f the sacred tide,
Having the wish of thy heart,
At peace ever since thou hast died.
Give bread to the man who is poor,
And thy name shall be blest evermore.

All princely households appear to have had their regular staff of
musicians, at the head being the "Overest of Musicians," whose tombs
still furnish some of the most instructive information upon this part
of the ancient life. People of lower social grade had to be content
with the temporary services of the street musicians, such as those
represented in Fig. 6. They played and sang and danced for weddings
and festivities, and undertook the entire contract of mourning for the
dead, the measure being the production of a small vial full of tears,
under the immediate inspection of the relative of the deceased whose
grief might happen to need this official assistance.

For warlike purposes the Egyptians had a short trumpet of bronze, and
a long trumpet, not unlike a straight trombone. They had drums of many
kinds, but as none of these instruments have reference to the
development of the higher art of music, we do not delay to describe
them.

One thing which might surprise us in casting an eye over the foregoing
representations as a whole is the small progress made considering the
immensely long period covered by the glimpses we have of the music of
this far-away race. From the days of the harpers in our earliest
illustrations to those of the last is more than 2,000 years, in fact
considerably longer than from the beginning of the Christian era until
now. The explanation is easy to find. In the first place, the
incitations upon the side of sense perception were comparatively
meager. Neither in sonority nor in delicacy of tonal resource were the
Egyptian instruments a tenth part as stimulating as those of to-day.
Moreover, we have here to deal with childlike intelligences, slow
perceptions, and limited opportunities of comparison. Hence if these
were all the discouraging elements there would be but little cause for
wonder at the slow progress. But there was another element deeper and
more powerful. The Egyptian mind was conservative to reaction. Plato
in his "Laws," says: "Long ago the Egyptians appear to have recognized
the very principle of which we are now speaking--that their young
citizens must be habituated to the forms and strains of virtue. These
they fixed, and exhibited the patterns of them in their temples, and
no painter or artist is