of a very ancient monument at Rome, mentioned by Mersennus, in which an o gan is represented. The antiquity of this monument is questioned, however, by Mason, in his Essay on Church Music. Cassiodorus, who was a native of Squillace, in the kingdom of Naples, where he was born, about A. D. 481, and who died about 577, describes the wind organ of his day as follows:-"The organ is an instrument composed of divers pipes, formed into a kind of tower, which, by means of bellows, is made to produce a loud sound; and, in order to express agreeable melodies, there are in the inside, movements made of wood, that are pressed down by the fingers of the player, and produce the most pleasing and brilliant. tones." Vitruvius, who flourished a century before the Christian era, also describes the organ; and St. Jerome mentions one with twelve pair of bellows, which might be heard at the distance of nearly a mile; and another at Jerusalem, that might be heard at the Mount of Olives. The genuineness of this piece, ascribed to St. Jerome, in which these instruments are alluded to, is questioned by Mersennus.

There can, however, be little doubt but that, as early as the sixth. or seventh century, organs were brought to a tolerable pitch of perfection, though still wanting much of that brilliance and fulness. of tone, and variety of harmony, and exqisite mechanism, which distinguish the instruments of the present day; and that they were introduced into the church at least as early as the latter period, probably before. Towards the close of the seventh century, the Germans possessed organs, and were able to construct and play upon them; but it is not known how they became possessed of the art; and about the time of the introduction of the organ into churches and chapels, the Gregorian chant or plain song, began to be organized for voices, in the manner which was afterwards called discant; which, in the intancy of counterpoint, implied a double chant, or melody. This melody of singing was, at first, practised only with the organ, but it was soon after adopted for vocal performances only; and, from two voices, extended to three, four, &c. and the terms triple, quadruple, motet, quintet, began to be introduced, and applied to musical compositions.

In the life of Swithinus, written by Wolstan, a Benedictine monk of Winchester, we find a description of an organ, erected in the cathedral of that city, by Elfeg, the bishop, in 951. He says, this instrument had twelve bellows above, and fourteen below; and that it requires seventy men to work it. It was played by two organists, and had ten keys, with forty pipes for each key. This was probably the largest organ of the period; and whilst on the continent that instrument was scarcely known, or very imperfect, in England it had already reached to considerable perfection.

Dancing, as well as music, seems to have accompanied the religious rites of the early Christians, as is evident from the following passage in a sermon of St. Augustine. "It is better to dig or to plough on the Lord's day, than to dance. Instead of singing psalms to the lyre or psaltery, as virgins and matrons were wont to

do, they now waste their time in dancing, and even employ masters in that art." Father Menestrier observes, that the name of choir is still retained for that part of our cathedrals, where the canons and priests sing and perform the ceremonies of religion; and this name was originally derived from choros, a dance, or a company of dancers.

Subsequent to St. Gregory, many changes were made in the notation of the ecclesiastical chants, though not in their structure.— Points and accents, and various marks were adopted, to denote the elevation or depression of the voice. In the tenth century, lines were used, they were eight or nine in number; and the syllables of the psalm or hymn were written between them, according to the notes to which each syllable corresponded. Their place on these lines was denoted by an alphabetical letter placed at the beginning of each; capitals for the grave sounds, and small letters for the acute. Sometimes the notes were written over the words, and connected with the latter by ligatures. All these different modes, together with a variety of arbitrary characters, are to be found in the missals of the early ages of the church; i. e. from the sixth to the tenth century. The attempt to decipher many of them would be like an attempt to make out an unknown language, without being .acquainted either with the powers and sounds of the alphabet, or the rules of its grammar.

"The

The system of church music in Rome made its way into most of the countries where the Christian religion was professed. schism," says Dr. Burney, "between the Greek and Latin churches, which happened in the ninth century, prevented such changes, as were adopted in the Roman ritual after that period, from being adopted by the former; and the notation used before seems long to have been continued in the Greek church. In Russia, however, all the rituals were called in at the beginning of the sixteenth century; and a uniform liturgy was established, in which the modern method of writing music was received. But in the Greek isles, a notation peculiar to their inhabitants is still in use, which is not only as different from ours as their alphabet, but totally unlike that in the ancient missals." St. John Damascenus, who lived in the eighth century, is said to have reformed the chants in the Greek church, as St. Gregory did in the Roman: and some writers tell us, that he invented new characters for notation, which he accommodated to the Greek ecclesiastical tones; and that these characters did not, like ours, express merely single sounds, but all the intervals used in melody; as a semi-tone, tone, third major, third minor, &c. ascending and descending, with their different duration.

Such is the best account we have of the introduction of music into the church; and in this state it continued for several centuries.

THE JOURNAL OF HEALTH AND RECREATION-is published monthly, at the rate of $1 25 per annum. Each number to consist of 32 pages 8vo. The work will contain numerous engravings in illustration of the subject matter. Address S. C. ATKINSON, No. 12 Hudson's Alley, Philada.

OBJECTIONS TO INOCULATION FOR SMALL POX. It has been asked why it is that physicians object to inoculate for the small pox in those cases in which parents request it to be done? The answer is simple and conclusive; because, namely, they believe they would be committing a very serious misdemeanour were they by inoculation to introduce among a community a disease by which the lives and happiness of so large a number of their fellow creatures would be jeoparded. They object to inoculate for small pox

1st. Because it would endanger the spreading, sooner or later, of a destructive and loathsome disease, and thus occasion an immense sacrifice of human life among the unprotected.

2dly. Because, that even in those cases in which an attack of small pox does not absolutely destroy life, diseases of the eye ending in blindness; the development of scrofulous diseases in all their miserable forms; the disfigurement of pits, and seams and scars; and the extreme of bodily suffering, so commonly result wherever the contagion extends.

From the practice of inoculation no possible advantage can be derived to counterbalance the least of those tremendous evils of which it could not fail to be the cause.

The practice of vaccination on the other hand, unlike inoculation for small pox, entails no dangers on those who are unwise enough to reject it. It protects effectually the individual from the small pox, and places him in a situation of greater security than one who has been inoculated. For let it be recollected that severe and dangerous, nay, even fatal cases of small pox are known to occur and that frequently after inoculation, and marked by a degree of severity far beyond what the disease has been noticed to assume when it has occurred after vaccination. Vaccination does not make VOL. IV.-2 B

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Objections to Inoculation for Small Pox.

the individual in whom it is practiced the vehicle of disease and death or deformity to those who surround him, and who are, in a melancholy number of instances, the persons most dear to him.Let inoculation for the small pox be practised when demanded by the ignorance and caprice of parents, and numerous foci of infection are created-disease is made to hover over a neighbourhood; in consequence children will still continue to enter the world and to draw their first breath amid an atmosphere tainted by disease, with scarce a chance for escape or if they do escape during the first period of infancy, will pass every after year of their existence in danger. When attacked, life will not it is true in every instance be destroyed: after weeks of suffering from a loathsome disease, recovery may take place; but in too many cases with the loss of sight or with faces disfigured by seams, and pits, and wrinkles; causing the unhappy sufferers to become objects of pity and commiseration to the humane part of their fellow creatures, and to the thoughtless not unfrequently of ridicule and ill concealed disgust. Let the thinking friend of his fellow creatures, and the affectionate parent of a smiling, healthy, happy family, portray to themselves such a state of things and they will no longer ask the physician to be the means of introducing the evil amongst us.

But the dangers to be apprehended from small pox are not merely death and deformity, it often calls into existence in the constitution which has experienced its visitation,, other painful and incurable maladies. The development of scrofulous diseases and of consumption, running their course to a fatal termination with the greatest rapidity of diseases of the joints, terminating a miserable existence after years of pain and suffering; or leaving the unfortunate patients crippled and deformed, and a burthen to all about them, in consequence of a total destruction and immobility of the jointsthese are some of the results to be anticipated from the introduction of small pox among a community by inoculation, and almost with certainty, for they formerly occurred from time to time in a great majority of the cases where the disease had been severe. Nor are they of uncommon occurrence where no traces of a disposition to disease is discernable in the parents, and it would actually seem that the contagion of small pox when defeated in its first object, the destruction of life, has the power of conjuring up other evils of minor but not of less active malignity to its assistance.Thousands have been swept off or crippled by scrofulous diseases of the joints and throat after years of suffering, and thousands have died far more rapidly from consumption, who might have passed, but for small pox, through a life of reasonable duration, with as much happiness as commonly falls to the lot of our kind. The poor in general are those most liable to suffer from the baneful effects of small pox; blindness, lameness or chronic disease, incapacitating them from gaining their own livelihood, they are either reduced to a state of beggary, or become a burthen upon some public charity. Nevertheless, the same effects in different degrees take place among those in more comfortable situations and who have the advantage of the best medical assistance as well as among the poor.

Estimation of the Female Character among the Ancients.

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This race of unfortunate sufferers from small pox has now almost become extinct; the common course of nature has removed them one by one, and from the joint effects of improved medical science, and the shield which vaccination has thrown over mankind, the chasm in their ranks has, it is to be hoped, ceased to be filled up for ever. The misery of their lot in this state of existence, prevents our wishing them still here, but were it otherwise, they might afford a lesson to the thoughtless, the ignorant, and the prejudiced opponents of vaccination, much to be desired.

ESTIMATION OF THE FEMALE CHARACTER BY THE AN

CIENTS.

By the ancients, especially the Greeks and Romans, the female character was held generally in the most sovereign contempt, hence we find that by the writers of those nations, epithets are applied to women in the highest degree opprobrious or degrading. The female character never in fact acquired its due weight and estimation, until subsequent to the establishment of Christianity, to which it is almost entirely indebted for the consideration which it now enjoys.

Hesiod, the most ancient of the Greek poets, derives the whole race of women from that "fair mischief," which Vulcan formed at the command of Jupiter, and which was endowed by Mercury, "with lies, and weedling words, and guileful manners," and he does not scruple to say, that though a man should even meet with a virtuous and prudent partner, the evil overbalances the good.

Simonides has a poem which treats solely of women, whose souls, he supposes, are formed by the gods "out of those seeds and principles which compose several kinds of animals and elements.". The swine, the fox, the dog, the ass, the cat, and the ape, are the animals from which he selects the ingredients, of which six different kinds of women were composed. The earth and the tempest furnished, according to his hypothesis, two other species of female souls; and it is remarkable, that the solitary instance of compliment bestowed by him, in his poem, upon the sex, is in supposing the souls of one of his ten kinds of women to have been made from the elements of the bee, an insect, remarkable, it is true, for its industry and prudence, but still an insect, and therefore, conveying but a very poor and contemptible idea of female excellence. This poem is to be found at large in Brunk's Analecta, vol. i. p. 124.

But perhaps the most decisive testimony of the degrading notions entertained by the heathens of the female character, is that which Professor Robinson has produced from the famous speech of Metellus Numidicus to the Roman people, when, as censor, he was recommending marriage. The occasion required that he should extol the female character, and its beneficial influence as highly as the general opinion would bear; yet, the following appears to be the best and strongest argument he could find to persuade the people to marry. "If, Romans, we could do without wives, we would