Philostratus, moreover, who taught at Athens, during the reign of Nero, gives a description of the lyre, which has been thus translated:— “Orpheus,” he says, “supported the lyre against his left leg, whilst he beat time by striking his foot upon the ground; in his right hand he held _the bow_, which he drew across the strings, turning his wrist slightly inwards. He touched the strings with the fingers of his left hand, keeping the knuckles perfectly straight.” From this description (if _bow_ it could be called, which bow was none), it would appear as if the lyre to which Philostratus alludes were, forsooth, the same instrument which the moderns call the _contra-violin_, or _viola di gamba_! To settle the matter thus, however, would be _indeed_ to beg the question. As before observed, the word _plectrum_ is, in the dictionaries, translated by _bow_; but, even if this were a warranted rendering of the word, it remains to be ascertained not only whether the bows of the ancients were of a form and nature corresponding with ours, but also whether they were used in the modern _way_. Did the ancients strike their bow upon the strings of the instrument—or did they draw forth the sound by means of friction? These questions are still undecided; but opinions preponderate greatly in favor of the belief that the plectrum was an implement of _percussion_, and therefore not at all a bow, in our sense. A recent French writer, Monsieur C. Desmarais, in an ingenious inquiry into the Archology of the Violin, takes us back to the ancient Egyptians, to whom he assigns the primitive violin, under the name of the _chélys_, and suggests that its _form_ must have resulted from a studious inspection of one of the heavenly constellations! M. Baillot, in his Introduction to the _Méthode de Violon du Conservatoire_, speculating on the origin of the instrument, has a passage which, in English, runs thus:— “It is presumed to have been known from the remotest times. On ancient medals, we behold Apollo represented as playing upon an instrument with three strings, similar to the violin. Whether it be to the God of Harmony that we should attribute the invention of this instrument, or whether it claim some other origin, we cannot deny to it somewhat that is divine. “The form of the violin bears a considerable affinity to that of the lyre, and thus favors the impression of its being no other than a lyre brought to perfection, so as to unite, with the facilities of modulation, the important advantage of expressing prolonged sounds—an advantage which was not possessed by the lyre.”