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Scan 30
The History Of The Violin, 1864
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1from Egypt to the Greeks, then to the Italians, then to the English, who first composed and played pieces of harmony for the instrument; from them it passed to the Germans and Spaniards, and finally, as he says, to the French, to whom it owes its perfection.
3Passing by Rousseau's theory, which has not the proof of any Egyptian viol to support it, the Egyptians had an instrument with considerable affinity to the crwth, and to which we shall presently refer again, wishing first to make a few observations on the musical instruments on the sculptures at Nineveh made known to the world by the skill and enterprise of Mr. Layard. Some of these are supposed to be at least as old as any mentioned by Sir G. Wilkinson, and among them there is no appearance of the bow. There is the representation of a very ancient one on an engraved scarabaeus, where it is called a nable or guitar, and there are figures of a portable lyre or harp struck by a plectrum. In one bas-relief from Konyunjik there is a representation of musicians going to meet the Assyrian conquerors—three men carry harps with many strings; another has a stringed instrument like the modern sautour of the Egyptians, with a number of strings stretched over a hollow case or sounding-board; the strings are pressed with the fingers of the left hand, and struck by a small wand or hammer in the right; there are also four women playing harps.
5The Egyptians and Ninevites, as before observed, had in the earliest ages an instrument somewhat similar to the crwth, which was not played on with a bow, but sometimes with a plectrum, sometimes only with the fingers; the strings varying from three to thirteen (Fig. 1). When the tide of population flowed westward and northward, the descendants of Japhet took this crwth-shaped instrument with them, and in very early
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