Music And The Masonic Ritual—No. Ii.

pipe ) . In the Greek mysteries , both the lesser and the greater , we are informed that the disciples of Eleusis devoted the sixth day out of the nine alloted to initiation , to music ; and Potter * expressly tells us that the music so perforated consisted of " songs accomjjanied by flutes and brazen kettles 1 " In the Pythagorean system it is well known that music was an important branch of hilosoph and that

p y ; it was promulgated by Pythagoras is beyond doubt , as he has the credit of adding the ei ghth string to the lyre , and introducing the chromatic and enharmonic genera . He is said to have been the first to discover the proportion of intervals , which he deduced from the sounds of hammers in a smith ' s shop . After repeated trials , he found their tones to differ from each other , not in proportion to

the force AA'ith which they were struck , but in accordance with the quantit y of iron they contained ; he therefore concluded that , if four strings of equal length and thickness were stretched by four weights of six , ei g ht , nine , and twelve pounds respectively , the first and last would be octaves ; the first and second , or the third aud fourth , would he fourths ; and the first and third , or second and fourth , would be fifths , to each other , and he fixed their ratios accordingly . It would be too diffuse a subject to folloAv the philosophy of the Pythagorean system , in such a series as our present papers , but to those ivho wish

to become acquainted with it Ave beg to refer them to Sir John Hawkins ' s History of Music , where they are fully set out , and some very valuable hints are recorded in connection , with the philosophical school of Avhich that celebrated Greek was the founder . In tho Bacchic mysteries , music and the dance played no unimportant parts , as the testimony of Warburton shows , t in a passage he quotes

from an ancient Avriter , to the following effect : " But as this scene , once past , a miraculous and divine light discloses itself , and shiningplains and floAvery meads open on all hands before them . Here they are entertained with hymns and dances , Avith the sublime doctrines of sacred knoAvledge , and with reverend and holy visions . " Which quotation decides that the character of music iu those mysteries was both

vocal and instrumental . Among the Druids in Britain' ! : the May oi'e festival was chosen as the time for initiation ; and round the fires , kindled in all the cairns and cromlechs throughout the kingdom , were performed choral dances in honour of Hu , supposed by some to be Noah , and venerated as the solar patriarch , who Avas , at this period , believed to be delivered from his confinement in the crescent ark . Wo

learn , from Taliessin , a poet , § that before a candidate was presented to the Druidical priests for mibiation , they " chanted a hymn to tho sun , " and as the ceremony proceeded , eveiy musical instrument they possessed , capable of making a noise , was introduced during the recital of verses in praise of tlie heroes and benefactors of their religious