IX.

BOOK work, or dialogue, of Joannes Scotus, or Erigena,

the friend of Alfred and Charlemagne, on nature

and its distinctions. It emulates the sublimest reErigena on the division searches of the Grecians. It is too long to be of nature.

analysed; but a few extracts from its commencement may be acceptable, to show his style of thought and expression:

“ Nature may be divided into that which creates, and is not created; that which is created, and creates; that which is created, and does not create: and that which neither creates nor is created. 7

“ The essences (or what, from Aristotle, in those days they called the substance) of all visible or invisible creatures cannot be comprehended by the intellect; but whatever is perceived in every thing, or by the corporeal sense, is nothing else but an accident, which is known either by its quality or quantity, form, matter, or differences, or by its place or time. Not what it is, but how it is.

“ The first order of being is the Deity: He is the essence of all things.

“ The second begins from the most exalted, intellectual virtue nearest about the Deity, and descends from the sublimest angel to the lowest part of the rational and irrational creation. The three superior orders are, lst, The Cherubim, Seraphim, and Thrones. The 2d, The Virtues, Powers, and Dominations. The 3d, The Principalities, Archangels, and Angels.

“ The cause of all things is far removed from those which have been created by it. Hence the reasons of created things, that are eternally and unchangeably in it, must be also wholly removed from their subjects.

“ In the angelic intellects there are certain theophanies of these reasons; that is, certain comprehensible, divine apparitions of the intellectual nature. The divine essence is fully comprehensible by no intelligent creature.

“ Angels see not the causes themselves of things which subsist in the Divine essence; but certain divine apparitions, or theophanies, of the eternal causes whose images they are. In this manner angels always behold God. So the just in this

? Joan. Erig. de Divisione Naturæ, p. 1.

CHAP.
VIII.

life, while in the extremity of death, and in the future, will see him as the angels do.

“We do not see him by Himself, because angels do not. This is not possible to any creature. But we shall contemplate the theophanies which he shall make upon us, each according to the height of his sanctity and wisdom.”8

8 Joan. Erig. de Divisione Nature, p. 1-4.

CHAP. IX.

The Arts of the Anglo-Saxons.

BOOK
IX.

The art of music has been as universal as

poetry; but, like poetry, has every where existed Their mu- in different degrees of refinement. Among rude

nations, it is in a rude and noisy state; among the more civilised, it has attained all the excellence which science, taste, feeling, and delicate organisation can give.

We derive the greatest portion of our most interesting music from harmony of parts; and we attain all the variety of expression and scientific combination which are familiar to us, by the happy use of our musical notation. The ancients were deficient in both these respects : it has not been ascertained that they had harmony of parts, and therefore all their instruments and voices were in unison; and so miserable was their notation, that it has been contended by the learned with every appearance of truth, that they had no other method of marking time than by the quantity of the syllables of the words placed over the notes. Saint Jerome might therefore well say on music, “ Unless they are retained by the memory, sounds perish, because they cannot be written.” i

The ancients, so late as the days of Cassiodorus, or the sixth century, used three sorts of musical instruments, which he calls the percus

| Jerom. ad Dard. de Mus. Instr.-- Guido, by his invention of our musical notation, removed this complaint.

CHAP.

IX.

sionalia, the tensibilia, and the inflatila. The

percussionalia were silver or brazen dishes, or such things as, when struck with some force, yielded a sweet ringing. The tensibilia he describes to have consisted of chords, tied with art, which, on being struck with a plectrum, soothed the ear with a delightful sound, as the various kinds of cytharæ. The inflatila were wind-instruments, as tubæ, calami, organa, panduria, and such like. 2

The Anglo-Saxons had the instruments of chords, and wind-instruments.

In the drawings on their MSS. we see the horn, trumpet, flute, and harp, and a kind of lyre of four strings, struck by a plectrum.

In one MS. we see a musician striking the fourstringed lyre, while another is accompanying him with two flutes, into which he is blowing at the same time. 3

In the MSS. which exhibit David and three musicians playing together, David has a harp of eleven strings, which he holds with his left hand while he plays with his right fingers; another is playing on a violin or guitar of four strings with a bow; another blows a short trumpet, supported in the middle by a pole, while another blows a curved horn.* This was probably the representation of an Anglo-Saxon concert.

The chord-instrument like a violin was perhaps that to which a disciple of Bede alludes, when he expresses how delighted he should be to have “ a

a

IX.

6

in

7

BOOK player who could play on the cithara, which we

call rotæ.'

Of the harp, Bede mentions, that in all festive companies it was handed round, that every one might sing in turn. It must therefore have been

very common use.

Dunstan is also described by his biographer to have carried with him to a house his cythara, “ which in our language we call hearpan.”? He

Не hung it against the wall, and one of the strings happening to sound untouched, it was esteemed a

miracle. Anglo- The organ was in use among the Anglo-Saxons.

Cassiodorus and Fortunatus mention the word organ as a musical instrument, but it has been thought to have been a collection of tubes blowed into by the human breath. Muratori has contended, that the art of making organs like ours was known in the eighth century only to the Greeks; that the first organ in Europe was the one sent to

Saxon organ.

5 16 Mag. Bib. p. 88. Snorre calls the musicians in the court of an ancient king of Sweden “ Leckara, Harpara, Gigiara, Fidlara.” Yng. Saga, c. xxv. p. 30.

6 Bede, lib. iv. c. 24.

7 MS. Cleop. Among the old poetry of Finland is the description of an ancient Finnish harp, which represents it to have been made of birch wood with oaken keys and horse-bair strings. As the Saxons or Danes may have so constructed theirs, I insert the passage as an indication how the ruder nations of Europe made their harps.

He the aged Waina moinen
Up the rock his boat has lifted ;
On its height the harp created.
Whence the concave harp created ?
From the body of the birch tree.
And the harp's keys; whence created ?
From the oak tree's equal branches.
And the harp's strings ; whence created ?
From the tail of mighty stallion,
From the stallion's tail of Lempo.

Lenquist de Super. Fin. p. 36. W. Rev. 14. p. 325.