could have produced so complete an instrument as either of thefe.

As the first harp seemed to be the most perfect, and least spoiled, I immediately attached myself to this, and defired my clerk to take upon him the charge of the second. In this way, by sketching exactly, and loosely, I hoped to have made myself maf ter of all the paintings in that cave, perhaps to have extended my researches to others, though, in the sequel, I • found myself miferably deceived.

My first drawing was that of a man playing upon a harp; he was standing, and the instrument being broad, and flat at the base, probably for that purpose, supported itself easily with a very little inclination upon his arm; his head is close shaved, his eyebrows black, without beard or muftachoes. He has on him a loose shirt, like what they wear at this day in Nubia (only it is not blue) with loofe fleeves, and arms and neck bare. It seemed to be thick muslin, or cotton cloth, and long-ways through it is a crimfon stripe about one-eighth of an inch broad; a proof, if this is Egyptian manufacture, that they understood at that time how to dye cotton crimfon; an art found our in Britain only a very few years ago. If this is the fabric of India, still it proves the antiquity of the commerce between the two countries, and the introduction of Indian manufactures into Egypt.

It reached down to his ancle; his feet are without fandals; he seems to - be a corpulent man, of about fixty years of age, and of a complexion rather dark for an Egyptian. To guess by the detail of the figure, the painter feems to have had the fame degree of - merit with a good fign-painter in Europe, at this day. If we allow this harper's ftature to be five feet ten inches, then we may compute the - harp, in its extreme length, to be something less than fix feet and a half.

This inftrument is of a much more

advantageous form than the triangu lar Grecian harp. It has thirteen strings, but wants the forepiece of the frame opposite to the longest string. The back part is the founding-board, composed of four thin pieces of wood, joined together in form of a cone, that is, growing wider towards the bottom; so that, as the length of the string increases, the square of the corresponding space in the foundingboard, in which the found was to un dulate, always increases in proportion. The whole principles, on which this harp is constructed, are rational and ingenious, and the ornamented parts are executed in the very best manner.

The bottom and fides of the frame seem to be fineered, and inlaid, probably with ivory, tortoise-shell, and mother-of-pearl, the ordinary produce of the neighbouring feas and deferts. It would be even now impossible, either to construct or to finish a harp of any form with more taste and elegance. Besides the proportions of its outward form, we must observe likewife how near it approached to a perfect instrument, for it wanted only two strings of having two complete. octaves; that these were purposely omitted, not from defect of tafte or science, must appear beyond contradiétion, when we confrder the harp that follows.

I had no fooner finiffied the harp which I had taken in hand, than I went to my afsistant, to fee what progress he had made in the drawing in which he was engaged.. I found, to my very great surprise, that this harp differed essentially, in form and diftribution of its parts, from the one I had drawn, without having lost any of its elegance; on the contrary, that it was finished with full more attention than the other. It seemed to be fineered with the same materials, ivory and tortoise-shell, but the strings were differently disposed, the ends of the three longeft, where they joined to the the founding-board below, were defaced by a hole dug in the wall. Several of the strings in different parts had been scraped as with a knife, for the reft, it was very perfect. It had eighteen strings. A man, who seemed to be still older than the former, but in habit perfectly the same, barefooted, close shaved, and of the same complexion with him, stood playing with both his hands near the middle of the harp, in a manner seemingly less agitated than in the other.

I went back to my first harp, verified, and examined my drawing in all its parts; it is with great pleasure I now give a figure of this fecond harp to the reader, it was millaid among a multitude of other papers, at the time when I was solicited to communicate the former drawing to a gentleman then writing the History of Music, which he has already fubmitted to the public; it is very lately and unexpectedly this last harp has been found; I am only forry this accident has deprived the public of Dr Burney's remarks upon it. I hope he will yet favour us with them, and therefore abstain from anticipating his reflections, as I consider this as his province; I never knew any one so capable of affording the public, new, and at the same time just lights on this subject. There still remained a third harp of ten strings, its precise form I do not well remember, for I had seen it but once when I first entered the cave, and was now preparing to copy that likewise. I do not recollect that there was any man playing upon this one, I think it was rather refting upon a wall, with fome kind of drapery upon one end of it, and was the smallest of the three. But I am not at all so certain of particulars concerning this, as to venture any description of it; what I have faid of the other two may be absolutely depended upon.

I look upon these harps then as the Theban harps in use in the time of Sesoftris, who did not rebuild, but de

corate ancient Thebes; I confider them as affording an incontestible proof, were they the only monuments remaining, that every art neceffary to the conftruction, ornament, and use of this instrument, was in the highest perfection, and if so, all the others must have probably attained to the same degree.

We fee in particular the ancients then possessed an art relative to architecture, that of hewing the hardest stones with the greatest ease, of which we are at this day utterly ignorant and incapable. We have no inftrument that could do it, no compofition that could make tools of temper sufficient to cut bas reliefs in granite or porphyry so readily; and our ignorance in this is the more completely shewn, in that we have all the reasons to believe, the cutting instrument with which they did these surprising feats was composed of brass; a metal of which, after a thousand experiments, no tool has ever been made that could serve the purpose of a common knife, though we are at the same time certain, it was of brass the ancients made their razors.

These harps, in my opinion, overturn all the accounts hitherto given of the earliest state of music and musical instruments in the east; and are altogether in their form, ornaments, and compass, an incontestable proof, stronger than a thousand Greek quotations, that geometry, drawing, mechanics, and music, were at the greatest perfection when this instrument was made, and that the period from which we date the invention of these arts, was only the beginning of the æra of their restoration. This was the sentiment of Solomon, a writer who lived at the time when this harp was painted. " Is there (fays Solo"mon) any thing whereof it may be "faid, See this new! it hath been " already of old time which was be"fore us."

We find, in these very countries, how

how a latter calamity, of the fame public nature, the conquest of the Saracens, "occafioned a fimilar downfal of literature, by the burning the Alexandrian library under the fanatical caliph Omar. We see how foon after, they flourifhed, planted by the fame hands that before had rooted them out.

The effects of a revolution occafione ed, at the period I am now speaking of, by the universal inundation of the Shepherds, were the destruction of Thebes, the ruin of architecture, and the downfal of astronomy in Egypt, Still a remnant was left in the colcnies and correspondents of Thebes, though fallen. Ezekiel celebrates Tyre as being, from her beginning, famous for the tabret and harp, and it is probably to Tyre the taste for mufic fled from the contempt and perfecution of the barbarous Shepherds; who, though a numerous nation, to this day never have yet pofsessed any species of music, or any kind of musical instruments capable of improvement.

Although it is a curious subject for reflection, it should not surprise us to find here the harp, in such variety of form. Old Thebes, as we presently. shall fee, had been destroyed, and was foon after decorated and adorned, but not rebuilt by Sesoftris. It was some time between the reign of Menes, the first king of the Thebaid, and the fiift general war of the Shepherds,

that these decorations and paintings were made. This gives it a prodigious antiquity; but fuppofing it was a favourite instrument, consequently well understood at the building of Tyre in the year 1320 before Christ, and Sesoftris had lived in the time of Solomon, as Sir Ifaac Newton imagines; still there were 320 years fince that instrument had already attained to great perfection, a sufficient time to have varied it into every form.

From being convinced by the fight of Thebes, which had not the appearance of ever having had walls, that the fable of the hundred gates, mentioned by Homer, was mere in vention, I was led to conjecture what could be the origin of that fable.

That the old inhabitants of Thebes lived in caves in the mountains, is, I think, without doubt, and that the hundred mountains I have spoken of, excavated, and adorned, were the greatest wonders at that time, seems equally probable. Now, the name of these to this day is Beeban el Meluke, the ports or gates of the kings, and hence, perhaps, come the hundred gates of Thebes upon which the Greeks have dwelt so much. Homer never faw Thebes, it was demolished before the days of any profane writer, either in profe or verse. What he added to its history must have been from imagination.

ax

An Inquiry into the Principles of ation, chiefly applicable to Articles of Immediate Consumption. 4to. 125, boards. Debrett,

TAXATI AXATION has long been practifed as an art, but has never been fully explained. The subject is above the revenue officer, and the

mere man of business, whose observations are in general limited to particular cafes, and whose reatonings are dictated by their immediate views. Philofophers, on the other hand, relying on the partial information of o thers, and meeting with practical queftions on which they were unable to decide, have contented themfelves

with those general speculations, which are rather amusing and plausible than, folid and instructive.

In this way, taxation, as a subject, of knowledge, has never been duly, cultivated; and therefore we need not wonder at the uncertainty in which it is involved, and the inconsistent, ever-varying, and ineffectual laws which the legislature are continually promulgating, with regard to some of the most important branches of reve

nue.

The first chapter of the present work contains an account of the ori ginal and additional duties which have been laid on some principal articles of revenue, from the earliest ac, counts; and care is taken to trace the effects of these different duties on the quantity and amounts of the respective commodities. By this general and extensive view, we are enabled to mark the point at which many of these articles were over-taxed, and thence to trace the effect of over-tax

how far they may be employed as fubservient to these ends.

But the errors flowing from the over-tax system itself are not the only ones the author contends with. He finds, in the works of speculative philosophers, many doctrines, which, as they have contributed to rear, so they continue to justify, erroneous practices. This has led him, in his fecond book, to enquire, Ift, into the best manner of augmenting the reve, nue of any thriving country, which he infinuates may be done with increasing ease, in proportion to the growing wealth and profperity of the people. And as countries may be either forcing revenues from already over-taxed articles, or scarcely taxed at all, this induces him to confider how nations should conduct themselves in these two different fituations.

Accordingly the first chapter is evidently intended to combat the gene rally received opinion, that, though our taxes are high, yet they are ne

and on the genius and spirit of the laws by which these duties came afterwards to be fecured.

The second chapter is accordingly taken up in a general review of revenue laws, as means of fecuring duties; and this review, taken in connection with the facts established in the first chapter, leads to the reflections which conclude this second chapter,

These two chapters are intended as a kind of scientific history of taxation, founded on the experience of upwards of an hundred years,

It is the aim of the third chapter to point out the erroneous opinions which the over-tax system creates; the difficulty of avoiding the deftructive course which it imposes on those who have the conduct of public affairs; to shew the error of incautioufly employing taxes as an engine of commerce and police; and to suggest

of the state.' This opinion is not here controverted by argument, but by a collection of striking facts which cannot be denied.

The second chapter, which treats of the conduct of states where overtaxation has not taken place, is believed to be a new speculation. States, as employed in collecting the public revenue, are confidered in the light of private individuals trading in the nation. The circumstances of this analogy are pointed out: they operate through the fame media, and they ought to be regulated by the fame laws. And it is shewn, that the diftresses which states experience who force revenues from over-taxed articles, are nothing more than the natural punishments which all must be fubjected to, who counteract the eftablished tendencies of things.

Perhaps it is not eafy to give an intelligible

telligible account of this chapter in a Thort abstract of it.

The second inquiry treats of the expence of collecting revenue from articles of consumption.

It is the prevailing opinion, 'that all fuch taxes are expensive in the collection; and that this expence arifes from the number of articles taxed, and the number of traders to be furveyed. Instead of this, the author endeavours to show, that the greatest part of this expence has arisen from the high rate of duties impofed on articles of confumption, and on the consequent unwillingness of the traders to pay the duties.

The third inquiry concerns the long agitated and much involved quession, on whom do taxes fall?"

As this question comprehends almost all the views which philosophers have taken of taxes, and as it seldom fails to agitate the whole country when any new tax is proposed, it seems proper to have given it a full difcuffion. For this purpose, having traced the rife of the question, and its application to internal taxes, the author proceeds, in the second chapter, to point out the circumstances which enable the same number of people to fustain heavier taxes at one time with greater ease than they could lighter ones at a different period.

But even in stationary and declining societies, and in other situations where taxes may be properly faid to fall on the people, it is scarce possible to say on what particular fund or class of them they will fall. It is the object of the fourth chapter, which treats of demand, to illustrate this subject.

The third inquiry is concluded with fome remarks on Dr Smith's opinions respecting taxes on the necefTaries of life.

The third book professes to lay down those just principles which are necessary, if we would either tax safeJy, or rectify what has been done amifs in taxation.

The last chapter suggests a plan of general reformation. In doing this, however, the author is regulated by a maxim from which it is presumed few will diffent, viz. that the plan and method of discoveries and reformation, cannot go far before, but must go hand in hand with discoveries then selves.

The book is closed with a few general directions for reforming the rates of duties, the revenue officers, and the revenue laws.

The volume concludes with a copious Appendix, containing a great many revenue accompts, chiefly extracted from the three reports of the revenue committee instituted in the year 1783, and from papers officially laid on the table of the House of Commons. And it is from a patient and laborious investigation of these accompts that the author has formed the principles and opinions which he now offers to the confideration of the public.

We must acknowledge, in justice to the author, that he has conducted his complicated investigation with much perfpicuity. On a subject so extenfive, and hitherto imperfectly explored, it is difficult in every cafe to establish conclufions which are secure from uncertainty and error; but he has pursued with philofophical difcernment the most useful tracks of enquiry; and, by endeavouring to found his principles upon fact and observation, he at least approximates that decisive standard of experience, which is the ultimate teft of truth and certainty in all political speculations.