Excerpt from The Music of the Most Ancient Nations, Particularly of the Assyrians, Egyptians, and Hebrews: With Special Reference to Recent Discoveries in Western Asia and in Egypt It is not without hesitation that I offer to the public the present contribution to the history of music. I am fully aware that, in having to express myself in a language which is not my mother tongue, I labour under considerable disadvantage. Nevertheless, I venture to hope for the reader's indulgence on this point, for the following reasons. For years I have taken every opportunity of ascertaining the distinctive characteristics of the music not only of civilized but also of uncivilized nations. I soon saw that the latter is capable of yielding important suggestions for the science and history of music, just as the languages of savage nations are useful in philological and ethnological inquiries. As I proceeded, I became more and more convinced that, in order to understand clearly the music of the various modern nations, it was necessary to extend my researches to the music of ancient nations. Thus my attention was directed to the Assyrian monuments in the British Museum. All the facts which I have been able to gather from them must be considered as a new addition to our history of music, and one by no means unimportant to the musician. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.