strings, to which the sounds corresponded. Horace tells us, that in his time the lyre had seven strings, and that it was much more musical than it had been originally. Addressing himself to Mercury, he says
——Te docilis magistro.
Movit Amphion lapides canendo:
Tuque Testudo, resonare septem
Callida nervis;
Nec loquax olim, neque grata &c.
Carm. Lib. III. Od. 11.
For a further account of this instrument, we shall refer the reader to Quintilian’s Institutions. Lib. XII. c. 10.
[29.] Particularly Orpheus and Museus. Lucian says in the general. Τελετην αρχαιαν ουδεμιαν εστιν εὑρειν ανου ορχησεως. Lib. de Salt.
[30.] This allegorical learning was so much in use among the Ægyptians, that the Disciples of a Philosopher were bound by an oath. Εν ὑποκρυφοις ταυτα εχειν‧ και τοις απαιδευτοις και αμνητοις μη μεταδεδιναι. Vid. Seld. de Diis Syr.