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140 CURIOSITIES OF MUSIC.
infatuated with it; Kang-hi himself became proficient in its use, but on finding,later, that he had not benefited himself in any way by its use he gave up the practice.
Young-tching, his successor, published new rules for music and assigned a special music in honor of agriculture and husbandry, which was to be performed each year. He did not take to the Jesuits as kindly as his predecessor, for from A. D. 1724 to 1732 he was busily engaged in expelling them from China.
Khian-long, his son, succeeded him in 1736. There is nothing remarkable in the history of Chinese music from his day to the present time.
Lord Macartney's embassy (1793) took place during the long reign of this emperor. Many persons were attracted to the embassy's rooms by the European band which each evening gave a concert. Among uie most assiduous of these visitors was the chief of the emperor's orchestra; charmed with the sound of some of their instruments, yet absolutely refusing to accept of them as a present, he sent several painters to take designs of them on paper. These artists laid clarinets, flutes, bassoons, etc., on immense sheets of paper, on which they traced the exact shape and size of each, while underneath they wrote remarks giving the exact dimensions of each aperture, valve and tube.
The chief announced his determination of making similar instruments from these models, but in different proportions, which he proposed to fix for |
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