In the next

In Mr Strutt's" Manners and Customs of the English," there are certain drawings of old instruments, "so very imperfect, (as Mr Strutt observes,) that he fears their use will not be very readily discovered." Fortunately, however, as in the case of sign-painters, who feel the inadequacy of their daubs to represent the intended objects, they are accompanied with written explanations or definitions. Underneath two of these we find the following words, "Corus est pellis simplex cum duabus cicutis.” This inscription serves to give a certain degree of distinctness to images otherwise too vague to be at all intelligible; and the result is, that we see before us the outlines of two figures which appear to correspond with this description; one of which has, to all appearance, two, and the other three, tubes or pipes attached to it. The definition given, and the delineation, appear to indicate the simplest form of bagpipe. place, we turn to the Epistle to Dardanus, attributed to St Jerome, where he says" Synagogæ antiquis temporibus, FUIT chorus quoque simplex, pellis cum duobus cicutis aeriis, et per primam inspiratur, secunda vocem emittit;" that is to say, "At the synagogue, in ancient times, there was also a simple species of bagpipe, being a skin, (or leather bag,) with two pipes, through one of which the bag was inflated, the other emitted the sound." We can see room for no other interpretation of words which, in themselves, give rise to no ambiguity; and if any doubt could be started, we should at once consider it as set at rest by the passage in the MS. which we have above cited, which embodies all the material part of the description given in the Epistle,—and that, too, in the shape of an express definition of the word "chorus." Singularly enough, however, it has so happened, that a learned Italian, Signor Maccari, the author of a celebrated Dissertation on the ancient" tibia utricolaris," or bagpipe, has attempted to extract another meaning from

Vol. i. plate 21, pp. 50, 109.

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We should mention that these drawings and descriptions are in Mr Strutt's oldest series of Saxon Antiquities, taken, as he informs us, from a MS. in the British Museum marked Tiber, c. vi.

Saggi di Dissertazion iaccademiche pubblicamente lette nella nobile accademia Etrusca dell

it, not only different from, but totally at variance with, the plain and obvious signification of the words, as they stand in the original. According to his translation, these words import, that in the synagogue, in former times, there was a "chorus," meaning thereby "a chorus of singers," and also a single skin, with two brass pipes, &c. But assuming the words "chorus" and "pellis" to have been two separate nominatives, and not one conjunct nominative, as they distinctly appear to be, Signor Maccari does not think it necessary to explain how the verb should happen to be in the singular number; he seems altogether to forget that he cuts rather than unties the Gordian knot, and that he endeavours to obtrude upon his readers a version of his own, in direct opposition to the matical construction of the passage.

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The cause of this attempt to contort, what must appear to all to be a very simple proposition, was not the difficulty of establishing the fact that "chorus” was occasionally used as synonymous with " tibia utricularis," but an ardent desire, on the part of the writer, to secure an additional illustration in behalf of another and a different argument, and one which being well supported in many other ways, required no such aid. The subject of the dissertation is a Grecian or Roman antique, representing a shepherd holding one of these instruments on his left arm, and great part of it is occupied in proving that the Greek" Pythaules," who performed at the public games, were " Otricolarii,” an opinion maintained by Vossius, Du Cange, and Bianchini, and which the dissertation of Signor Maccari tends strongly to confirm. In the course of this elucidation, although the use of the word "chorus," in the sense of " tibia

antichissima citta di Cortona, vol. vii. See Walker's Memoirs of the Irish Bards, Appendix, p. 41.

• Mersenne (de Instr. Harm. lib. ii. prop. xi.) speaks of the bagpipe as having been sometimes employed by the French peasantry, at mass and vespers, in the chapels and churches of villages, in order to supply the want of organs. He adds, that he has no doubt that the Jews made the same use of it at their marriage feasts;-but says nothing as to its having been introduced into the synagogue- —a fact, which, notwithstanding the statement contained in the supposititious letter of St Jerome, would appear from a subsequent authority (see p. 125, Note) to be somewhat question

able.

utricularis," seems never to have entered the mind of the author, so much light is casually reflected upon that point, that we must be pardoned for shortly alluding to it. The principal authority quoted by Maccari is Inginus, in his 253d fable, in which he says, "Pythaules qui Pythia cantaverat septem habuit palliatos, unde postea appellatus est Choraules." The words" qui Pythia cantaverat” have been rejected as an interpolation of an ignorant transcriber, and they are clearly out of place, for two reasons;-1st, Inginus is here speaking not of the Pythian, but of the Nemean Games, at which the " Pythia," or Hymn to Apollo, was not introduced. 2dly, The word "Pythaules" has no connexion whatever with "Pythia," but is compounded of IIios, "dolium," and avós, "tibia." It is certain, therefore, as Maccari remarks, that the "Choraules" and the "Pythaules" were identical; and that the "otricolarii" had, each of them, a chorus of seven men, habited in "pallia," or cloaks. We may observe, in passing, that it is at this stage of the discussion that Maccari has thought proper to refer to the passage in the Epistle attributed to St Jerome ; from which he endeavours to make it appear, that the "chorus," and the "tibia utricularis," had been employed in the same manner in the Jewish Synagogue as at the Grecian Games.

66

We have shortly recapitulated a part of this discussion, because the error into which Signor Maccari has fallen as to the meaning of the word "chorus" in this passage, has contributed much to unsettle the opinions of those who have written on this subject. The circumstances also which he has advanced in order to prove the identity of the pithaules" with the "otricolarii," afford us more insight into the original cause of the employment of the word "chorus" in the signification in which we have applied it, than any thing we have elsewhere seen. The term "choraules" being derived from xogos, chorus, and avños, a pipe, was a name strictly designative of his office of "piper to the chorus;" after which, the word "chorus" may have come to signify "bagpipe" itself, by an easy and natural transition. There is still another derivation which may be noticed. The Greek word dogs signifies a leather bag; for which reason, it has been suggested by Salmasius, in his notes on Flavius Vol

piscus, that the word "chorus," in the passage in question, should be converted into "dorus." With two terms which are mutually convertible by a mere shade of difference in the pronunciation, one could scarcely desire a nearer approach to the radical etymology of the word."

Thus, it appears that the Scots cultivated the bagpipe in the twelfth century, and the representation in the carved work of Melrose Abbey, erected about that time, is confirmatory of the fact. How long prior to this they possessed that instrument, we know not; neither can we say from what source they received the invention. There is a tradition in the Highlands, that it was derived from the Danes and Norwegians;b others, again, think that it might have been communicated to the Scots by the Britons or Welsh, who probably acquired it from the Romans. With

a The learned and accomplished gentleman by whom the Skene MS. has been translated, and whose contributions and counsel have been of the greatest importance in the preparation of this Dissertation, after perusing the Editor's remarks upon this subject, has kindly subjoined the following additional authorities, which ought to have the effect of setting this questio verata at rest for ever:

"Walafridus Strabo, a Benedictine monk, (who wrote, in the ninth century, a Latin Commentary on the Scriptures, and other works, which were published at Paris in 1624,) describes the chorus' as a single skin with two pipes.' See his Comm. in cap. 15. Exod.

"Farther, regarding the chorus,' I find reference made to a book printed at Lyons in 1672, and called Traité de la musette avec une nouvelle methode,' &c. from which it would seem that the 'bagpipe' and the chorus' were then considered the same instrument.

“J. Bartoloccius, a Cistertian monk of the 17th century, in his Bibliotheca Magna Rabbinica,' &c. does not admit the chorus' among the sacred instruments used in the sanctuary. P. i. p. 192. "Nicholas de Lyranus, a Franciscan monk, who died in 1340, in his Commentaries on the Bible, published at Rome in 1472, (in 7 vols. folio,) referring to Psalm 150, v. 4, observes, Dicunt aliqui, quod chorus est instrumentum de corio factum; et habet duas fistulas de ligno, unam per quam inflatur et aliam per quam emittit sonum, et vocatur Gallice cheurette,' &c. 'Credo tamen magis quod, hic accipiatur chorus, pro laudantium societate.' Thus, although this writer does not think that a bagpipe was meant in the scriptural passage in question, but a chorus of singers, his allusion to the word 'chorus,' as the name of a 'bagpipe,' is, along with the other authorities, perfectly conclusive as to its having been occasionally used in that acceptation. The barbarous corruptions of Latin, too, were so frequent, that there is no saying but somebody may have distorted even corium (a skin) into chorus; and this is the more likely, as it is occasionally spelt corus;' see Gerbertus de Musica Sacra, plate 34; Strutt's Manners and Customs, vol. i. pp. 50, 109. The French word chevrette' means the doe of the roe-deer. Was its skin used in making the bag of the bagpipe?"

Macdonald's Essay, p. 12.

the latter, and the Greeks, it appears at one time to have held a higher rank than with any other nation; though, during the later periods of their history, we see it, as in modern times, almost entirely in the hands of the peasantry.

In Scotland, the use of the bagpipe seems to have gradually superseded that of the harp; but this process, we should think, must have taken place chiefly within the last two hundred years,-previous to which, we doubt very much whether the natives of North Britain were more distinguished for their partiality for the bagpipe than their southern neighbours. Even Shakspeare, although he talks of the "drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe," and of "a Yorkshire bagpiper," has no where associated that instrument with the Scots: and when we go back several centuries anterior to this, we find it used in both countries by the same class of persons. Chaucer's Miller played upon it.—

"A bagpipe well couth he blowe and sowne;"

and "Will Swane," "the meikle miller man," in our "Peblis to the Play," calls for it to assist in the festivities of the day.

"Giff I sall dance, have doune, lat se

Blaw up the bagpyp than."

Indeed, although we are justly proud of our ancient proficiency on the harp, and adhere unhesitatingly to our claims to supremacy on that head, we are much disposed, upon a candid consideration of the facts, to resign to the English the palm of superiority in this less refined description of music, about the time to which we refer. The pipers who are

• The Highland Society of Scotland has been much and justly applauded for having, by annual premiums, kept up the great military instrument of the Highlanders; but why should they have allowed to sink into oblivion their great musical instrument-that for which all their oldest and most exquisite airs were composed? Why has there been no attempt to revive these, and along with them the recollection of the time when "the shell went round, the bards sung, and the soft hand of the virgins trembled on the strings of the harp ?"