Mr. Abdy Williams gives a fragment of a papyrus roll belonging to the Augustan age, containing the music to chorus from the Orestes of Euripides (about 408 B.C.), from which it appears that the player extemporized a short interlude at the end of the verses. This is very curious, and will not be without significance if we compare this with the ancient Chinese custom which is so similar. The fragment consists of many bars; but the whole amounts to little beyond repetitions of the following, with now and then a slight variation. [Illustration] A second hymn (key of G, with C♯) travels very monotonously within these limits. [Illustration] The compass of the Delphic Greek hymn is one octave and a fourth, and it is curious that this is exactly the compass of the Chinese _Sheng_ organ. The pitch is an octave too high for men’s voices, even as we find is the case with the original pitch of the Greek music. Professor Jebb, in his address to the Hellenic Society, speaking of this Delphian relic—this marble music, says:— The fragments at Delphi were fourteen in number. The principal one contained eighteen lines, and the musical notes were fairly complete,—only nine being missing out of two hundred and seven. The signs for the notes were the ordinary letters of the Greek alphabet, sometimes turned upside down or tilted. A key to them had been given by a Greek writer, Olympios, of the time of the Emperor Julian. He had written an introduction to music, which was still extant, in which he gave a list of signs representing notes. There were two distinct systems of musical notation, for voices and for instruments. Nine of the fourteen fragments were arranged for voices, and five for instruments; these were the lyre and the flute, which were named in the text. The instrumental and vocal music was always in unison. There was never more than one note. Many musical enthusiasts have a fancy for trying to prove that the Greeks must have used harmony, because they possessed in their scale the notes that would combine in chords; but all attempts in this direction have been fruitless, and according to Greek scholars are likely ever to be so. Grand effects can be obtained by unisonous chant: and the Greek ear was satisfied. Let us be content to learn what their music really was, and not import into it our supercivilized requirements, assured that the dressing up of the antique in modern clothes is alike repugnant to good taste and refined sentiment, and is rejected by those who care for the verity of art. In remarks on Greek music, Dr. C. Maclean said, “the classical period of Greece has been called the adolescence of intellectual and modern man, and a very beautiful adolescence it was. Unfortunately it has departed,” and he quoted the saying of Goethe:— “The May of Life blooms but once.”