barak, or the blessed amulet, is one among many of these numeral combinations, which, when hung about the neck, is said to procure the favour of princes, to inspire courage, to intimidate an enemy, to prevent distempers, or whatever else may be hurtful and injurious.

Of their Music and Musical Instruments.

It has been already observed, that these people play upon several instruments of music; but as they do not write down their compositions,

ging the first into 4, and the other into o 5, and the

into

3, will be

nor

ی

The following Hebrew letters, which Manasseh ben Israel inserts before his treatise De Resurrectione Mortuorum, were proba bly another of these charms or magic squares :

nor aim at any contrast or variety of parts in the music itself, we cannot consider even this branch of the mathematics as a science among them. For the music of the Bedoweens rarely consists of more than one strain, suitable indeed to their homely instruments, and to their simple invention.

The arabebbah, as they call the bladder and string, is in the highest vogue, and doubtless of great antiquity among them; as is also the gaspah, which is a common reed, open at each end, like the German flute, with three or more holes upon the side, according to the ability of the. person who is to touch it; though the compass of their tunes rarely or ever exceeds an octave. Yet, even in this simplicity of harmony, they observe something of method and ceremony. For in their historical cantatas especially, they have their preludes and symphonies; each stanza being introduced with a flourish from the arabebbah, while the narration itself is accompanied with some soft touches upon the gaspah. The strolling Bedoweens and Dervishes, like the ancient AIOAOI, or rhapsodists, are chiefly conversant in this sort of music; who, after they have got a multitude of people together, and placed them in a circle, begin to chant over the memorable actions of their prophet, &c. or else laying before them the plans of Mecca, Medina, &c. give a flourish at each period of their descriptions with one or other of these instruments.

The taar, another of their instruments, is made

like

like a sieve, consisting (as Isidore* describes the tympanum) of a thin rim or hoop of wood, with a skin of parchment stretched over the top of it. This serves for the bass in all their concerts; which they accordingly touch very artfully with their fingers, or with the knuckles or palms of their hands, as the time and measure require, or as force and softness are to be communicated to the several parts of the performance. The taar is undoubtedly the tympanum of the ancients; which appears as well from the general use of it all over Barbary, Egypt, and the Levant, as from the method of playing upon it, and the figure itself of the instrument, which is exactly the same with what we find in the hands of Cybele and the Bacchanals among the basso relievos and statues of the ancients.

But the music of the Moors is more artful and melodious than that of the Bedoweens, for most of their tunes are lively and pleasant; and if the account be true, which I have often heard seriously affirmed, that the flowers of mullein and mothwort will drop, upon playing the mismoune, they have something to boast of which our modern music does not pretend to. They have also a much greater variety of instruments than the Arabs; for besides several sorts of flutes and hautboys, they have the rebebb, or violin of two strings, played upon with a bow; they have the

*Isid. Orig. 1. iii. cap. 31.

+ Lucret. 1. ii. 618.

Ovid. Amor. 1. iii. El. vii. 33.

a-oude,

a-oude*, or bass double stringed lute, bigger than our viol, that is touched with a plectrum; besides several smaller gittars, or quetarast, according to their pronunciation, of different sizes, each of them tuned an octave higher than another. They have also improved the taar of the Bedoweens, by suspending loosely, upon pieces of wire in the rim of it, several pairs of thin hollow brass plates, which, clashing against each other in the several strokes and vibrations given to the parchment, form a clinking but regular kind of noise, that fills up those little vacancies of sound, which would otherwise be unavoidable. Yet, notwithstanding this multiplicity of instruments; notwithstanding they learn all by the ear, and pass quickly from one measure to another, hastening the time, as the musicians term it, in them all, yet the greatest uniformity and exactness is always preserved throughout these performances. I have often observed twenty or thirty persons playing together in this manner, during a whole night, (the usual time of their more solemn entertainments), without making the least blunder or hesitation.

Neither

* A-oude, from whence the Spanish laud or laut, and our lute, supposed by Bochart (Hieroz. i. 1. iv. c. 8.) to be the Xtλus or testudo of the ancients.

The same word and instrument, no doubt, with the ancient cithara.

"Ye shall have a song as in the night, when a holy solem"nity is kept," Isa. xxx. 29. Пavio daтo was an early practice among the Greeks, as we learn from Homer, Il. .

476.

Neither should I omit the Turkish music, which is inferior indeed to the Moorish in sprightliness, yet is still more compounded than that of the Bedoweens. The Turks have been always a prosperous and thriving nation, who distinguish themselves sometimes by brisk and cheerful tempers; yet there is a certain mournful and melancholy turn, which runs through all their compositions. We may account for it perhaps from that long intercourse and conversation which they have had with their Grecian subjects, whose airs, like those of a neighbouring nation, being usually doleful and serious, inspire in the hearer pensiveness and sorrow; which, as they may be supposed to hang perpetually upon the mind, so cannot fail of being communicated to the music of persons in distress and captivity. The Turks chiefly make use of two instruments; whereof the one is like a long necked kitt, or fiddle, played upon like the rebebb; the other, which is in the fashion of our dulcimer, with brass strings, is touched sometimes with the fingers, sometimes with two small sticks, or else with a plectrum.

But the want of instruments in the private music of the Turks, is amply made up in that of their beys and bashaws. For here (as in some of the eastern ceremonies of old*) are instruments without number; flutes, hautboys and trumpets, drums and kettle drums, besides a number and variety of cymbals, or hollow plates of brass, which

*As in Dan. iii. 5. where we have mentioned the cornet, Aute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music.