As instancing this blank, imperceptive state of mind and feeling, the trumpet is very noticeable. An ancient instrument for ages: perhaps nothing more than a ram’s horn, or horn of animal killed in the chase. Musically, to be ranked as a tooter or hooter. Then it became in ruling hands a means of signal: by sense of rhythm it conveyed to the hosts in field or fortress the message that was equal to words; and in royal and religious processions and ceremonies it communicated the intelligence for which the countless thousands waited; to inspire them, to uplift them in a contagious sympathy of exultation, or to bow them to the ground in common feeling of awe or adoration. When wealth accumulated, the pomp of ceremony increased. Then came the worker in metal, copying the product of nature, yet not venturing much beyond it. The old monarchies of Assyria, Babylonia, and Egypt, with their tablets and monuments and paintings, afford no evidence of a stage of musical advance from the early horn; and we have but to contrast the wide range of our trumpet with the few notes producible on a cow’s horn, to recognise how, in the absence of higher aim inciting to achievement which we call art, the dormant possibilities of a marvellous instrument should have been unevoked: empires passed away, and the trumpet remained a horn. Do not be mystified by a misconception to which words may lead. The horn as we know it was an unknown thing in those far away times; its quality of tone not approached even, nor its chief constructive feature identified. The ram’s horn is the original parent of both trumpets and horns, and in the consideration of type belongs to that of trumpets more specifically. The shape of the _mouthpiece_ of the trumpet determines the character of the instrument, and the old horns present only the same shallow cup. It is a matter to be noted how comparatively recent is the long, conical form of mouthpiece absolutely essential as it is to the quality of tone as we have it in the French horn used in our orchestras.