Page:The Early English Organ Builders and their work.djvu/23

 This enigma so accurately describes the ancient monument I have just brought under your notice, that, taking them together, the pictorial representation and the poetical description, we have a complete refutation of M. Fétis's opinion, that it was not the organ but the bag-pipe, that was known to the ancients.

I do not intend to follow the various steps that were made from time to time to bring nearer to perfection the rude instrument we have just seen; suffice it to say that the organ had its origin from these primitive attempts. If we admit this, which I think we must, what a marvel then, it is, that our glorious organ, with its myriads of pipes, its net-work of mechanical detail, its powerful wind apparatus, its array of stops, and its tiers of key-boards for hands and feet; what a marvel, I say, that this "king of instruments" should have arisen out of such rude and simple beginning.

Very little is known of the organs of ancient Greece; and it is very difficult to