music of America should be written, it might commence with an account of the music, sacred and secular, of the aborigines, which, at any rate in Mexico, Central America, and Peru, had made some progress long before the arrival of the Puritans; and which, although it has not exercised any influence upon the cultivation of the music introduced into America from Europe, is well worthy of examination, inasmuch as it illustrates several curious questions relating to ethnology and national music. As in South and Central America the Indians, soon after the discovery of their countries, were appealed to by the Roman Catholic priests who made use of the help of sacred music, thus also in the United States the Protestant missionary, John Elliot, translated the psalms into Indian verse, and had them printed at Cambridge in 1661. The converted natives sung them with much fervour. Indeed, it is recorded that many of the Indians excelled as vocalists in the performance of the European tunes which had been taught them by the missionaries. Among the enthusiastic promoters of congregational singing in that country, during the eighteenth century, deserves to be mentioned, William Billings, who, in 1770, published at Boston, 'The New England Psalm-Singer, or American Chorister; containing a Number of Psalm-tunes, Anthems and Canons, in four and five parts; never before published.' W. Billings, whose publications are recorded to have "opened a new era in the history of psalmody in the colonies," was in his youth a tanner by trade, and knew but little of the theory of music; nor did he care about it, although he composed sacred songs harmonized for different voices. The popularity which his productions obtained reveals the uncultivated taste of his contemporary countrymen. In his address "To all Musical Practitioners," he says: "Nature is the best dictator; for all the hard, dry, studied rules that ever were prescribed will not enable any person to form an air.... For mine own part, as I do not think myself confined to any rules for composition laid down by any that went before me, neither should I think, were I to pretend to lay down rules, that any who came after me were any ways obliged to adhere to them any further than they should think proper. So, in fact, I think it best for every composer to be his own carver." And as to the effect of the music of his own "carving," he exclaims: "It has more than twenty times the power of the old slow tunes; each part straining for mastery and victory, the audience entertained and delighted, their minds surpassingly agitated and extremely fluctuated, sometimes declaring for one part and sometimes for another. Now, the solemn bass demands their attention--next, the manly tenor; now, the lofty counter--now, the volatile treble. Now here--now there--now here again. O, ecstatic! Rush on, ye sons of Harmony!"