a musical instrument of unknown antiquity. It was used among the ancient Mysians and Pannonians, the latter a Celtic people; and is still employed by the modern Slavonians. The ancient Scandinavians also used it. An antique gem, of which Dr Burney procured a drawing, represents Apollo as walking with a lyre in his hands, and a bagpipe slung at his back. The bagpipe was well known to the ancient Romans, and we learn from Suetonius that Nero, among his various musical accomplishments, was a bagpipe-player. To this day the bagpipe is a common instrument in the southern parts of Italy, especially Calabria; and its modern use in Spain appears from the Spanish proverb regarding the bagpiper of Buñalence, in Andalusia, and from the allusion to the bagpipes of Zamora in chap. 62, part 2, of Don Quixote. Some of the mountain tribes of Hindustan are said to have a large and powerful bagpipe. Curious representations of ancient bagpipes are given in plates 33 and 34 of Gerbert's work, De Cantu et Musica Sacra. Court bagpipers in England are mentioned as early as the fourth year of Edward II., i.e. 1310. Dr Petrie, the eminent Irish antiquary, says that the bagpipe is often mentioned in Irish poems varying in date between the tenth and sixth centuries. Some Irish writers assert that the great bagpipe—the same as that of the Scottish Highlands—was used very early as a war instrument in Ireland; but the oldest representation of it which they have been able to point out is that given in The Image of Irelande, by John Derricke. Imprinted at London by Jhan Daie, 1581. 4to. The woodcut there shows a bearded and half-naked Irish piper playing upon an enormous bagpipe, with two drones and chanter. He holds the bag—as big as his own body—pressed against his stomach. Sixty years ago, several kinds of bagpipe were used in Scotland and the north of England; but we now seldom hear any others than the small Irish bagpipe, blown with bellows, and the great Highland bagpipe, or its smaller congener, which is used at dances, chiefly in the Highlands. The great Highland bagpipe is a very loud instrument, famous for its martial influence upon Highland soldiers in battle. It consists of a large wind-bag made of greased leather covered with woollen cloth; a mouth-tube, valved, by which the bag is inflated with the player's breath; three reed drones, and a reed chanter with finger-holes, on which the tunes are played. Of the three drones, one is long and two are short. The longest is tuned to A, an octave below the lowest A of the chanter, and the two shorter drones are tuned each an octave above the A of the longest drone; or, in other words, in unison with the lowest A of the chanter. The scale of the chanter has a compass of nine notes, all natural, extending from G on the second line of the treble stave, up to A in alt. In the music performed upon this instrument, the players introduce among the simple notes of the tune a great number of rapid notes of peculiar embellishment, which they term warblers. No exact idea of these warblers can be formed except by hearing a first-rate player upon the Highland bagpipe. We may remark that the profusion of ornament in the music of the Highlanders reminds us of the observations made by several musical travellers upon the airs performed by various Oriental players and singers—Greek, Arab, Egyptian, Hindu, &c.—all of whom employed so many peculiar ornaments as to disguise entirely their theme or melody, whatsoever that might be, and to produce an effect more resembling the warbling of birds than anything else generally known to Europeans.

The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, used single, double, and triple tubes, the sound of which was produced by a double reed, like that of an oboe, or of the chanter or the drone of a bagpipe, &c. The reed (φλάρις) was moveable, and was carried about by the player in a box called by the Greeks ἀποστροφία, i.e. a tongue-case. Demades, the Athenian satirist, compared his countrymen to these reed-pipes, "good for nothing without their tongues." These tubes, called ἀπόστροφις, were blown by the mouth of the player, as seen in ancient sculptures and paintings; and required so strong a breath to sound them, that the performer bandaged up his lips and cheeks with a ἀποστροφία, or ἀποστροφία, the Roman capistrum, a leathern muzzle or headstall. It seems very probable that the bagpipe derives its origin from these double and triple reed-pipes, by the addition to them of a wind-bag made of the skin of a goat or kid, together with a valved porte-rent, in order to relieve the strain on the lungs and cheeks of the player. In some parts of Russia, double flutes (or reed-pipes) are used among the peasantry. A paper published by George Burdett, Esq., in 1845, gives an account of a very ancient and curious instrument now peculiar to the northern parts of the island of Sardinia, and called the lanmedda. It consisted of three reed-pipes of unequal length and thickness, and pierced with several holes, and was played upon by a vigorous Sardinian peasant eighty years of age, in a hut among the mountains about ten miles from the town of Terranova. The pipes were tuned by shifting small pieces of wax up and down outside of the holes. The longest and thickest pipe was a drone, and had only one hole. The player placed the reed-ends of all these three pipes in his mouth, and sounded them all at the same time. The sound reminded Mr Burdett of that of a bagpipe. It is, he says, a very exhausting instrument, and often kills the performers at an early age. This old peasant was the last of the race of lanmedda players. The exertion required to play upon it has caused a modification of the lanmedda in the southern parts of the island, by adding to the pipes a common mouth-piece, like that of the double-flageolet, which greatly lessens the fatigue of the performer. (G. F. G.)