im a place of distinguishied eminence in
the plains of Elysium.

_---- sic est affata Sibylla.
Musaeum ante omnes, medium nam plurima turba
Hunc habet, atque humeris extantem suspicit altis[27]._

---- The Sibyl thus address'd
Musaeus, rais'd o'er all the circling throng.

[Footnote 24: The beautiful story of Hero and Leander, which was
written by a person of his name, is thought to have been the work
of a Grammarian who lived about the 5th century: a conjecture
supported by very probable evidence. See Kenneth's life of Museus,
p. 10.]

[Footnote 25: Diogen. Laert. ub. sup.]

[Footnote 26: Diogen. Laert. ub. sup.]

[Footnote 27: AEneid. Lib. 6.]

It is generally allowed that Amphion, who was a native of Baeotia,
brought music into Greece from Lydia, and invented that instrument (the
Lyre) from which Lyric Poetry takes its name[28]. Before his time they
had no regular knowledge of this divine art, though we must believe that
they were acquainted with it in some measure, as dancing is an art in
which we are informed that the earliest Poets were considerable
proficients[29].

[Footnote 28: It may not be amiss here to give the reader some
idea of the structure of the Ancient lyre, whose music is said to
have produced such wonderful effects. This instrument was composed
of an hollow frame, over which several strings were thrown,
probably in some such manner as we see them in an harp, or a
dulcimer. They did not so much resemble the viol, as the neck of
that instrument gives it peculiar advantages, of which the
Ancients seem to have been wholly ignorant. The Musician stood
with a short bow in his right hand, and a couple of small thimbles
upon the fingers of his left: with these he held one end of the
string, from which an acute sound was to be drawn, and then struck
it immediately with the bow. In the other parts he swept over
every string alternately, and allowed each of them to have its
full sound. This practice became unnecessary afterwards, when the
instrument was improved by the addition of new strings, to which
the sounds corresponded. Horace tells us, that in his time the
lyre had seven strings, and that it was much more musical than it
had been originally. Addressing himself to Mercury, he says

---- _Te docilis magistro.
Movit Amphion lapides canendo: