JEW'S HARP, or JEW'S TRUMP (Fr. Trompe). A small musical instrument, known for centuries all over Europe, and consisting of a metal frame with two branches, between which a slender tongue of steel, fastened at one end, and free at the other, is made to vibrate by twitching with the finger, while the frame is held between the teeth. The English name "Jew's trumpet," seems to be merely a corruption of the French words jeu and trompe. Prefixed to the Rev. Patrick Macdonald's Collection of Highland Airs (1781) there is a Dissertation by the Rev. Walter Young, in which he states that the natives of the island of St Kilda "being great lovers of dancing, have a number of reels, which are either sung, or played on the Jew's harp, or trumpet, their only musical instrument" (p. 11). In the Himalaya journals, published a few years ago, one of the travellers mentions that he procured a Jew's harp from Tibet. At the commencement of the present century this instrument was improved, and several Jew's harps were combined. No. 30 of the Leipzig Musical Gazette (1816) contains an account of the compound Jew's harp, with pieces of music suited for it. The original little instrument has, in modern times, suggested a variety of large and important musical instruments in which the sonorous bodies are vibrating tongues of metal. See HARMONICUM, and article Music. (G. F. G.)