espoused the cause of the Greeks; Apollo,, depended on several circumstances that Mars, and Venus, sided with the Trojans. Meanwhile an obstinate calm retained the fleet of the Greeks at Aulis. Calchas, who held the situation of high priest, declared, that in order to obtain a favourable wind, Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon, must be sacrificed. Diana, irritated at that Prince having shot a doe that was consecrated to her, demanded that horrid sacrifice, which is said to have produced the desired effect. Others have said that Iphigenia did not die, and that Diana herself sent a doe in her stead. However, the Greeks had scarcely reached the Trojan shores, when a dreadful plague thinned their ranks. Calchas being consulted anew, declared, that to make it cease, Apollo must be appeased, by restoring to his priest Chryses, his daughter Chryseïs, whom Agamemnon kept among his slaves. Agamemnon, compelled to yield to the demand of the Greek Princes, and especially of Achilles, as an indemnification for his loss, seized upon Briseïs, the slave of that hero. The haughty Achilles would have instantly taken vengeance for the insult, had he not been prevented by Minerva; yet implacable in his resentment, he withdrew from the army and refused to fight. The Trojaus, headed by Hector, availed themselves of this misunderstanding, and set fire to the vessels of the enemy. Patroclus, the friend of Achilles, by dint of earnest solicitations, obtained the arms of that hero, and flew to meet Hector, but was slain by the Trojan Prince. The grief of Achilles caused his rancour to subside; and his mother Thetis prevailed on Vulcan to forge other arms for him, with which he challenged Hector to single combat. The Trojan hero, forsaken by the Gods, fell under the triumphant ascendancy of Achilles, who gave up his body to the insults of the Greeks, dragged it several times round the walls of the city, and exacted from the disconsolate Priamus rich presents, before he would condescend to send back to him the disfigured remains of his beloved son. Achilles himself, enamoured of Polixena, the daughter of Priamus, was some time after allured, under the pretence of marrying her, into a temple, where he was killed by Paris. The fate of Troy, in the present contest, The have been called the fatalities of Troy. The first, and certainly the most natural, was the death of Hector; next it was required that a descendant of Eacors should be in the Greek army, on account of which, after the death of Achilles, his son Pyrrhus was sent for next, the arrows of Hercules were wanted, and Pyrrhus was commissioned to persuade Philoctetes, who was in possession of them, to join the Greeks; it was he who afterwards killed Paris. fourth fatality of Troy was the Palladium, which must be carried off; and that was executed by Ulysses and Diomede: it was requisite in the fifth place, to prevent the horses of Rhesus, King of Thrace, who had joined Priamus, from being watered in the river Xanthus. On the very night of his arrival, Diomede and Ulysses entered his camp, and the former killed him, while Ulysses was loosening the horses with which he made off. Achilles, by killing Troilus, the son of Priamus, accomplished another requisite. The destruction of Laomedon's tomb, and the arrival of Telaphus, the son of Hercules, who had been an ally of the Trojans, decided the fate of that devoted city, that could not be taken, unless a son of Hercules should join its enemies. After ten years of alternate advantage, the Greeks, despairing of taking the placeby main force, had recourse to stratagem. Pursuant to Minerva's advice, they constructed an enormous wooden horse, inside of which their choicest warriors were secreted. They spread a report that it was in consequence of a vow to obtain a happy return, and they embarked and left the shore. An impostor, called Simon, whom they left behind them, presented himself to the Trojans as a deserter, and advised them to pull down part of the wall that they might get the horse into the city, which, added he, according to the answers of the oracle, would accomplish the ruin of the Greeks. The Trojans followed the perfidious advice; the horse was introduced amidst the acclamations of a people intoxicated with joy, who, thinking themselves free from all danger, had neglected every precaution; but the Greeks, who had removed but at a short distance, reached the shore in the dead of night, when Simon let out the warriors, who got possession of the gates. The re mainder of the army soon joined them; Troy became a prey to the flames and plunder: the valiant defence of some of the Trojans only increased the carnage. struck the rock open with his trident, and the impions wretch perished in the waves. Venus, who had been wounded by Diomede, kindled shameful passions within his breast: she plotted his destruction, and he was exposed to great danger before he had at last succeeded in retiring to Italy, where he founded a kingdom. Idomeneus, assailed by a tempest, vowed, in case he should escape, to sacrifice to Neptune the first person he should see on reaching the shore. His son, uneasy about him, was the first object that struck his view, and Idomeneus plunged his sword into the body of the youth. The Cretans, being seized with horror, refused to receive their King, who also went to found a kingdom in Italy. Priamus was killed at the foot of an altar, where he had sought a refuge, by Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles, who himself, on the next day, killed Polyxenes on the tomb of that hero. Deiphobe, whom the guilty Helena had married after the death of Paris, was massacred in the most cruel manner by that fierce woman, who expected by this means to be reconciled with her base Menelaus, in which she, indeed, succeeded. The remainder of the Trojans became slaves to the Greeks, who divided them into lots. Hecuba fell to the lot of Ulysses; Cassandra, her daughter, to Agamemnon. She could Pyrrhus, passionately in love with Anread into futurity, and predicted to that dromache, and anxious to marry her, rePrince the misfortunes that awaited him; pudiated Hermione, the daughter of Medestiny, however, had decreed that her nelaus. Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, predictions should never be credited. An- and cousin to the Princess, whom he loved dromache, the widow of Hector, and Asty-tenderly, murdered Pyrrhus, when before anax her son, fell to the share of Pyrrhus. Eneas alone, followed by a few Trojans, escaped; his wife Creusa, was carried away by Cybele, who wished to save her from the calamities attending a city taken by storm. the altar. The events of the siege of Troy have furnished the subjects of the most beautiful poems that exist. We have only tried to give a brief sketch of it to make the present work complete: to the above masterpieces we refer our readers, in hopes that this treaty shall have enabled them to reap due benefit from the perusal of those immortal works. This war proved no less fatal to the conquerors than to the vanquished. We have already related the tragical end of Agamemnon. Ulysses, persecuted by Venus, wandered for ten years over the seas, without being able to land in Ithaca, and APPENDIX.-EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY. to meet his faithful Penelope, who was continually harassed by suitors contending for her hand, and who squandered away the riches of Ulysses. With the assistance of Minerva, however, he arrived at last, reduced to the utmost distress, after having lost all his companions. Telemachus, his son, aided him to overpower his profligate guests. We have already observed, more than once, that the Greeks had borrowed their religious system from the Egyptians. Error, the same as renown, increases in its progress; their lively imagination soon added new fictions to those ancient traditions, and their vanity strived to naturalize amongst them the Egyptian Gods, by ascribing to them a Greek origin. The Romans, in their turn, adopted, with some modifica tions however, the theogony of the Greeks. At the expiration of some centuries, both nations neglected the new deities they had created to themselves, and returned to the ancient Egyptian Gods, whose worship, Menelaus ended his days in ignominy with his Helena. Ajax, the son of Telamon, killed himself because, after the death of Achilles, the arms of that hero were given to Ulysses. Ajax, the son of Oileus, scorned the Gods, and especially Minerva. The Goddess accordingly applied to Nep-although frequently proscribed, became tune, who sent a tempest that sunk all his ships. "I shall escape in spite of the Gods," cried the son of Oileus, who had swam and reached the top of a rock; but Neptune general throughout the Roman empire; and, from a strange ebbing of opinion, the Egyptians themselves gave to their ancient Gods the attributes of the new deities. In such a state of things we have thought it adviseable here to affix a brief sketch of Egyptian mythology; and so much the more so, as the monuments and writings of the latter Roman ages are full of allusions to those superstitions. ISIS AND OSIRIS. WE conform ourselves to the general custom, by placing here first the Goddess who seems to have been held in higher veneration than her husband. The whole Egyptian divinity rested on those two deities, who comprehended the essence of all the heathen Gods; for the private particular deities of either sex were only the attributes of Isis and Osiris, that had finally been personified. Let us proceed to examine what the best informed Greek authors have transmitted to us, respecting those two deities. They do not agree with regard to their origin: they even pretend to say that there existed an Osiris prior to the present; although they all acknowledge that the one we are now speaking of married his sister Isis, by whom he had five children, amongst whom was Orus, of whom we are going to speak, and another Osiris, who likewise married his sister called Isis, the same as her mother. So far this is like the history of Uranus. The married couple lived in the most perfect union, and both applied to the civilization of their subjects, taught them agriculture, and all such arts as were most useful in common life. Osiris next formed a resolution to go and conquer India, less, however, by force of arms, than by using conciliating manners and persuasion. He raised a considerable army composed of both men and women, and succeeded in his enterprise not only in India, but in Ethiopia, Arabia, Thrace, and the adjoining countries; every where did he leave marks of his bounty by introducing civilization. When he set off for his expedition he left the government of his kingdom to Isis. Upon his return from Egypt, Osiris was informed that his brother Typhon had plotted against his government at the head of a formidable party. As he was naturally of a mild and pacific disposition, he endeavoured, by using clemency alone, to reconcile that ambitious spirit, but failed in his expectation. Typhon, dissembling his heinous projects, invited him to a sumptuous banquet. The repast being over, he proposed to his guests, by way of amusement, to be measured in a trunk of exquisite workmanship, which he promised to make a present of to him who should happen to be exactly of the same dimensions. Osiris, in his turn, laid down, when all the conspirators shut the trunk and threw it into the Nile. Isis being apprized of the tragical end of her husband, went in search of his body: she was informed that it had been driven by the waves into Phoenicia, and concealed under a tamarind bush. She accordingly set off for Byblos; and in order to facilitate her researches, entered the service of Astarte, Queen of that country. At last, however, after having taken infinite pains, she found the dear body, and uttered such lamentations, that the son of the King of Byblos, sympathizing in her grief, fell a victim to his sorrow; which melted the King to such a degree that he allowed Isis to carry away the corpse of her husband, and to retire into Egypt. Scarce had she arrived when Typhon found means to take possession of the trunk, tore the corpse to pieces, and had the limbs scattered over different parts of Egypt. Isis carefully had them dug up, however, enclosed them in coffins wherever she found them, and consecrated, by religious ceremonies, substitutes for those that escaped her researches. She next thought of being revenged; mustered all her troops, and put her son Orus at their head. The young Prince defeated the tyrant in two pitched battles, slew him with his own hand, and reascended the throne of his father. Nevertheless, he was subsequently overpowered by the Titans, who took away his life. Isis, his mother, who possessed the most extraordinary secrets of the healing art, even that of bestowing immortality, having found his body in the Nile, brought him to life again, and taught him physic and divination. Orus, owing to those talents and abilities, acquired great reputation, and overwhelmed the world with benefits.Here ends the historical part of the origin of those Gods. dis-of (To be concluded in our next.) A BRIEF HISTORY OF MUSIC, FROM THE EARLIEST AGES TO THE PRESENT TIME, SELECTED FROM THE BEST AUTHORITIES. ON CHURCH MUSIC. (Continued from page 107.) If we study the latter part of the Acts, we shall find that all the primitive Christians were accustomed to sing psalms and hymus at their assemblies, or as was otherwise called, the church. Lucian also speaks of the first Christians as singing of psalms. During the reign of the Emperor Theodosius, in the year 884, the chaunt called the Ambrosian, was established in the church at Milan; and St. Augustin says, the voices flowed in at his heart, and his eyes ran over with tears of joy. And such was said to be the powerful and happy effects of church music in and near that time, that it drew the Geutiles into the churches from mere curiosity, who so well liked the Christian ceremonies that many were baptized before they went out of the Temple of the only true God. Musical instruments do not seem to have|| been used indiscriminately in the church in the early ages of Christianity; the harp and psaltry were always preferred for religious uses. The choir was formerly separated from the altar, and elevated in the form of a theatre, with a pulpit on each side, where the Epistle and Gospel were sung. In the middle ages we read of a school being established at Canterbury for ecclesiastical music, and that the rest of the island of Great Britain was furnished with masters from that foundation. At the same period Roman music and singing were much in favour here; and St. Dunstan, the monk, is universally spoken of as being not only a great musician, but also the inventor of music in four parts. According to William of Malmsbury, the Saxons had organs in their churches before the conquest; one of which was a present from Dunstan to the Abbey of Malmsbury: nor was this the only one he gave; he is asserted to have furnished many English churches and convents with organs. Mr. Strutt, in his diligent and interesting researches into antiquity, rather imagines No. 109.-Vol. XVII. musical instruments were brought hither by our conquerors, the Romans, for the amusement of their commanders: and Cicero, in a letter to Atticus, speaks with great contempt of our ancestors in regard to the progress they made in arts and sciences. Many writers on ecclesiastical subjects, assure us that the organ was first admitted into the church at Rome by Pope Vitalian, in 666. In 680, Bede informs us that Pope || Agatho sent over John, the præcentor of St. Peter at Rome, to instruct the monks of Weremonth, and for teaching music in other parts of the kingdom of Northumberland. The ancient inhabitants of Wales were great encouragers of poetry and music, and their poems were generally accompanied with musical instruments. In the half barbarous ages music was held in the highest estimation; so that he who cultivated letters always endeavoured also to be a proficient in music. THE TROUBADOURS. Ir was in the ninth century that those poets and songsters, known by the name of Troubadours, were multiplied; they were originally from Provence, in France, and their profession was honoured by the patronage of the Count de Poitou, and many great Princes and Barons, all cultivators of poetry and music. They were received at all courts, where they were protected with consideration and respect. The ladies, whose beauty they celebrated, always gave them the most flattering reception; listened attentively to their tales of tenderness, and the descriptions of the havoc their irresistible charms had made in these singers' hearts. These musical architects built their poems on plans of their own invention; and the Troubadours, by singing and writing after a new method, occasioned a revolution not only in the art of writing, but in the human mind. Jongleurs, or musicians, were employed very early to U sing the works of the Troubadours, some other persons of high birth, or by ladies of whom, from want of voice or knowledge || with plump and delicate hands: the inin music, being unable to do it themselves. strument which served as an accompaniModern history, during this dark period, ment to the harp was a viol, which was has no other materials to work upon than played, on with a bow, and must not be the works of these ancient bards. confounded with the vielle, called by the common people in England hurdy-gurdy, and which produces tones by the friction of a wheel. The history of the Troubadours contains several natural and affecting sentiments; particularly that of Blondel with Richard Cœur de Lion; Blondel being a minstrel, or Troubadour. Gaucelm was also a Troubadour, who was much esteemed and patronized by Richard, when he was Count of Poitou, and resided at Provence during the lifetime of his father, Henry II. He accompanied him to Palestine in the holy war: he was a composer of witticisms as well as some good tunes. He seduced a beautiful nun from a convent at Aix, and married her; and she accompanied him in his travels from one court to another, for many years. Besides her personal charms and accomplishments, this lady had a very fine voice, and was much admired for the style in which she sang the songs composed by her husband. The Troubadours, at length, degraded themselves to such a degree by the licentiousness of their conduct, that they were totally suppressed, and their order banished with ignominy. It was soon discovered that their talents were imaginary, and only owed their reputation to impudent effrontery with a fascination of manner; they were found to be rapacious, and their morals most corrupt. MUSIC IN FRANCE. THE songs most in vogue in the ninth century were moral, merry, and amatory. Melody, at that time, seems to have been little more than plain chaunting. The harp was reckoned the most majestic instrument, and is always, by romance writers, placed in the hands of their heroes. Machau, an old poet, who flourished in the fourteenth century, says it is a profanation to use this instrument in taverns, being only fit to be used by knights and An antique bason was dug up some years ago near Soissons; and on it is represented a musician playing on a viol with a long bow. Abbé le Bœuf is of opinion that the workmanship of this bason was executed in the time of some of the first French Kings, so early as 752; which makes the use of the bow in France of higher antiquity than in any other country. Among the illuminations of a MS. of the beginning of the fourteenth century, of poems by the King of Navarre, is the figure of a minstrel, sitting on an elevated seat, and who seems playing to the King and Queen of Navarre. The ancient and respectable monuments upon which we find the viol represented, proves it to have been long a favourite instrument in France: and there is little doubt but that the minstrels were the best performers on the viol of the age they lived in. MINSTRELS. MUSICIANS of this kind abounded in the reign of Charlemagne; they sung those verses which were composed and set by the Troubadours to whom nature had denied a fine voice. Charlemagne speaks of the minstrels, however, as persons branded with infamy. They continued, notwithstanding, to amuse the great in private and the people in public; yet their licentiousness was frequently repressed, and their conduct put under the regulation of a vigilant police. During the reign of Philip Augustus, the Troubadours and minstrels were involved in the same disgrace, and for a time banished the kingdom, which left a lasting stigma on their order. (To be continued.) |