where it took
root, identifying itself with the life of the people, as a military
instrument held in great esteem by the Celtic races. The bag-pipe was used
at weddings and funerals, and at all festivals; to lighten labour, during
the 18th century, as for instance in Skye, in 1786, when the inhabitants
were engaged in roadmaking, and each party of labourers had its bag-piper.
It was used in old mysteries at Coventry in 1534. Readers who wish to
follow closely the history of the bag-pipe in the British Isles should
consult Sir John Graham Dalyell's _Musical Memoirs of Scotland_ (London,
1849, with illustrative plates).

[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Ancient Persian bag-pipe.

(From Sir Robert Porter's _Travels in Georgia, Persia,_ &c., vol. ii. p.
177, pl. lxiv.)]

On the downfall of the Roman empire, the bag-pipe, sharing the fate of
other instruments, probably lingered for a time among itinerant musicians,
actors, jugglers, &c., reappearing later in primitive guise with the stamp
of _naivete_ which characterizes the productions of the early middle ages,
and with a new name, chorus (_q.v._). An illustration of a Persian bag-pipe
dating from the 6th century A.D. (reign of Chosroes II.) is to be found on
the great arch at Takht-i-Bostan (see fig. 2). This very crude
representation of the bag-pipe can only be useful as evidence that during
centuries which elapsed between the moulding of the figurine found in the
_tell_ at Susa, mentioned above, and the carving in the rock at
Takht-i-Bostan, the instrument had survived. The reign of Chosroes was
noted for its high standard of musical culture. The fault probably lies
with the draughtsman, who drew the sculptures on the arch for the book.
Nothing more is heard henceforth of the tibia utricularis. If the drawings
of the early medieval bag-pipes, which are by no means rare in MSS. and
monuments of the 9th to the 13th century, are to be trusted, it seems hard
to understand the _raison d'etre_ of the instrument shorn of its drones, to
see how it justified its existence except as an ill-understood
reminiscence. What could be the object of laboriously inflating a bag for
the purpose of making a single chaunter speak, which could be done so much
more satisfactorily by taking the reed itself into the mouth, as was the
practice of the Greeks and Romans? There is a fine psalter in the library
of University Court, Glasgow,[36] belonging co the Hunterian collection, in
which King David is re