We are accustomed to regard the Chinese as a very conservative people, unchangeable in modes and customs, and indisposed to vary in routine after tradition has fixed it. Closer view of their history shows that this is a mistake, and we have been drawn into it because the range of their change has been limited; and in their inventions, numerous and important as they have been, they nevertheless seem not to have the aptitude to advance them to higher grade of utility. Their musical scales have been constantly fixed, and have been as constantly changing. Mr. A. J. Ellis has shown that at B.C. 1300 the scale had only five notes, that the invading Mongols introduced an additional scale, that Kublai Khan A.D. 1259 combined the two, that in the thirteenth century the Ming dynasty excluded all semitones, that the Tsing dynasty (which has existed from 1644), reverted to the former scale; and these are comparatively modern changes. And yet one may say that ages earlier changes began, and this _Sheng_ has at various periods been subject to change; at one time it had nineteen pipes, at another twenty-four pipes, and now has settled down to the form, still very ancient, which is illustrated here with seventeen pipes, two of these being dummies—as some modern organ fronts are—and two are duplicates of others for convenience, leaving therefore eleven sounding pipes to represent the working scale of the instrument. For the origin of the _Sheng_ we must go back beyond these periods of change. Its history begins with a woman, as is proper in tradition, and the invention is attributed to a female sovereign in the mythical age known as Nu-wo. Eve is said to have brought “woe” into the world, but this lady evidently by her name was of later date, ancient though that date is. She succeeded the Emperor Fu Hsi, who reigned 4745 years ago, and who was the reputed father of music, for the Chinese are a people who naturally consider that there is no music of any account besides their own. Then Hwang Ti “the Yellow Emperor,” follows, and he takes credit for the invention, its a way men have: this was about one hundred and fifty years after the death of the lady aforesaid. Then the great Emperor Shun four centuries later, he lays some claim; but the probability is that these two emperors regulated the laws, which till then had not been formulated into fixed rule. Indeed each emperor had his own system, and did not agree with his predecessor’s systems. There can be no doubt that the _Sheng_ is of great antiquity; it is often mentioned in the great poetical books of the Chinese, the _She_ and the _Shoo-king_, and the commentators on ancient musical instruments invariably mention the great age of the _Sheng_, and seem to delight in speaking of it as evidence of the inventive genius and musical talent of the Chinese. In my desire to place you abreast with the Chinese knowledge of the art of music, I give you this beautiful elucidation from the treatise of J. A. van Aalst:—